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Quakers around Shoreditch

Alphabetical index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clements
You owe me five farthings
Say the bells of St Martins
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich
Say the bells of Shoreditch
When will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney
I'm sure I don't know
Says the great bell at Bow"

Maybe the children of London made up the song to sing the character of its districts [history link]. The Parish of Shoreditch was known for its poverty. Standing north of the Bishopsgate on the Roman Road from the Thames to Cambridge, it looked south to the City of London, where the Quaker bankers lived, north to Stoke Newington and Tottenham, where the Quaker middle classes withdrew, west to Islington where Charles Lamb peered through the curtains at Quaker women, and east to affluent Hackney and its dissenting academies. But in the immediate area of Shoreditch was a different Quakerdom: the inner city missions of Spitalfields, Hoxton, and Bunhill.

Baptist and other dissenters preceded the Quakers, but in 1647 George Fox (1624 - 1691) began preaching around Leicestershire:
Click on the picture to visit the history of Quakers
by David M Murray-Rust of Birkenhead Meeting. "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, Fox 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.

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.

LOVE AND UNITY

1. General Advice

Advised, that friends be tender to the principle of God in all, and shun the occasion of vain dispute and janglings, both amongst themselves and others: for this many times is like a blustering wind, that hurts and bruises the tender buds of plants.

1676. (Book of Discipline 1834 page 84)

Disunity and conflict - Quakers and John Bunyan

The people who formed different movements within christian thought in the 17th century read the 1611 English Bible dilligently - and reached different conclusions. In the following passage, from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners in a Faithful Account of the Life and Death of John Bunyan (1666), Bunyan, a Baptist, explains how he considered the Quakers had misinterpreted the scriptures. A Quaker defense of their interpretation of scriptures is included in An epistle from the Quakers to the Governor of Barbados in 1671. The debate between Bunyan and the Quakers was carried out by pamphlet war between 1856 and 1657 - Now made availabale on the web by Larry Kuenning.

[123]. Also besides these teachings of God in His word, the Lord made use of two things to confirm me in this truth; the one was the errors of the Quakers and the other was the guilt of sin; for as the Quakers did oppose this truth, so God did the more confirm me in it, by leading me into the scripture that did wonderfully maintain it.

[124]. The errors that this people then maintained, were:-

1. That the holy scriptures were not the word of God.

2. That every man in the world had the spirit of Christ, grace, faith, etc.

3. That Christ Jesus, as crucified, and dying sixteen hundred years ago, did not satisfy divine justice for the sins of the people.

4. That Christ's flesh and blood were within the saints.

5. That the bodies of the good and bad that are buried in the church-yard, shall not arise again.

6. That the resurrection is past with good men already.

7. That that man Jesus, that was crucified between two thieves, on mount Calvary, in the land of Canaan, by Jerusalem, was not ascended above the starry heavens.

8. That He should not, even the same Jesus that died by the hands of the Jews, come again at the last day; and as man, judge all nations,' etc.

[125]. Many more vile and abominable things were in those days fomented by them, by which I was driven to a more narrow search of the scriptures, and was through their light and testimony, not only enlightened, but greatly confirmed and comforted in the truth: And, as I said, the guilt of sin did help me much; for still as that would come upon me, the blood of Christ did take it off again, and again, and again; and that too sweetly, according to the scripture. O friends! cry to God to reveal Jesus Christ unto you; there is none teacheth like Him.

Go to Bunhill Fields The memorial to John Bunyan in the Dissenters Graveyard at Bunhill Fields. Edward Burrough, his Quaker antagonist, lies unmarked in the nearby Quaker Burial Ground. Their rancour is dead, the glory of God in their visions lives on.
See 1862


Identity

How did Quakers, as a whole, become an identity with an organisation?

Joseph Besse (1753) documented the "sufferings of the people called Quakers" "from the time of their being first distinguished by that name in the Year 1650"

1656 An "Epistle" sent from "elders and brethren" [gathered at] Balby to "the brethren in the north" who held meetings "in the light".

It has been suggested that Quaker identity was formed in what were called sufferings, especially following the restoration of monarchy in 1660 after which people meeting "under the name of Quakers, and other names of separation" were considered a (or the) major danger to the internal security of the new state. In this atmosphere the land at Bunhill was bought for the use of "the elect people of God in scorn called Quakers"

The Oxford dictionary says Quakers gave the word sufferings a special meaning of the "hardships of people distrained on for tithes etc". Tithes are the taxes paid to support the church. Quakers wanted to organise a society outside the church. "etc" included being imprisoned for refusing to take an oath of allegiance or for meeting as Quakers rather than in the established church.

Kristel Hawkins says that Ellis Hookes (1635-1681), clerk to the London Quakers "presumably began" recording Quaker sufferings "in earnest sometime around the Restoration in 1660". His efforts created the first two volumes of the Great Book of Sufferings." The "centralisation" of Quakers from early 1660s to the mid 1670s made this possible. Accounts had to travel through the different levels of meetings before arriving in London. (Kristel Marie Hawkins "Suffering and Early Quaker Identity: Ellis Hookes and the Great Book of Sufferings". (Online Thesis) - (offline)

Meetings for Sufferings archives include The Great Book of Sufferings, 1659-1793 - 29 volumes containing names of Quakers prosecuted, distrained or otherwise `suffering' for the sake of Quaker testimonies. Each volume is indexed and covers a group of counties for a particular year. In most cases the names of informers, priests, constables and justices are indexed.

