Quakers in Shoreditch - 1998 exhibition text by Peter Daniels

The text on this webpage is from the Exhibition "Quakers in Shoreditch" which was presented in Shoreditch Library, Hoxton in London in 1998. The exhibition was compiled by the Outreach Committee of Devonshire House and Tottenham Monthly Meeting.

The text was written by Peter Daniels. Illustrations (not here) were supplied by Friends House Library; Quaker Social Action; Quaker Peace and Service; Hoxton Hall; Walthamstow Meeting; and Farrand Radley.

The record mentioned that Harvey Gillman's book Paths of the Spirit is published by Quaker Home Service at £6.00;

This text was used as the basis of the composite web history Quakers aroud Shoreditch which began in 1997.

QUAKERS AROUND SHOREDITCH

The Quakers, or Society of Friends, arose from the new ideas around in England of the 1640s. In 1647 George Fox began preaching around Leicestershire:

Now was I come up in a spirit through the flaming sword into the paradise of God. All things were new and all the creation gave another smell unto me than before, beyond what words can utter. In his vision, the Light, or Holy Spirit, guides us in our actions individually and together as a continuing revelation. Fox made "convincements" in the East Midlands, where he and his companions called themselves "Children of Light", but they ran into trouble with the authorities, and found a new name:

This was Justice Bennet of Derby that first called us Quakers because we bid them tremble at the word of God, and this was in the year 1650. Travelling North through Yorkshire and Lancashire, in 1652 he found "a great people to be gathered" around Westmorland and Furness, where people called "Seekers" were much in sympathy. Margaret Fell, wife of judge Thomas Fell, gave particular support at her home, Swarthmoor Hall, where a base was established for an organisation.

The picture of George Fox on the left, an etching by Robert Spence (1871-1964), shows Swarthmoor Hall in the background. In 1654 the "Valiant Sixty" were sent around the country to spread the word. Francis Howgill and Edward Burrough were delegated to London. They worked hard, speaking and publishing constantly.

In his testimony to his companion's life, Howgill describes the characteristic silence of Quaker meetings:

The Lord of heaven and earth we found to be at near at hand, and, as we waited upon him in pure silence, our minds out of all things, his heavenly presence appeared at our assemblies, when there was no language, tongue nor speech from any creature . . . We came to know a place to stand in and what to wait in . . . Burrough himself described the inspiration this led to:

While waiting upon the Lord in silence . . . our mouths opened, and we spake with new tongues, as the Lord gave us utterance, and his spirit led us, which was poured upon sons and daughters. Map drawn by David Butler for the book Six Weeks Meeting (1971), a history of Quaker buildings in London.

Map drawn by David Butler for the book Six Weeks Meeting (1971), a history of Quaker buildings in London.

QUAKER WOMEN

Women played an important part from the beginning, and spoke prominently at Quaker meetings. Paintings attributed to Egbert van Heemskirk show a Quaker woman preaching on a barrel: this representation was originally satirical, as the very idea was considered ridiculous, although in different versions the amount of caricature varies. It was adapted for anti-Quaker literature: here the woman's inspiration is shown as a temptation of the devil.

One of the earliest regular Quaker meetings was held at the house of Sarah Sawyer, at Rose and Rainbow Court off Aldersgate (roughly the site of the Museum of London), even before the Bull and Mouth rooms were taken in 1655. When she married and moved out in 1675, it became a dedicated meeting house, used mainly for the women's meeting known as Box Meeting, which looked after Quaker poor relief.

One of the most important Quaker printers was Tace Sowle (1665?-1749) who carried on her father's business from 1691.

PEEL AND CLERKENWELL

Peel Meeting House, in St John's Lane, began in 1656. It was named after the sign of a baker's peel, the wooden spade for handling loaves in an oven.

John Bellers (1654-1725) was a considerable thinker on social issues, and proposed a "Colledge of Industry" to train and employ people. Although he disliked the term "workhouse", his ideas were taken up when the Quakers ran the Clerkenwell Workhouse from 1701, combining it with a school. Elizabeth Gerrard was a pupil there: here is one of her letters home.

CITY QUAKERS

In 1654 Howgill and Burrough took rooms at the Bull and Mouth Inn, off St Martins le Grand, using them for "threshing meetings" at which new people were attracted to Quaker beliefs. These were not silent meetings - the crowds could be rowdy and the preaching had to be robust.

Cromwell's regime was not ideal for the Quakers, but after the Restoration persecution became much worse. The Quaker Act (1662) made it an offence to assemble five or more to worship. Inevitably, the authorities would round up the Quakers at meetings for arrest and imprisonment in the nearby Newgate prison. Conditions were horrific.

