Watch Tower Society presidency dispute

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Jehovah's Witnesses
Overview Organizational structure Governing Body Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society Corporations History Bible Student movement Leadership dispute Splinter groups Doctrinal development Unfulfilled predictions Demographics By country
Beliefs Practices God's name 144,000 Salvation Eschatology Faithful and discreet slave Memorial of Jesus' Death Blood Discipline Hymns Literature The Watchtower Awake! New World Translation Bibliography Places Kingdom Hall Gilead School
People Watch Tower presidents W. H. Conley C. T. Russell J. F. Rutherford N. H. Knorr F. W. Franz M. G. Henschel D. A. Adams R. L. Ciranko Formative influences William Miller Henry Grew G. W. Stetson George Storrs N. H. Barbour J. N. Darby Notable former members R. V. Franz O. R. Moyle Notable scholars George Chryssides James Penton Zoe Knox
Criticism Handling child sex abuse Unfulfilled predictions
Opposition Persecution in Nazi Germany Supreme Court cases by country
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A dispute developed in 1917 within the leadership of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society following the death of society president Charles Taze Russell and the election of legal counsel Joseph Franklin Rutherford as his successor. An acrimonious battle ensued between Rutherford and four of the society's seven directors, who accused him of autocratic behavior and sought to reduce his powers. Rutherford claimed the dissident directors had formed a conspiracy to seize control of the society and overcame the challenge by gaining a legal opinion that his four opposers had not been legally appointed. He subsequently replaced them with four new sympathetic directors.^[1][2]

The four ousted directors later gained 12 legal opinions that Rutherford's actions were unlawful. The leadership crisis divided the Bible Student community and helped contribute to the loss of one-seventh of the Watch Tower adherents by 1919.