1.1.1661 Start of Veneer's rising. Thomas Veneer's congregation of fifth monarchists, which included New Model Army veterans, met above a tavern in Swan's Alley off Coleman Street in the City. The Quakers (who also included New Model Army veterans) met at the Bull and Mouth in the City.

10.1.1661 A proclamation published, whereby the King forbade "Anabaptists, Quakers, and Fifth-monarchy men, to assemble or meet together under pretence of worshipping God, except it be in some parochial church or chapel, or in private houses by the persons there inhabiting. All meetings in other places are declared to be riotous and unlawful".

The proclamation was followed by statement from George Fox, Gerald Roberts, Henry Fell, Richard Hubberthorn, John Boulton, John Hinde, John Stubbs, Leonard Fell, John Furley Junior, Francis Howgill, Samuel Fisher, and Thomas Moore "in behalf of the whole body of the Elect People of God who are called Quakers, against all plotters and fighters in the world", "in answer to that clause of the King's late proclamation which mentions the Quakers, to clear them from the plot and fighting which therein is mentioned, and for the clearing their innocency." - (external link to the declaration)

May 1661 a "General Assembly of the Brethren" held. November 1661 Amor Stoddart bought land [Bunhill] 'for the use and service of the elect people of God in scorn" called Quakers'. 1662. "An Act for preventing mischiefs and dangers, that may arise by certain persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawful Oaths".

1668 on Some kind of annual meeting.

1672 a "General Meeting of Friends for the Nation" at which it was decided that there would be a: "General Meeting of friends" held in London once a year during Whitsun week, with six friends from London, three from Bristol, two from Colchester and one or two from each county of England and Wales.

October 1675 Meeting for Sufferings established. This developed into the executive body of the society. Its name arose from a system of reporting anti-Quaker "persecution". The Recording Clerk recorded the Sufferings, and became the general administrator of the Society.

After 1679, Meeting for Sufferings had weekly supervision of a national stock of funds for the relief of Quakers who were dispossessed or in prison.


Money and power

"when I grow rich" may not be a very appropriate tag for Quakers in business - Quakers in business such as the Bevans were well-off to start with.

From 1661 to 1688, Quakers were a radically deviant and confrontational people who, whilst often inprisoned, could also pull strings with government. After these years of conflict, rich families remained powerful in the organisation.

The families include the Barclays - Gurneys - and Frys. William Penn did not establish a Quaker family.

Barclay family

David Barclay (soldier), born 1610 in Scotland, went to Germany in 1626 to make his fortune as a soldier. He rose to the rank of Major in the army of the King of Sweden, during the Thirty Years War. However, in 1636 he returned to Scotland to fight in the covenanting army, becoming a Colonel of horse. In 1647 he purchased the lands and barony of Urie in Kincardineshire. He married Katherine Gordon, the daughter of Sir Robert Gordon (first baronette of Gordonstoun) Their first son, Robert Barclay, was born 23.12.1648. As politcal power changed, David was locked up in Edinburgh Castle where, in 1665, he became a Quaker. In 1667 Robert Barclay also became a Quaker. Robert published thological defences of Quakers, the title of one of which is illuminating:

1673: A Catechism and Confession of Faith, approved of, and agreed to by the general assembly of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, Christ himself chief speaker in and among them, which containeth a true and faithful account of the principles and doctrines which are most surely believed by the churches of Christ in Great Britain and Ireland, who are reproachfully called by the name of Quakers, yet are found in the one faith with the primitive church and saints, &c.

In 1676 he published his most famous book An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the people called, in scorn, Quakers; being a full Explanation and Vindication of their Principles and Doctrines, by many Arguments deduced from Scripture and right reason, and the testimonies of famous Authors, both ancient and modern, with a full Answer to the strongest Objections usually made against them; presented to the King ; written and published, in Latin, for the information of Strangers, by Robert Barclay; and now put into our own Language, for the benefit of his Countrymen.

David Barclay (soldier) died 12.10.1686

1690 Quakers John Freame and Thomas Gould established themselves as goldsmith bankers in Lombard Street. They held the Society Of Friends' central funds (national stock) which amounted to £1,100 in 1695. They financed Quaker traders in America and the Caribbean and helped to finance the Pennsylvania Land Company. (source)

David Barclay (draper) (1682-1769) "of Cheapside" in London, was the second son of Robert Barclay. He was a rich linen merchant whose second wife, Priscilla Freame, was John Freame' daughter. Two sons, John Barclay and David Barclay (banker) (1729-1809) joined the bank, which was generally known as Barclay, Bevan and Company from 1767 when Silvanus Bevan joined. Tritton was added to the name in 1782.