Edward Burrough was arrested in 1662 at a meeting and died after eight months in Newgate, aged 29. His writings were published in 1672 under the title The Memorable Works of a Son of Thunder and Consolation.

In 1670 William Penn and William Mead were arrested when the way in to the meeting house was barred but they continued to worship in the street. The jury found them guilty only of "speaking in Gracious Street" and refused to change their verdict even after two days spent in prison. This established the primacy of the jury's decision in English law.

William Penn (1644-1718), eldest son of Admiral Sir William Penn, first encountered Quakers in Ireland. His father's rival Pepys records in 1667:

"Mr William Pen, who is lately come over from Ireland, is a Quaker again, or some very melancholy thing." While imprisoned in the Tower for writing a pamphlet, he continued writing one of his great works, No Cross,No Crown.

In 1681 he accepted land in America in payment of a debt Charles II owed his father, but he made special treaties with the Indians of Pennsylvania, as he knew his "Holy Experiment" needed their respect and friendship.

GRACIOUS STREET
"Gracious Street" or Gracechurch Street meeting house began as an inn like Bull and Mouth, acquired after the 1666 Great Fire, but was rebuilt as something more like our idea of a meeting house.

George Fox died at a house next door, after a meeting here on 13th January 1691 (or 1692, adjusted for the 1752 calendar change). After his funeral at the meeting house, some 4,000 people accompanied his body to Bunhill Fields for burial.

Gracechurch Street became one of the most important Quaker Meetings, and the neighbourhood around it became the centre of the Quaker business community in the city. By the eighteenth century 20-25% of the immediate population were Quakers. City Friends mingled piety with prosperity and earned reputations as sober, honest tradesmen. Some, like the Barclays, Lloyds, and Gurneys, made fortunes in trade and banking. Quaker financial knowhow and investment was important to the success of Pennsylvania.

Elizabeth Fry, a Gurney, lived in St Mildred's Court - referred to as "Mildred's Court", as Quakers' refusal to use titles like "Mr" extended to sainthood. Another Quaker peculiarity involved hats, which were not taken off out of deference to persons in authority. This caused William Penn and William Mead to be fined for contempt of court, at the same time as the jury in their case was imprisoned.

However, Quakers removed hats when offering prayer in a meeting for worship, or "ministering". This picture of Gracechurch Street Meeting c.1770 shows Isaac Sharples of Hitchin on the "facing bench" for Elders, standing with his hat hung on a peg behind him.

Note also that women and men sit in separate halves of the meeting. They worshipped together, but there were separate men's and women's business meetings until the end of the nineteenth century. In the gallery looking on are some non-Quakers, or "the world's people", in brighter clothing. By the time of the picture the Society of Friends had become more inward-looking and "quietist".

DEVONSHIRE HOUSE

The Bull and Mouth was lost in the Great Fire. Before it was rebuilt Friends took a lease on a house on Bishopsgate owned by the Earl of Devonshire. After extensions in 1794 it was used for the Yearly Meeting, previously held mostly at Gracechurch Street; also for the executive body, called Meeting for Sufferings because it arose from a system of reporting anti-Quaker persecution. The Recording Clerk recorded the Sufferings, and became the general administrator of the Society. Devonshire House came to house the Recording Clerk's office, and also the Library, set up in 1673 when it was decided to collect two copies of everything written by Quakers, and one copy of everything written against them.

The premises came to be increasingly cramped and dismal, until the offices moved to the newly built Friends House in 1926, opposite Euston Station. Devonshire House was demolished, but is still the name of the local Monthly Meeting responsible for this exhibition.

Pictures show the courtyard; the Women's Monthly Meeting; and the Bishopsgate frontage about 1900.

ELIZABETH FRY

Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) is one of the best known Quakers, described in Parliament as "the genius of good", and written about as "Angel of the Prisons". She lived near Gracechurch Street until moving to Upton Park in 1809.

In 1813 she became concerned about prison conditions and visited Newgate, beginning the work that made her famous. To see her reading to the prisoners of Newgate was considered "one of the sights of London". But she aroused hostility as well as admiration. Despite her early determination to be a "Plain Quaker", she was attracted to high society and worldliness, which Quakers found disquieting, as she did herself. Other prison reformers disapproved of her unorthodox methods, and the irregular authority of her lady prison visitors.

QUAKER STREET SPITALFIELDS
Benjamin Lay attended the Wheeler Street meeting, but what he described as his own "forward zeal" led him to interrupt Zacheus Routh, for which he was disowned by the Monthly Meeting in 1721. He redeemed himself by travelling to Barbados and Carolina as an early campaigner against slavery.

