Henry James Prince, baptised on 21 February 1811, was the son of Thomas and Mary Ann Prince of Lyncombe and Widcombe, Bath. He studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, obtained his qualifications in 1832, and was appointed medical officer to the General Hospital in Bath, his native city. Compelled by ill health to abandon his profession, in 1837 Prince entered himself as a student at St David's College, Lampeter (now the Lampeter campus of the University of Wales Trinity Saint David), where he gathered about him a band of earnest religious enthusiasts known as the Lampeter Brethren. The vice principal of the college contacted the Bishop of Bath and Wells who, in 1840, installed Prince as the curate of Charlinch in Somerset, where he had sole charge during the illness and absence of the rector, Samuel Starkey.

Attendances at the church were small until, during one of the services, Prince acted as if he was possessed, throwing himself around the church. Congregations grew each week as the "possession" was repeated. The congregation was then divided with separate services for men and women. Subsequently, he separated them again into sinners and the righteous, the latter of which generally included women who were wealthy. The bishop was summoned to investigate the practices. By that time, Prince had contracted his first "spiritual marriage" and had persuaded himself that he had been absorbed into the personality of God and become a visible embodiment of the Holy Spirit. During his illness, Starkey read one of his curate's sermons, and was not only "cured" forthwith, but embraced his strange doctrines. Together, they procured many conversions in the countryside and the neighbouring towns. In the end, the rector was deprived of his living and Prince was defrocked. Together with a few disciples they started the Charlinch Free Church, which had a very brief existence, meeting in a supportive farmer's barn.

Prince used money inherited on the death of his first wife, Martha, to marry Julia Starkey, the sister of the rector. They all moved to Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk where Prince started again to build a congregation, which grew over the subsequent one to two years. The Bishop of Ely then expelled them. Prince opened Adullam Chapel, which was also known as Cave Adullam, in the North Laine area of Brighton. Meanwhile, Starkey established himself at Weymouth. Their chief success lay in the latter town, and Prince soon moved there.

The Agapemonites or Community of The Son of Man was a Christian religious group or sect that existed in England from 1846 to 1956. It was from the Greek: agapemone meaning "abode of love". The Agapemone community was founded by the Reverend Henry Prince in Spaxton, Somerset. The sect also built a church in Upper Clapton, London, and briefly had bases in Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk, Brighton and Weymouth.

In 1856, a few years after the establishment of the "Abode of Love", Prince and Zoe Patterson, one of his virginal female followers, engaged in public ceremonial sexual intercourse on a billiard table in front of a large audience. The scandal led to the secession of some of his most faithful friends, who were unable any longer to endure what they regarded as the amazing mixture of blasphemy and immorality offered for their acceptance. The most prominent of those who remained received such titles as the "Anointed Ones", the "Angel of the Last Trumpet", the "Seven Witnesses" and so forth.

In 1899, Prince died at the age of 88. His followers buried Prince in the grounds of the chapel, with his coffin positioned vertically so that he would be standing on the day of his resurrection.

In the early 20th century, a number of houses (some in the Arts and Crafts style) were built at Four Forks by members of the Agapemonites, including Joseph Morris and his daughter Violet.

Since closure of the community in 1956 ( with the death of the last leader, 90 year old Sister Ruth), the chapel has been used as a studio for the production of children's television programmes, including Trumpton and Camberwick Green. The complex of buildings became known as Barford Gables and was put on the market in 1997. The chapel received planning permission for conversion into a residential house and was put on the market again in 2004.

The Abode of Love: The Conception, Financing, and Daily Routine of an English Harem in the Middle of the 19th Century by Aubrey Menon (1958) provides a detailed account of Henry Prince and his cult.

https://www.westoverward.co.uk/day-history-january-10th-1899-death-reverend-henry-james-prince/