The "dynasty" of Barclay bankers that followed included Robert Barclay (born 1758). The dynasty was reinforced by alliances with other banking families. Another Robert Barclay married Elizabeth Gurney, daughter of Joseph Gurney. Joseph Gurney Barclay married Mary, daughter of William Leatham, another banker. In 1896 another Robert Barclay merged twenty banks into "Barclay and Company Limited". The "core" of this combined bank was "Barclay, Bevan, Tritton, Ransom, Bouverie and Company". Eight of the other components had "Gurney" in their title,

Gurney family

Samuel Gurney was born at Earlham Hall near Norwich on 18.10.1786. An older sister was Elizabeth Gurney (21 May 1780 - 12 October 1845) who became Fry was born 21.5.1780. A younger brother was Joseph John Gurney (2.8.1788 - 4.1.1847) whose name is associated with the Quaker divisions in America.

They were children of John Gurney (1749-1809), Quaker banker of Norwich, and Catherine daughter of Daniel Bell (1728-1750), a London merchant from Stamford Hill. The family's Gurneys Bank was founded in 1770.

At the age of fourteen, Samuel Gurney was placed in the counting-house of his brother-in-law, Joseph Fry (1777-1861), a tea merchant and banker, at Mildred's Court in the City of London.

Another Elizabeth Gurney (died January 1903) was a daughter of Samuel Gurney. She married Ernst Christian Ludwig von Bunsen (Ernest de Bunsen) on 5.8.1845

Fry family

John Fry of Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, a mercer, married Mary. He died 1775. John, but not Mary, were listed amongst relatives present at William Storrs Fry's wedding in 1767.

Fry brothers

Joseph Fry (1728-1787) type-founder and chocolate maker based in Bristol. Married Anna Portsmouth (1719/20-1803) of Basingstoke. Moved to Queen Street, near Upper Moorfields, London, about 1768, where they operated as printers and typefounders. Joseph Fry's firm became - Joseph Fry, London 1773 - 1776. He took his sons, Edmund Fry (1754-1835) and Henry Fry (1756-1817) into partnership in 1782, His younger son, Joseph Storrs Fry (1769-1835), later joined the chocolate firm.

William Storrs Fry (1736-1808) married Elizabeth Lambert at Devonshire House on 2.6.1767. He was then a cheesemonger of Whitechapel. Elizabeth was the daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Lambert of Walsingham, Norfolk. Her father may have been an "innholder".

Edmund Fry (1737-1835) of Dalby Terrace, City Road, died 22.12.1835 aged about seventy nine years and was buried at Bunhill Fields on 27.12.1835. "N.B. Not in membership". Record examined Peel Monthly Meeting, Jacob Poot Clerk. 14.2.1836. His second marriage on 13.3.1807 to Ann Hancock at Saint Leonards, Streatham, Surrey, may not have been a Quaker one, although Ann was a Quaker: born 21.7.1774, Society of Friends M M, Surrey Co , England. Father: William Hancock. Mother: Frances Rebecca Hancock. The birth of their son, Arthur (16.4.1809-1878) was recorded with the note "not a member". Ann died 7.7.1825 and was buried at Barking (Quaker). Arthur was buried at Winchmore Hill (Quaker). Edmund's first wife, Jenny (born about 1764), died 2.6.1805 aged 41 and was buried at Bunhill Fields on 9.6.1805. Resident Bechin? Row, Hoxton.

Henry Fry (1756-1817) (wife Priscilla), father of Edmund Fry bookseller was born in Small Street, Bristol on 25.1.1756. He was printer, of Basinghall Street in the City of London in 1807. "Late of London", he died on 12.6.1817 and was buried in the Quaker burying ground at Andover, Hampshire, on 17.6.1817.

Edmund Fry (1811-1866) Son of Edmund Fry bookseller, married Caroline Mary Clarence (1809- 1879), the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Clarence of London in Guernsey in July 1837. "The premises of Edmund Fry, bookseller, stationer and artist's colourman, in Treville Street were badly damaged by fire in 1836 so he moved his business to Union Street and is known to have been established there by 1840". (source). In 1841 he was a bookseller in Union Street, Plymouth. Clarance Fry (1 year old) and Henry Lee Fry (apprentice 15 years old) were also part of the household. In 1851 they were living in Croydon and he was Secretary to the Peace Committee. In 1861 he was a lecturer living in Brighton and Caroline Mary Fry was a teacher. Will: formerly of 25 Gloster- place Brighton, but late of Clarence Cottage, East Barnet, Hertford. Gentleman. Died 7.12.1866 in the Guildhall Coffee House Gresham Street. City of London. Wil proved by Caroline Mary Fry of Clarence Cottage, widow, sole executrix.