Map drawn by David M. Butler for the book Six Weeks Meeting by Winifred M. White, a history of the body responsible for Quaker property in London (published by Six Weeks Meeting, 1971).

HOXTON HALL
Hoxton Hall was a classic English music hall opened in 1863, but it lost its license in 1871 because of "Police complaining". New owners applied for a license in 1876 without success, and the building came up for sale again. This time a Quaker, William Isaac Palmer, bought it on behalf of the Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance Mission. Palmer (1824-1893) was a younger son of the Huntley & Palmer biscuit family, and spent more than his fortune on good causes - after his death his brothers had to pay out the rest of his promised donations themselves. He left the Hall to the Bedford Institute, so it became their eighth centre. The Girls Guild of Good Life was a major part of the activities.

After the second world war, as well as support for social need in Hoxton, an arts and recreational programme developed: shown here is a pottery class from the fifties. The building continues today as an important community arts centre for the area, and the old music hall is much valued as a theatre space.

William Allen (1770-1843) was born in Spitalfields. He became a successful chemist at Plough Court near Lombard St, an associate of Elizabeth Fry, and a prominent campaigner against slavery. After his first marriage in 1806 he divided his time between Plough Court and the pleasant village of Stoke Newington. Widowed in 1816 and wealthy, in 1827 he married Grizell Birkbeck who was herself a wealthy widow, older than him. This provoked some ridicule, and his motives were read as avaricious. The cartoon by Robert Cruikshank shows the disappointed Quaker women of Stoke Newington. In fact, William and Grizell were genuinely close, and other cartoonists defended him.

FROM THE CITY TO STOKE NEWINGTON
In the early nineteenth century many prosperous city Quakers began to live in Stoke Newington. A need was felt for a meeting house locally, and after the Gracechurch Street meeting house burned down in 1821 there was even more incentive. Although Gracechurch St was rebuilt, in 1827 a site was acquired in Park Street (now Yoakley Road). The migration of city Quakers continued, until the new Gracechurch Street meeting house closed in 1850, and Stoke Newington became the largest concentration of Quakers in London. By 1900, when it was starting to go down, there were 221 living within a mile of the meeting house.

RATCLIFF MEETING
During the twentieth century, and especially since the second world war, the meeting declined. Middle class Quakers moved further out to the suburbs, and the large meeting house was demolished, replaced with a new building in 1959. But the membership of the Meeting was not enough to continue, and the building was sold. There are now more Quakers in the area again, but they travel to other meeting houses for worship.

Ratcliff Meeting began when 1655 Captain James Brock of Mile End opened his house to Quakers; by about 1666 land was bought for a meeting house in Ratcliff between Wapping and Limehouse.

The Meeting declined in the nineteenth century, and the Bedford Institute took it over. In 1935 the building was declared a dangerous structure and had to be demolished; various plans for replacing it were overtaken by the war. Even with the optimism of postwar rebuilding (shown at an Institute class) Ratcliff still has no building of its own, but the Meeting continues at Toynbee Hall.

COFFEE TAVERNS - ADULT SCHOOLS
Charles Simpson was a Barnsley miner who went to study at Ruskin College in Oxford, and later at Woodbrooke, the Quaker college in Birmingham. In 1916 he set up the John Woolman Settlement in Islington, named after an American Quaker who pioneered ethical living. Charles Simpson was active politically and became mayor of Finsbury.

In 1931 the Settlement moved to Bunhill, joining the existing adult education facilities provided by the Bedford Institute, but its activities took over much of the building, including use of the former coffee tavern as a common room.
There was an early Quaker school at Shacklewell run by Mary Stott of Dalston, and later by Jane Bullock, to instruct young women in "whatsever things was civill & useful in ye creation".
Friends Neighbourhood House in Lonsdale Square, Islington, was run by the Bedford Institute Association in the early 1970s to support what was then a poor area, with nurseries, adventure playgrounds and other facilities.
The Bunhill Fields buildings of 1881 were extended after a few years with the Adult School, on the right of the picture. On the left is the Bunhill Coffee Tavern, and between them the meeting house. The building was bombed in 1941, and all that remains is the caretaker 's cottage, still used today as the meeting house: this is hidden behind the Coffee Tavern in the photo.
In 1952 a new memorial stone of Westmorland slate was placed near where George Fox is thought to be buried. This commemorates the anniversary of George Fox's meeting with the Seekers in the north west of England, taken as the start of organised Quakerism.
The area to the east of the burial ground was cleared by bombing all the way to the City Road. Since then, buildings have filled the space again, including the tower block Braithwaite House alongside the burial ground.

