William Wynn Westcott
In their own terms: A coroner, Freemason, and Rosicrucian scholar establishing a legitimate magical order
As history sees them: The bureaucrat who co-founded the most influential magical society in Western history
Co-founder of the Golden Dawn. Claimed to decode the Cipher Manuscripts and establish contact with the mysterious 'Anna Sprengel.' His day job as a London coroner and his occult activities created the tension that eventually forced his withdrawal.
Biography
Born December 17, 1848, in Leamington, Warwickshire. Orphaned young and raised by a surgeon uncle. He became a physician and took up the position of Deputy Coroner for North-East London and Central Middlesex, a post he held for decades. Deeply involved in Freemasonry, he became Supreme Magus of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia.
In 1886, Westcott came into possession of the Cipher Manuscripts — 60 folios written in a simple substitution cipher containing skeletal outlines of magical initiation rituals. He decoded them and brought them to Mathers to expand into full rituals. Westcott also produced letters purportedly from a 'Fraulein Sprengel' in Germany authorizing a new English temple — scholars now broadly agree that Westcott fabricated this correspondence to provide continental lineage that would attract high-ranking Masons. More than any other individual, Westcott was the administrative architect and organizational creator of the Golden Dawn.
In March 1897, some of Westcott's Golden Dawn papers were left in a hansom cab and came to the attention of authorities. The government told him it was incompatible for a Coroner of the Crown to be known as a practitioner of magic. He resigned from all Golden Dawn offices. He retired from the coronership in 1918 and moved to Durban, South Africa, where he died July 30, 1925.
Intellectual Lineage
Influenced
- Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers co-founded Co-founders of the Golden Dawn
Timeline
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn founded
Founded 12 February 1888 by Westcott, Mathers, and Woodman. Isis-Urania Temple opens in London. The cipher manuscripts contain tarot attributions that become the basis for Book T.