Edmund and Caroline's children: Five children became connected with either art or photography: Clarence Edmund Fry (born 1840, Plymouth), Walter Henry Fry (born 1841, Plymouth), Hubert Oswald Fry (born 1843, Plymouth), Lucy Elizabeth Laughton Fry (born 1844, Plymouth) and Allen Hastings Fry (born 1847, Plymouth). Clarence Edmund Fry (1840-1897) formed the London photography firm of Elliott & Fry in 1863 with Joseph John Elliott (1835-1903). Elliot married Clarence's sister Elizabeth Lucy Fry in Brighton in 1864. Walter Henry Fry and Allen Hastings Fry who formed the firm of W. and A. H. Fry in Brighton in 1867. (source)


Beliefs about 1702

about 1702 Issac Watts wrote this outline of the beliefs of two emerging "sects" of Quakers

"Quakers - First, They did generally shake and quake at their first coming up, which was about fifty years ago, and thence had their name. 2d, They deny all ordinances, and say, they are above them. 3d, They affirm perfection in this life, and deny that Jesus Christ, who died at Jerusalem, to be true God. They own a light within, which they call Christ and God, and say it is in every man if he would attend to it, and they follow the motions of this light within in all their actions. This gives them the name of Enthusiasts. Though they do not utterly deny scripture, yet speak meanly of it, say it is a dead letter, and that they do not need it, because they have the Holy Spirit in them, &c. they deny honour, and therefore they salute none. In their first rise they had a great many mad frantic fits, and strange. They are lately divided into two sects, one of them follow Penn, of the notions aforementioned, the other George Keith and Mead; and it is said, they own Christ the Son of God, satisfaction by him, and justification through him, and are by little and little leaving the old Quakers' principles.


Marriage and disownment

Until 1860 English law provided that marriages according to Quaker usage were valid only if both parties were Quaker members. The Marriage (Society of Friends) Act 1860 changed this.

Quaker practice was to disown members who married other than by the Quaker method. The change in the law enabled Quakers to carry on with their practice without losing as many members.

A vocal minority of Quakers opposed the way Quakers practiced disownment. John Bright told Yearly Meeting in May 1858

"Hundred of our members - aye thousands - have been disowned for acts which no church could rightly disown. It was opposed to Christianity, it was opposed to philosophy, it was opposed to all sound argument and to common-sense to disown for these marriages... There was no use attempting to put people in straight-jackets." (Quoted by Anne Vernon in Quaker Business Man: The Life of Joseph Rowntree 2005)

Disownment is a practice peculiar to Quakers, in which the Society makes clear that it does not agree with someone associated with the society. It should not prevent the person from continuing to worship with the Society. In the past, large numbers of Quakers were disowned every year.

In eighteenth century Philadelphia, causes of disownment included (in order of number): marrying contrary to discipline - fornication with fiance(e) - other fornication - drunkenness - debt - military activity - inattendance - showing contempt for the Society's authority over one's conduct - assault - loose conduct - profanity - attending irregular marriage - quarreling - entertainments - marrying too close a relative - neglecting family responsibilities - prosecuting another Friend at law without having exhausted the arbitration procedure of the Society - slander - slaveholding - fraud - gambling - disapproved company - business ethics - theft - schism - adultery - miscellaneous - ignoring Quaker arbitration (other than by going to law) - oaths - voluntary withdrawal - courting and fraternising - holding public offices that entailed activity contrary to Quaker ethics - lying - disobeying parents - dispensing liquor - violating laws - theological - destroying property - dress and speech - fleeing master - counterfeiting - printing - smuggling - misuse of the First Day of the week. (See Licia Kuenning and others 28.8.1991)


Women

Quaker Women

Until the 20th century, men and women sat separately in Quaker meetings. (See Gracechurch Street 1770 and The Presence in 1916). They were also organised into separate meetings for discipline. In worship and church affairs, women left their families and became a semi-autonomous collective.

The separation of men and women was linked to the idea of a role for each. Quakers were organised into men's meetings and women's meetings and each had its responsibilities. . In the mid-nineteenth century, American Quaker women helped generate the Women's Rights Movement when they expected to take part in inter-denominational affairs.

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 (although not, herself, publicly a Quaker) was Tace Sowle (1665?-1749) of London, who carried on her father's business from 1691. (external link).

Massachussetts 1656:
Quaker women missionaries searched for signs of witchcraft.
1669: Deborah Wilson
York 1725:
Mary Tuke, Quaker spinster aged 30, started a tea business. She handed the business over to her nephew, William Tuke in 1755. It became part of Twinnings after the second world war. (information from Alan Davis).
Tottenham 1790s: Priscilla Wakefield wrote children's books to compensate for her husband's shaky finances.
"Every Quakeress is a lily"
London 1817: Elizabeth Fry set up a school in Newgate Prison.
Tower Hamlets 1926: Mary Hughes: Christian Socialist

Go to crime
time Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845)

Elizabeth "Fiver" Fry was Britain's best known Quaker long before 2002 when her picture on the five pound note made her common currency. The Queen's head on the other side is a reminder that Elizabeth Fry's moral life was a struggle between her determination to be a "Plain Quaker" and her pleasure in the high society recognition that made her a Royal favourite. From 1818, Quakers counselled their younger members about the spiritual dangers of benevolent works.

