Talk:Robert William Felkin

Untitled
The spelling of "Harriet" Felkin (Robert's second wife) is dubious. She was christened "Harriot" - Harriot Miller Davidson was born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1873; the descendent of a line of middle-class Scotch clerics and intellectuals. Her mother, Harriet Miller (note the difference in spelling between mother and daughter), was a well known novelist and poet, and was in turn the daughter of Lydia Falconer and Hugh Miller a prominent geologist and author. Harriot's father was John Davidson, the foundation Hughes Professor of English Literature and Mental and Moral Philosophy at the newly established Adelaide University. John Davidson had been born in 1834 in Fife, Scotland. He had attended the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh between 1851 and 1856, but left without taking a degree. Instead he decided to study divinity, to which enterprise he devoted the three years from 1856 to 1858; and in 1861 he became a licentiate of the Free Church Presbytery of Kinross. Davidson eventually obtained his first permanent posting as the minister of Langholm in Dumfrieshire in 1864, and in 1869 was called to a new position as minister of the Chalmers Church in North Terrace, Adelaide. The Davidson family eventually arrived in Australia aboard the "Carnaquheen" in June 1870. Despite some public criticism about his lack of formal academic qualifications, John Davidson was appointed to the Chair of English Literature at the new university in 1874, the year after Harriot's birth. In 1877 the Davidson family returned to Scotland for a visit, but in the course of this Mrs Harriet Davidson fell ill and became a permanent invalid. On their return, John Davidson flung himself in to his university work, and within a short time it became a full-time commitment, and he was obliged to resign from his ministry. Tragically he did not hold his academic post for long. He died at the comparatively young age of 47 from a liver complaint at his house in Glenelg, Adelaide, on 22 July 1881. Mrs Davidson's health had also been seriously undermined and she died two years later, on 21 December 1883. (Source is the Dictionary of Australian Biography. Spelling of "Harriot" is confirmed from her grave in Havelock North.)

Felkin's first wife - Mary Jane Mander was the daughter of Samuel Small Mander (1822-1881), the principal benefactor of the Felkin family, and a Mayor of Wolverhampton. Samuel was the younger brother of Charles Benjamin Mander (1819-1878), a Justice of the Peace, with an extensive family that included five daughters, and three sons, of whom one, Sir Charles Tertius Mander (1852-1929), was created the 1st Baronet Mander of Mount Tettenhall, and served terms as Mayor of Wolverhampton.

Samuel Small Mander
Samuel Small Mander was NOT Mayor of Wolverhampton: this was his son, Samuel Theodore Mander (the builder of Wightwick Manor), among other members of the family. (See entry on "Mander family" and on "Wightwick Manor"). The Mount, Tettenhall Wood, not Mount Tettenhall.

Guild Origins
King, Francis (1989). Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism is the only source I have come across linking Robert Felkin to the founding of the Guild of St Raphael. Recently (in Chrism, March 2006), minutes from the founding of the Guild in 1915 are published. The founders mentioned are the first Warden Revd Canon RP Roseveare, Vicar of St Pauls Depford and Secretary Miss Caroline Briggs (who seems to have been from letters one of the main early organisers getting it off the ground). There is no mention of Felkin, and I have to conclude that King is mistaken, or that perhaps more probably Felkin claimed to have founded that Guild when he only had a casual acquaintance with it. --TonyinJersey 07:28, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Felkin and the Baha'is
This article is a bit askew about Felkin and Havelock North and the Bahai's. The story is yet to be told but Felkin had met Abdu'l-Baha the Baha'i leader in late 1911 at Lady Blomfield's house when Abdu'l-Baha was travelling in England (see her Chosen Highway). ABdu'l-Baha gave him the rings. Felkin gave them to Maurice Chambers (His father had brought Felkin out from England on the advice of some Anglican monks travelling in New Zealand) one was lost in Egypt and one was passed from Maurice to a Baha'i friend before his passing. However the Havelock connections with the Baha'is precede Felkins arrival in New Zealand. There is in the journal "Forerunner" published in 1908/1909 in Havelock North an article by a well known British Baha'i, Alice Buckton. Buckton was connected also to the esoteric communities in London and Glastonbury (and the Celtic revival around the well), and knew especially the psychic Wellesley Tudor-Pole and would have met Felkin at Lady Blomfields, as Blomfields daughter was the lead actress in a Christmas play, "Eager Heart" that Alice Buckton wrote and ABdu'l-Baha attended in late 1911. Buckton also had friends in the Golden Dawn and lived quite close to Dion Fortune when she moved to Glastonbury.

ALso we have now a letter written to Maurice by the Baha'i leader when Maurice was in Egypt at the end of the First World War waiting to go home, but trying also to get to Palestine to see ABdu'l-Baha. In there Abdu'l-Baha remarks on Maurice's "teacher" mentioning that he had met him "the honoured Dr. Felkin" in London. Thete is also a magnificent tome published this year in New Zealand on the life and architecture of Chapman Taylor, who built Felkins Whare Ra, was an active member of the Golden Dawn, and there are several excellent chapters in there and photographs of Felkina and his family in Havelock North. Maurice himself appears to have remained a lone Baha'i for more than fifty years. It appears he thought he was the only one in New Zealand until he met some Bahais at a country fair in the 1970's. There is also earlier communications between Alice Buckton and a South Island friend in New Zealand about visiting Abdu'l-Baha in Palestine that predates Maurice's and Felkins interest and we know of other connections between New Zealanders and English men and women who were in London during Abdul-Baha's visit. There are many other linkages not discussed here. Its important to note that Felkin never identified himself as a Baha'i but the spirit of the "Havelock Work" whose watchword was "Unity in Diversity" must have created affinities of spirit.

There is also an important link between the Shakespearean actor Harold Large who was associated with the "Havelock Work", Robert Felkin and the British explorer Percy Fawcett who went in search of the Great White Brotherhood in the bowels of the Amazon (and never came back) that remains to be told.


 * Thank-you kindly for correcting this. I'd love to see this article expanded and improved; Felkin was an incredible man with a fascinating life story! Fuzzypeg ☻ 03:47, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The Sun Masters
From the time that Felkin assumed leadership of the Stella Matutina, he came increasingly under the influence of the "Sun Masters", the fabled Secret Chiefs of the Order, (...)

Just a question did he considered the Sun Masters as another name for the Secret Chiefs?

Thank you A Byrne


 * I can only imply from Ellwood's book that he did. Elwood's book cites other sources which I don't have easy access to, but they would probably make this relationship more explicit. Fuzzypeg★ 03:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Date Style
"Mary and Robert [...] joined John William Brodie-Innes' Amen-Ra Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn on 1894-03-12."

Am I alone in finding the style in which the date has been rendered to be irritating as well as illogical? Surely "day/month/year" is the logical order in which dates in the Gregorian calender ought to be styled. Besides which, is not more in keeping with Wikipedia's tone to expand numerical shorthand into intact English? Thus: "12th March, 1894". Nuttyskin (talk) 21:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC) Nuttyskin (talk) 21:45, 4 January 2017 (UTC)