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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: NUM-ORC |
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OLIPHANT, LAURENCE (18291888) , British author, son of Anthony Oliphant (1793-1859),' was born at Cape Town. i The family to which Oliphant belonged is old and famous in Scottish history. Sir Laurence Oliphant of Aberdalgie, Perthshire, who was created a lord of the Scottish parliament before 1458, was descended iron' Sir William Oliphant of Aberdalgie and on the female side from King Robert the Bruce. Sir William (d. 1329) is renowned for his brave defence of Stirling castle against Edward I. in 1304, Sir Laurence was sent to conclude a treaty with England in 1484; he he'ped to establish the young king James IV. on his throne, and he died about 1500. His son John, the 2nd lord (d. 1516), having lost his son and heir , Colin, at Flodden, was succeeded by his grandson Laurence (d. 1566), who was taken prisoner by the English at the rout of Solway Moss in 1542. Laurence's son, Laurence, the 4th lord (15291593), was a partisan of Mary queen of Scots, arid was succeeded by his grandson Laurence (15831631), who left no sons when he died. The 6th lord was Patrick Oliphant, a descendant of the 4th lord, and the title was held by his descendantsHis father was then attorney-general in Cape Colony, but was soon transferred as chief
Oliphant did not show any conspicuous parliamentary ability, but made a great success by his vivacious and witty novel, Piccadilly (187o). He fell, however, under the influence of the spiritualist prophet Thomas Lake Harris (q.v.), who about 1861 had organized a small community, the Brotherhood of the New Life,' which at this time was settled at Brocton on Lake Erie and subsequently moved to Santa Rosa in California. Harris obtained so strange an ascendancy over Oliphant that the latter left parliament in 1868, followed him to Brocton, and lived there the life of a farm labourer, in obedience to the imperious will of his spiritual guide. The cause of this painful and grotesque aberration has never been made quite clear. It was part of the Brocton regime that members of the community should be allowed to return into the world from time to time, to make money for its advantage. After three years this was permitted to Oliphant, who, when once more in Europe, acted as correspondent of The Times during the Franco-German War, and spent afterwards several years at Paris in the service of that journal. There he met Miss Alice le Strange, whom he married. In 1873 he went back to Brocton, taking with him his wife and mother. During the years which followed he continued to be employed in the service of the community and its head, but on work very different from that with which he had been occupied on his first sojourn. His new work was chiefly financial
York
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until the death of Francis, the loth lord; in April 1748. It has since been claimed by several persons, but without success. Another member of the family was Laurence Oliphant (169'1767) the Jacobite, who belonged to a branch settled at Gask in Perthshire. He took part in the rising of 1715, and both he and his son Laurence (d. 1792) were actively concerned in that of 1745, being present at the battles of Falkirk and Culloden. After the ruin of the Stuart cause they escaped to France, but were afterwards allowed to return to Scotland. One of this Oliphant's descendants was Carolina, Baroness Nairne (q.v.). ' It should be mentioned that the unfavourable view of Harris taken by Oliphant's own biographer, and certainly not shaken by subsequent evidence, has been strongly repudiated by some who knew him. Mr J. Cuming Walters, for instance, in the Westminster Gazette
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It was at Haifa in 1884 that they wrote together the strange book called Sympneumata: Evolutionary Forces now active in Man, and in the next year Oliphant produced there his novel Meacham, which may be taken to contain its author's latest views with regard to the personage whom he long considered as " a new Avatar." One of his cleverest works, Altiora Peto, had been published in 1883. In 1886 an attack of fever, caught on the shores of the Lake of Tiberias, resulted in the death of his wife, whose constitution had been undermined by the hardships of her American life. He was persuaded that after death he was in much closer relation with her than when she was still alive, and conceived that it was under her influence that he wrote the book to which he gave the name of Scientific Religion. In November '887 he went to England to publish that book. By the Whitsuntide of 1888 he had completed it and started for America. There he determined to marry again, his second wife being a granddaughter of Robert Owen the Socialist. They were married at Malvern, and meant to have gone to Haifa, but Oliphant was taken very ill at Twickenham, and died on the 23rd of December 1888. Although a very clever man and a delightful companion, full of high aspiration and noble feeling, Oliphant was only partially sane. In any case, his education was ludicrously inappropriate for a man who aspired to be an authority on religion and philosophy. He had gone through no philosophical discipline in his early life, and knew next to nothing of the subjects with regard to which he imagined it was in his power to pour a flood of new light upon the world. His shortcomings and eccentricities, however, did not prevent his being a brilliant writer and talker, and a notable figure in any society. See Mrs (Margaret) Oliphant, Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant and of Alice Oliphant his Wife (1892). (M. G. D.) End of Article: OLIPHANT, LAURENCE (18291888) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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