Once described in Parliament as "the genius of good", and written about as "Angel of the Prisons", her visits to the women in Newgate Prison made her famous in the early nineteenth century. She lived at St Mildred's Court, near Gracechurch Street, from 1.11.1799, when she moved in above the counting house of her banker husband, Joseph Fry.

1806 Elizabeth Fry was visited by members of a Quaker committee established to visit friends suspected of being delinquent in the training of their children. (See 1795 minute on family government)

Elizabeth first visited Newgate in January 1813, at the request of the Quaker evangelist, Stephen Grellet, but her visits only began in earnest in January 1817. The following extract from her diary for 24.2.1817 reflects some of her concerns:

"I have lately been much occupied in forming a school in Newgate for the children of the poor prisoners, as well as the young criminals, which has brought much peace and satisfaction with it: but my mind has been deeply affected by attending a poor women who was executed this morning. I visited her twice. This event has brought me into much feeling, attended by some distressingly nervous sensations in the night... This poor creature murdered her baby; and how inexpressibly awful to have her life taken away! The whole affair has been truly afflicting to me; to see what poor mortals may be driven to, through sin and transgression, and how hard the heart becomes, even to the most tender affections."

3.12.1828 Bailiffs occupied the Fry family home as Joseph Fry's bank had closed its doors unable to pay a rush of customers wanting to withdraw money. He was made bankrupt and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) formally disowned him in the spring of 1829. Elizabeth remained an active Quaker and in 1836/1837 Joseph Fry was reinstated in membership.

As a prison reformer, Elizabeth Fry aroused hostility as well as admiration. Some other prison reformers disapproved of her unorthodox methods, and the irregular authority of her lady prison visitors.

It has been said that to see her reading to the prisoners of Newgate was considered "one of the sights of London".

"It was stated by mistake in some of the newspapers, that on the 31st of January, when His Majesty the King of Prussia visited Newgate, Mrs Fry read to the prisoners from some religious work, what she selected that day being the 12th chapter of Romans, and one of the Psalms. It is an inevitable practice, not only of Mrs Fry, but of all the ladies in connection with the several prison committees, when reading to the prisoners, to confine themselves entirely to the truths contained in the Holy Scripture." The Times 10.2.1842)

By the time of her death (12.10.1845), Elizabeth Fry was a kind of Quaker saint. Far too good, the Bishop of Norwich told her memorial meeting, to have a tomb amongst the "emblems of heathen mythology" that disgraced Westminster Abbey. Lord Ashley chaired the meeting on Wednesday 18.6.1846 that resolved to spend the four thousand pounds raised in her memory on a more fitting memorial:

"a suitable asylum to be called The Elizabeth Fry Refuge, for the temporary reception of repentant females on their release from the metropolitan gaols" (The Times, Thursday 18.6.1846 Mrs Fry's Testimonial

195 Mare Street, Hackney, is a house set back from the road which is now the Lansdowne Club, but a Hackney Council plaque at its gate tells everyone that from 1849 to 1913 it was the Elizabeth Fry Refuge "to help women in need".

Quaker women who were active in their own church affairs sought to be active in the affairs of inter-denominational associations they joined (such as slavery abolition groups). In the United States this resulted in some Quaker women being founders of the Women's Rights Movement. Harriet Taylor, in 1851, wrote

"some of the most eminent names of the present age, have made emphatic protests in favour of the equality of women. And there have been voluntary societies, religious or secular, of which the Society of Friends is the most known, by whom that principle was recognized".

From the autobiographical sketch of Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), a Quaker woman from Phildelphia, USA:

In 1840, a World's Anti-slavery Convention was called in London. Women from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were delegates to that convention. I was one of the number; but, on our arrival in England, our credentials were not accepted because we were women. We were, however, treated with great courtesy and attention, as strangers, and as women, were admitted to chosen seats as spectators and listeners, while our right of membership was denied--we were voted out. This brought the Woman question more into view, and an increase of interest in the subject has been the result. In this work, too, I have engaged heart and hand, as my labors, travels, and public discourses evince. The misrepresentation, ridicule, and abuse heaped upon this, as well as other reforms, do not, in the least, deter me from my duty. To those, whose name is cast out as evil for the truth's sake, it is a small thing to be judged of man's judgement

About Lucretia Coffin Mott at the Lucretia Coffin Mott Papers Project


Temperance

14.8.1841 Josiah Hunt, a Quaker farmer in Somerset, wrote to The Farmers Magazine about "An Important Experiment - Harvest Work Without Strong Drink". In his experiment cocoa or tea sweetened with sugar or treacle and skimmed milk were drunk instead of alcoholic drinks. This was much cheaper and the money saved was spent on nutritious food.

about 1860? Josiah Hunt opened cocoa-houses at either end of Almonbury Tunnel.

1874 British Workman Coffee House opened by Quakers in Bristol.

7.7.1877 The Spectator on "Coffee-Taverns"

Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd

Dew Drop Inn


Adult Schools

"The first 'adult school' is said to have begun in Nottingham in 1798 to meet the needs of younger women in lace and hosiery factories. It was independent of any other organization and run by William Singleton (a Methodist) and Samuel Fox (a Quaker)" (Mark K. Smith, 2004 "Adult schools and the making of adult education" The encyclopedia of informal education

Quakers formed the "Friends' First-day School Association" in Birmingham in 1847. At first this was mainly concerned with the education of children, but William White (1820-1900) promoted the concern for adult education.

