Laurence Oliphant (3 August 1829 – 23 December 1888), a Member of Parliament, was a South African-born British author, traveller, diplomat, British intelligence agent, Christian mystic, and Christian Zionist. His best known book in his lifetime was a satirical novel, Piccadilly (1870). More heed has gone since to his plan for Jewish farming communities in the Holy Land, The Land of Gilead. Oliphant was a UK Member of Parliament for Stirling Burghs.
Early life
Laurence Oliphant was born in Cape Town, Cape Colony, the only child of Sir Anthony Oliphant (1793–1859), a member of the Scottish landed gentry, and his wife Maria. At the time of his son's birth Sir Anthony was Attorney General of the Cape Colony, but he was soon appointed Chief Justice in Ceylon. Laurence spent his early childhood in Colombo, where his father purchased a home called Alcove in Captains Gardens, subsequently known as Maha Nuge Gardens. Sir Anthony and his son have been credited with bringing tea to Ceylon and growing 30 tea plants brought over from China on the Oliphant Estate in Nuwara Eliya. In 1848 and 1849, he and his parents toured Europe. In 1851, he accompanied Jung Bahadur from Colombo to Nepal, which provided the material for his first book, A Journey to Katmandu (1852).
Oliphant returned to Ceylon and from there went to England to study law. Oliphant left his legal studies to travel in Russia. The outcome of that tour was his book The Russian Shores of the Black Sea (1853).
Oliphant's parents were Christian Zionists.
Oliphant returned to England, resigned from the Diplomatic Service and was elected to Parliament in 1865 for Stirling Burghs. While he did not show any conspicuous parliamentary ability, In 1873, Oliphant went back to Brocton with his wife and mother.
By 1878 Oliphant, caught up in a wave of Western concern that Russia intended to conquer the Middle East, devised a "Plan for Gilead" under which Britain would plant a Jewish agricultural colony "in the northern and more fertile half of Palestine" and enlisted the approval of Prime Minister Disraeli, a supporter of Zionism; Foreign Minister Salisbury, the Prince of Wales; and the novelist George Eliot.
In May 1879, Oliphant was in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire, petitioning the Sublime Porte for permission to establish a Jewish agricultural colony in the Holy Land and settling large numbers of Jews there (this was prior to the first wave of Jewish settlement by Zionists in 1882).
While awaiting an appointment with the Sublime Porte, Oliphant traveled to Romania to discuss his proposed agricultural settlements with the Jewish communities there. Oliphant's secretary Naftali Herz Imber, author of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, lived with them. In the Holy Land, they were in touch with the Jewish pioneers of the First Aliyah, donating 1,000 roubles to the founding settlers of Yesud HaMa'ala.
In December 1885, Alice became ill and died on 2 January 1886. Oliphant, also stricken, was too weak to attend her funeral. Paintings by Alice's sister, Jamesina Waller made during her visit to the Holy Land were also on display.
In 2003, Ticho House in Jerusalem mounted an exhibit of the Holy Land paintings of Alice Oliphant and her sister Jesamine Waller.
Books
- A Journey to Kathmandu (the Capital of Napaul), with The Camp of Jung Bahadoor; including A Sketch of the Nepaulese Ambassador at Home (1852) is a travelogue written in 1852. The book describes the cultural condition of Nepal, however the book is not considered of scientific value. Oliphant then a 21-year-old son of colonial of Colombo joined the team of Jang Bahadur Rana who was returning to Nepal from England with his two younger brothers, Jagat Shamsher and Dhir Shamsher. The team had a stop at Ceylon in December 1850 from where Oliphant accompanied. The book is under public domain since 6 Jul 2005.
- The Russian Shores of the Black Sea in the Autumn of 1852, with a Voyage Down the Volga, and a Tour Through the Country of the Don Cossacks (1853) with a fourth 'enlarged' edition in 1854
- Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, '58, '59 (1860)
- Piccadilly: A Fragment of Contemporary Biography (1870)
- Altiora Peto (1883)
- Sympneumata, or Evolutionary Forces Now Active in Man (1885)
- Haifa or Life in Modern Palestine (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben Zvi, 1976 [1885]).