Buchan, Elspeth (1738–1791)

Scottish religious leader. She was the founder of a sect known as the Buchanites. She claimed prophetic inspiration and divine powers. After separation from her husband she met the preacher Hugh White in 1783, and persuaded him to believe that she was the woman and he the man-child of Revelations XII.

The Buchanite sect, always small, was banished from Irvine in 1784 and settled near Dumfries, Scotland. The Scottish poet Robert Burns spoke slightingly of it in a letter in 1784. Its members enjoyed community of wives and goods. The sect ceased to exist in 1848.