Quakers in York set up an Adult School in 1857. Thirty adults (men over fifteen) had been taught on Sunday morning in a room at the British School in Hope Street. They now moved into a rented room behind the premises of the Quaker business of the Rowntree family. There were two classes: A taken by John Stephenson Rowntree (1834-1937 ) and B by his brother Joseph Rowntree (1836-1935). Arnold Stephenson Rowntree (1872- 1951), the son of John Stephenson Rowntree, became Honorary Secretary of the National Council of Adult Schools (formed in 1899). John Wilhelm Rowntree (1868-1905) was the eldest son of Joseph Rowntree (1836-1925). He published A History of the Adult School Movement (with Henry Bryan Binns) in 1903.

After 1870 the Friends' Adult School in Mason Street, Hull became important, with one of the largest attendances of any in Yorkshire.

May 1872 A national Friends' First-day School Association conference was held at the same time as yearly meeting and in future years the Friends' First-day School Association continued to meet independently of but at the same time as yearly meeting.

The Adult School at Bunhill started in 1879

1882 Home Mission Committee created by Yearly Meeting. A preceding Committee on General Meetings was closed in 1883. Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior was a member of both.

her lice were her glory
Comrade Mary Hughes

Judge Thomas Hughes, (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays) was associated with Charles Kingsley, Frederick Denison Maurice and the Christian Socialists. [For more information on Thomas, visit
Tom Brown's School Museum in Uffington, Oxfordshire]

In Vallance Road, Tower Hamlets there are flats named Hughes Mansions in honour of Thomas Hughes.

Opposite the flats is a Blue plaque put up in 1961 honouring his daughter's name.

In her youth, Mary Hughes (1860-1941) took part in work on behalf of the poor and unfortunate. You drove to that work in a carriage and when the work was done you drove back to a beautiful house.

Mary became deeply convinced that her class was unjustly privileged and felt convicted of its sins against society. She decided that she did not want to visit the poor. She wanted to be with the poor and be poor herself. Choosing to live in the East End, she became a "shabby and sometimes verminous women" living the ideals of Christian Socialism in a direct way.

In 1895 she went to live with her sister and brother-in-law, curate of St Jude's in Whitechapel, and in 1915 moved to Kingsley Hall in Bow, set up by Quakers (Stephen and Rosa Hobhouse, and Muriel and Doris Lester), and named after Charles Kingsley. (Visit Kingsley Hall web site)

Mary Hughes became a Quaker in 1918, influenced by the Society's conscientious objection to the war, but continued to attend Anglican services. She was an early example of what some have called the "Quanglicans", who value the traditions of both churches.

Dew Drop Inn
for education and joy
the inn to drop in Mary's Dew Drop Inn was set up in 1926 in an old pub (previously Earl Grey's Castle) at 71 Vallance Road. (map link) This was converted by the Quaker architect, Malcolme Sparks. In 1928 it was again adapted by the Anglican architect, S. Grylls Wilson, who continued to care for it during Mary's life.
Mary, who lived there, was described by George Lansbury as its "founder, manager, and administrator". The punning name meant it was somewhere you could drop in. People came with every sort of problem, and many stayed there.

"At the end of a long day, if the rest of the hostel was full, the old lady would push papers and old clothes aside and sleep in a bed-chair."

As well as rooms for 'lodgers' there was space for trade union meetings and, on Sundays, Christian Socialist religious services. The upper rooms were intended primarily for students of "sociology", studying at first hand how the poor lived.

the blue plaque that
should have been red

After the defeat of the General Strike (1926) and Ramsey MacDonald's cuts in unemployment benefit (1931), Mary's attachment to the Labour Party weakened and her sympathies with the communists grew, although she strongly opposed their appeals to violence. The plate glass windows of the Dew Drop Inn "were pasted up with every sort of propaganda, communist, pacifist, and religious".

Mary was tireless, exasperatingly eccentric and greatly loved: George Lansbury said, "Our frail humanity only produces a Mary Hughes once in a century". She was pictured (with stick) on Gandhi's visit to London in 1931, at Muriel Lester's house, and the Quaker Tapestry have made a panel commemorating her work.

The main building of Bearsted Memorial Hospital (Jewish Maternity Hospital at 22-26 Underwood Road, Whitechapel E1 (just off Vallance Road) was opened in 1927. When it moved to Stoke Newington, Stepney Council bought the premises (shortly after the second world war) to set up an ante- natal clinic, day nursery, nursery for the care of premature infants, hostel for nursery nurses and school treatment centre. The new project was named the Mary Hughes Centre and Day Nursery. The project was continued by Tower Hamlets Council, and ran for almost 50 years. It closed about 1996. It is now called the Mary Hughes Building and houses a variety of children and adult services for local people.

