August 17. On this date in 1855, Percy Woodcock, an early Canadian Bahá'í who served on the Bahá'í Temple Unity (the precursor to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of United States and Canada), was born in Athens, Ontario.

 

August 17. On this date in 1855, Percy Woodcock, an early Canadian Bahá'í who served on the Bahá'í Temple Unity (the precursor to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of United States and Canada), was born in Athens, Ontario.

Percy Woodcock was born in Athens, Ontario to Reverend Eli Woodcock, an Episcopalian minister, and Phoebe Ann Wiltse on August 17, 1855. He was raised as a Methodist.

He studied art at Albert College in Belleville in the 1860's. In 1878 he married Aloysis Pratt, a Canadian from Montreal. In 1881 he moved to Paris where he continued his study of art at L'Ecole des Beaux Arts. He held an exhibition at the Paris Salon in 1883. He then studied under Benjamin Constant, and studied in England and Holland before moving to Brockville, Canada, in 1887. In 1888 he became Principal of Brockville Art School, and served in the position until 1890 when he began travelling across North America and Europe to exhibit his paintings.

In the early 1900's Percy discovered the Bahá'í Faith, likely when he exhibited art in Chicago in 1903, and he associated with Bahá'ís in Chicago and Montreal and attended the Green Acre summer school in Maine. He, his wife Aloysia, and one of their children, May, became Bahá'ís. He taught the Faith after becoming a Bahá'í but incorporated his personal ideas which were not related to the Faith, such as symbolism of the Egyptian pyramids.

In 1908 he temporarily lived in New York, while maintaining a residence in Brockville. In 1909 he reportedly spoke to Moses True, husband of Corinne True, about the Faith and received an informal declaration. He went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1909.In 1910 he spoke on the Faith at Howard University, and in 1911 he and his family attended that years Green Acre Summer School.

Woodcock began to clash with the New York Bahá'í community because he was opposed to organizing the community, and in 1911 he and his family moved to Montreal. He was elected to the Bahá'í Temple Unity in 1911, an administrative body for the North American Bahá'í's which was organizing efforts to construct a Temple in the US, and he was also appointed chair of a publishing commission.

In December 1911 Percy visited Egypt where he met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Ramleh. In 1912 he traveled to Europe with his wife and daughter and met with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Naples, and they traveled with Him and His party on their voyage to the United States on the Cedric.

Percy lived in Montreal for the rest of his life, and died there on February 20, 1936. He had outlived his three children.