QUAKER STREET

Wheeler Street meeting house in Spitalfields was on the corner of Westbury Street, which became known as Quaker Street instead. It started in 1656 in the upstairs of a house; as crowds grew, a tent was erected in the yard, and then a meeting house. Sir John Robinson, Guardian of the Tower, was locally powerful and anti-Quaker. After many arrests, he might have closed the Meeting, but Gilbert Latey, who owned the property, acted quickly and installed a tenant so that it became a dwelling and not subject to the law on places of worship. This strategy was soon adopted for all Quaker meeting houses.

The building was not very strong, and suffered badly in the great storm of 1703 (which destroyed the Eddystone Lighthouse). Despite repairs, fewer Quakers worshipped there, and the Meeting closed in 1740, five years before the building finally fell down altogether.

BENJAMIN LAY

Benjamin Lay attended the Wheeler Street Meeting, but what he described as his own "forward zeal" led him to interrupt the ministry of Zacheus Routh, for which he was disowned by the Monthly Meeting in 1721. He moved to Colchester, where something similar occurred. He redeemed himself by travelling to Barbados and Carolina as an early campaigner against slavery.

THE BEDFORD INSTITUTE

In the early nineteenth century Quaker interest in the area was revived by Peter Bedford (1780-1864), a silk merchant of 28 Steward Street (pictured, with the pediment; and the street today). He was particularly concerned with poverty and crime among young people, and formed the Society for Lessening the Causes of Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis. With others from Devonshire House Meeting, he set up a Working Men's Club and First Day School in Quaker Street, which opened in 1865 just after his death.

The Bedford Institute, named after Peter Bedford was built on the corner of Wheeler St and Quaker St in 1865. The work based here, running adult schools and alleviating the results of poverty, spread to other Quaker sites in the area, including the Peel and Ratcliff meeting houses, as well as the Bunhill Memorial Buildings, and later also Hoxton Hall.

The original Quaker St premises (left) were rebuilt in the 1890s (right). The other pictures of Spitalfields were taken by Bedford Institute members in the thirties and forties.

Bethnal Green was one of the Bedford Institute buildings, and was in Harts Lane. The street was later renamed Barnet Grove, which became the name of the Quaker meeting established there.

The Bedford Institute ran a youth club in the fifties and sixties, pictured here. Bethnal Green was one of the Bedford Institute buildings, and was in Harts Lane. The street was later renamed Barnet Grove, which became the name of the Quaker meeting established there.

After the second world war, as well as support for social need in Hoxton, an arts and recreational programme was developed: shown here is a pottery class from the fifties. The building continues today as an important community arts centre for the area, and the old music hall is much valued as a theatre space.

QUAKER SOCIAL ACTION

The Bedford Institute Association still exists, and is now called Quaker Social Action. In the last ten years the work has grown rapidly, finding new ways to uphold thousands of people with effective responses and new opportunities, and what we learn we share with others fighting poverty in other areas.

HomeLink works with homeless people who do not have access to public housing. Each year over 150 people are housed. We help them find a flat in the private rented sector, advance a month's rent (which we can then claim back) and indemnify the landlord against theft and damage. Clients are offered a trained and supervised volunteer support worker to reduce the chance of them drifting back into homelessness. Refugees make up a significant proportion of HomeLink's clients.

New Life Training equips unemployed people for work in the expanding vending industry. We train people for the industry's vacancies and an agency markets trainees on completion of the course. Trainees' previous length of unemployment averages 15 months.

HomeStore, our community furniture project, offers essential goods to over 2000 people each year who are unable to afford to buy from commercial second hand shops. All clients are referred to us by social service departments and a wide range of other agencies. People with learning disabilities have always been part of the team, either undertaking deliveries or restoring wooden furniture.

In November 1998, HomeStore moved into new premises in Stratford, opened by Tony Banks MP.

New Life Electrics renovates and guarantees cookers and other domestic electrical goods for HomeStore's clients, thus ensuring that electrical equipment is safe. Training is given in domestic appliance repair to NVQ standards. We also collect thousands of fridges and, if these cannot be reconditioned, we remove the harmful CFC coolant and dispose of it safely.

The Garrett Centre, in Unitarian premises in Bethnal Green, offers an expanding range of activities for the local community, bringing local people together so that they can improve the quality of their lives.

For the future, several exciting projects are being considered including:

* a micro-credit scheme for women starting their own business

* traditional community development work especially with women at the Garrett Centre

* further development of our new HomeStore premises for employment generation, e.g. a computer "practice firm", or Large Goods Vehicle driver training project.