Black Tuesday 27.3.1945 Last V2 rocket attack on London. The rocket hit Hughes Mansion in Vallance Road, Bethnal Green. 133 people died. All but 20 of them were Jewish. It was the second largest death toll of the V2 campaign. A remembrance service was held on Sunday 26.3.1995 in the Brady Centre, Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane. After Psalms were read, Montague Richardson, former chair of the Brady Boy's club, intoned the memorial prayer, the Kaddish. (Hackney Gazette 23.3.1995) weblink to the names of the Jewish dead

Information composited from many sources, including Shoreditch Quakers' exhibition, from Christian faith and practice in the experience of the Society of Friends (1959), from emails from Tracey Marks who worked at the day nursery for eleven years, before it closed, and is organising a reunion, and from material collected by Tracey Marks in her research for an exhibition at the reunion. If anyone has pictures or information, could they please contact Andrew Roberts.

We know of a book and a booklet about Mary Hughes:
Rosa Hobhouse, 1949 Mary Hughes: her life for the dispossessed
London, Rockliff. (Forward by Howard Spring)
Hugh Pyper, 1985, Mary Hughes a booklet published by the
Children and Young People's Committee of Quaker Home Service.

This web page is built around the exhibition Quakers in Shoreditch held in Shoreditch Library, Hoxton in 1998. The original text was written by Peter Daniels and other material comes from Quakers in the City by Lisa Bowers Isaacson. Responsibility for the page rests entirely with Andrew Roberts.

Friends in the truth

Jesus says he will not call us servants, but friends, for whatever he hears of his father he will share with us. (John 15:15) So we should do one with another. We are called to be friends in the truth.

He also said that we should love one another. (John 13:34+35)

Racial justice

1941 Book of Meetings

7½ Coleman Street

7.45 Ordnace Survey

Adult Schools

William Allen

America - Fox party

Argand lamp

Australia

Baird Street

Baker

Barclay family

David Barclay banker

Hannah Barnard

William Beck

Beliefs

Barnet Grove

Peter Bedford

Bedford Institute

Bethlem

Bevan family

Biddle family

William Bingley

biscuit making

blood and fire

Book and Tract Depository

William Booth

Braithwaite
evangelical leadership

Braithwaite House

Braithwaite House site

Peter Briggins

Brook Street Chapel

James Bull

Bull and Mouth

build and regenerate

Bunhill and beyond blog

Bunhill car parking

Bunhill Conservation Plan

Bunhill Fields

Bunhill index

Bunhill library

Bunhill light: 1883 - 1999

Bunhill Mission

Bunhill model

Bunhill plaque

Bunhill Quaker Garden/s

Bunhill tent

Bunhill Tree Preservation 1975 - 2008

Bunhill web

John Bunyan

Edward Burrough

car parking

City Quakers

Chequer Court

John Clark

Clerkenwell Workhouse

clerks of meetings

clouds

Thomas Colcock

Coffee Tavern

Coleman Street - 1882

colonials

cottage

Isaac Crewdson

Croydon

deeds

De La Rue

Deptford

Devonshire House

Devonshire House Hotel

Devonshire Row

Dissenters Graveyard

discipline

disownment

Eccles or Eagle

George William Edwards

John Eliot one and two

John Eliot two and three

Enlightenment

Essex

Extension building

Family History

Farrand Radley

Finsbury/Islington

fossilised dung

French Revolution

Friends House

Friends in the truth

Friends Library

Friends Neighbourhood House

Friends Trusts Limited

George Fox

Fry family

Edmund Fry bookseller

Elizabeth Fry

Harriet Fry

Garden

William James Gibson

George Gillett

Good News Club

Gracious Street

grave maker

grave robbing

graveyards in 1837
graveyards in 1896
graveyards in 2009

Jonathan Grubb

Gurney money - family

James and Catherine Hain

George Frederick Hart

hat homage

Heritage

Holloway

Hope for All

Housing of the London Poor

Hoxton Hall

Elizabeth Howard

John Eliot Howard

Luke Howard

Robert Howard

Robert Howard son of Luke

Mary Hughes

Frederic Hunt

identity

Iron Room

Jackie's family

Jenkins folk

John Woolman Settlement

Kingston

Charles Lamb

Mary Lamb

William Ward Lee

Lidbetter

Irene Louise Lloyd

London City Mission

Love and Unity

Manchester 1895

marriage

Edward Marsh

Martin and Judith

William Mead

Meeting for Sufferings

Metropolitan Board of Works

money

Deborah Morris

naked as a sign

National Dwellings Society

neighbourhood work

Edward Newman

George Newman

Thomas Prichard Newman

Old Street

William Isaac Palmer

Paul and Lisa

Peabody Estate

Peace Testimony

Peckham

Peel Meeting

William Penn

plague

Pond family

Arthur Pond

Frederick Pond (two)

