In 1911 newspapers in the US, UK and around the world reported on an explosive story following riots and disorder in Jerusalem:

• ‘Have Englishmen Found the Ark of the Covenant?’ – New York Times 7th May 1911
• ‘Englishmen Are Said To Have Looted the Sacred Mosque at Jerusalem’ – Chicago Tribune 4th May 1911
• ‘A Treasure Hunt in Jerusalem. British Explorers’ Alleged Sacrilege’ – The Guardian 4th May 1911

The largest funders of the expedition were the Wilson family into which Winston Churchill’s aunt Lady Sarah had married. One of those who was in Jerusalem and helped cause the uproar was Gordon Wilson, Lady Sarah’s husband. A few years before he had spent five months travelling with Winston through Africa when Churchill was a minister in the Colonial Office. Gordon had brought into the affair by his brother Clarence, who later lived at 105 Mount Street where Winston lived for several years before his marriage to Clemmie.

Many of the members of the expedition, including Gordon and Clarence had fought in the Boer War where Churchill first made his reputation. Lady Sarah was also famous for her exploits in the war; they were both famous war correspondents and both captured by the Boers. 

The Parker expedition was named after the Hon. Montagu Parker, later 5th Earl of Morley who Winston also knew. Many years later he would hold an election rally at Saltram House near Plymouth the ancestral home of the Earls of Morley.

The full story of the expedition which is told in full for the first time in English includes a deadly curse, bribery, betrayal, gun-running, riots, madness, bankruptcy and more. It sounds unbelievable; Downton Abbey meets Indiana Jones meets Dan Brown. But the Parker expedition is real. Rudyard Kipling on hearing an account from a participant wrote: ‘Talk of fiction! Fiction isn’t in it’.

The author Lady Selina Hastings wrote, ‘This is the story of a remarkable adventure, exciting, harrowing, beautifully written and thoroughly researched. Graham Addison displays not only an acute understanding of period and location but also of the levels of society in which his fascinatingly complex characters were part. His account of this extraordinary undertaking, and for many its tragic aftermath, is a truly impressive undertaking.’ 

The expedition started in 1908, when a Finnish scholar convinced a group of young Englishmen from wealthy and titled families he had uncovered secret cyphers in the Bible showing where the Ark was hidden. They were educated at Eton, had fought in elite units of the British military and socialised with European royalty and rich Americans. One had thwarted an assassination attempt on Queen Victoria when he was a schoolboy. Another had taken part in the infamous Jameson Raid which helped trigger the Boer War. Most of the funding came from the family of one of the richest men to have ever lived in Australia. They headed for Jerusalem on a private yacht to dig for the Ark. With them were a Swiss psychic, a Finnish socialist poet, and a Swedish captain who had experienced the darkest heart of colonial madness in the Belgian Congo.

The Parker expedition unwittingly ‘scattered sparks in the religious tinder-heap’ that is Jerusalem. Its impact still has echoes today.