Two Early Accounts of the British Baha'i Community

Abstract

Two manuscript accounts of the early history of the Baha'i Faith in the British Isles are published for the first time. The first is by Prudence George (with the assistance of Mary Virginia Thornburgh Cropper, the first Baha'i in the British Isles, and Lady Blomfield). This history was probably produced in response to a request from Shoghi Effendi and takes the history up to the 1920s with much of it dealing with the visits of Abdu'l-Baha to the British Isles. The second account is by Isobel Slade and has been written in the form of a history, taking events up to the 1920s, followed by pages of reminiscences mainly of individual British Baha'is but also of some American Baha'is who visited or resided in the British Isles and also some later episodes in which the author participated up to the 1950s.