Richard Brothers

1757-1824. Naval lieutenant, writer on prophecy, and early British Israelite. Born in Newfoundland, he came to England, and in 1771 joined the navy. He saw action under Rodney in 1781 and retired on half-pay in 1783, at which time he became a Christian pacifist. Refusing to take the oath required of pensioners, he was later left without means. From about 1790 he became increasingly eccentric, suffered from megalomania, and was placed until 1806 in a madhouse in Islington. His book Revealed Knowledge (1794) created a stir. He predicted that by 1794 the ten lost tribes of Israel-that is, the English-would have returned to Jerusalem where he, the Nephew of the Almighty, would be proclaimed their Prince. For a time he had many influential followers, among them Riebaud the publisher, to whom Michael Faraday was apprenticed.

See C. Roth, The Nephew of the Almighty (1933).