History of Wicca in England

HISTORY OF WICCA IN ENGLAND: 1939 - present day

This talk was given by Julia Phillips at the Wiccan Conference
in Canberra, 1991. It is mainly about the early days of the
Wicca in England; specifically what we now call Gardnerian and
Alexandrian traditions. The text remains "as given", so please remember
when you read it that it was never intended to be "read", but "heard"
and debated.

Text begins:

There are three main strands I intend to examine: one,
Gardner's claim of traditional initiation, and its subsequent
development; two, magical traditions to which Gardner would
have had access; and three, literary sources.

As we look at these three main threads, it is important to
bear in mind that Gardner was 55 years old at the time of his
claimed initiation; that he had spent many years in Malaya,
and had an enormous interest in magic, Folklore and Mythology.
By the time he published High Magic's Aid, he was 65, and 75
when "The Meaning of Witchcraft" appeared. He died in 1964, at
the age of 80.

Gardner was born in 1884, and spent most of his working adult
life in Malaya. He retired, and returned to the UK in 1936. He
joined the Folklore Society, and in June 1938, also joined the
newly opened Rosicrucian Theatre at Christchurch where it is
said he met Old Dorothy Clutterbuck.

I chose 1939 as my arbitrary starting point as that was the
year that Gerald Gardner claims he was initiated by Old
Dorothy into a practising coven of the Old Religion, that met
in the New Forest area of Britain. In his own words,

"I realised that I had stumbled upon something interesting;
but I was half-initiated before the word, "Wica" which they
used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and
that the Old Religion still existed. And so I found myself in
the Circle, and there took the usual oath of secrecy, which
bound me not to reveal certain things." This quote is taken
from The Meaning of Witchcraft, which was published in 1959.

It is interesting that in this quote, Gardner spells Wicca
with only one "c"; in the earlier "Witchcraft Today" (1954)
and "High Magic's Aid" (1949), the word Wicca is not even
used. His own derivation for the word, given in "The Meaning
of Witchcraft", is as follows:

"As they (the Dane and Saxon invaders of England) had no
witches of their own they had no special name for them;
however, they made one up from "wig" an idol, and "laer",
learning, "wiglaer" which they shortened into "Wicca".

"It is a curious fact that when the witches became English-
speaking they adopted their Saxon name, "Wica"."

Source & Full Text: http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/wiccahst.txt