Henry and Rosa Pond

poverty map

printing house

Pump Alley

Quaker beginnings

Quaker Court

Quaker Garden/s

Quaker marriage

Quaker sociology

Quaker Women

Bethlem

Quaker Social Action

Quaker Street

Radley

Ratcliff Meeting

Recording Clerk

Roscoe Street

Royal connections: Penn, Quire, Bevan, Allen, Fry,

Royal Sufferings

Salmon and Ball Court

Shacklewell

Mr Short

Charles Robert Simpson

Six Weeks Meeting

slave owners

Solomon Eagle or
Solomon Eccles

Spitalfields

Staple Court

Stoke Newington

Stone House

Stone House Court

Daniel Sturge

sufferings

Sufi Teaching

surveyor (six weeks meeting)

Tim and Jenny

Tottenham

trees

Trustees 1857

Tuke family

Wandsworth

William Wells

Wheeler Street

Whitechapel

Whitecross Street Scheme plan 7

George Whitehead

Winifred White

Winchmore Hill

women

Priscilla Wakefield and family

Bunhill Coffee
Taverns
Limited





I always like hearing from people about anything that interests them on my web page - or about their Quaker connections or other historical research.

Try Friends House web site for more information. The Library part has is some advice about tracing Quakers in the family which includes a library guide to genealogical resources. This is also interesting about the history and organisation of the society.

Particularly useful may be The Quaker Family History Society, which was formed in 1993 and is a member of the Federation of Family History Societies. Its aim is to encourage and assist anyone interested in tracing the history of Quaker families in Britain and Ireland.

Social history weblinks



what made
some Quakers rich?
-
(archive)

    "when I grow rich"
    may not be a very appropriate tag for Quakers in business - Quakers in business such as the Bevans were well-off to start with.


Quakers and the political process weblinks




Quaker asylum

    According to Harriet Martineau, "Quaker lunacy, being seldom caused by ... the violence of the passions, usually proceeds from some deeper and more unmanageable cause"





Quaker Street blog
There are links from this to blogs run by other Quakers - Including Under the Green Hill and Lauraxpeace




Friendlink: A message board for young Quakers






Bunhill Quaker Garden

City Quakers

The map shows the position of three City of London Meetings: Bull and Mouth, Gracechuch and Devonshire House, and three Meetings outside the old London wall: Peel, Wheeler Street and Bunhill. Of these, only the newest, Bunhill, still meets.


Bull and Mouth

Howgill and Burrough reached London in July 1654, and 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.

By March 1655, when George Fox arrived in London to speak with Oliver Cromwell, Howgill and Burrough had established a permanent Quaker base at the Bull and Mouth Inn. The Inn was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, but it was rebuilt and Meetings continued here until 1740. After the fire, Quakers bought another Inn, off Gracechurch Street, and established another City Meeting.

Royal Sufferings - Newgate and the Tower

Cromwell's regime was not ideal for Quakers, but after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the situation of Quakers (and Baptists) worsened as Charles 2nd sought to stabilise the country around a common approved religion. The Quaker "Peace Testimony" 1661 was part of a letter to the new King explaining that the Quakers would not resist his regime by force. (as the 5th monarchists had just tried to). It was

"given forth from the people called Quakers to satisfy the King and his Council, and all those that have any jealousy concerning us, that all occasion of suspicion may be taken away and our innocency cleared"

The "Quaker Act" of early 1662

Besse 1753 (p.368) says "ANNO 1662 In the Beginning of this Year the first Act against Conventicles came in force". He writes about arrests following on 11.5.1662

13+14 Charles 2, c.1 1662 "An Act for preventing mischiefs and dangers, that may arise by certain persons called Quakers and others refusing to take lawful Oaths".

Whereas of late times certain persons under the name of Quakers, and other names of separation, have taken up and maintained sundry dangerous opinions and tenets, and (amongst others) that the taking of an Oath in any case whatsoever, although before a lawful magistrate, is altogether unlawful and contrary to the Word of God; and the said persons do daily refuse to take an oath, though lawfully tendered, whereby it often happens that the truth is wholly suppressed, and the administration of justice much obstructed: And whereas the said persons under a pretence of religious worship, do often assemble themselves in great numbers in several parts of this realm, to the endangering of the public peace and safety, and to the terror of the people, by maintaining a secret and strict correspondence amongst themselves, and in the mean time separating and dividing themselves from the rest of his Majesty's good and loyal subjects, and from the public congregations, and usual places of divine worship.

(2.) For the redressing therefore, and better preventing the many mischiefs and dangers that do and may arise by such dangerous tenets, and such unlawful assemblies : Be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons assembled in Parliament, and by the Authority of the same. That if any person or persons who maintain that the taking of an oath in any case soever, although before a lawful magistrate, is altogether unlawful and contrary to the Word of God, from and after the four and twentieth day of March, in this present Year of our Lord, one thousand six hundred and sixty one [the legal year 1661 ended 25.3.1662], shall obstinately and wilfully refuse to take an oath, where by the laws of the realm he or she is or shall be bound to take the same, being lawfully and duly tendered, or shall endeavour to persuade any other person, to whom any such oath shall in like manner be duly and lawfully tendered, to refuse and forbear the taking of the same, or shall by printing, writing, or otherwise, go about to maintain and defend, that the taking of an oath in any case whatsoever is altogether unlawful, and if the said persons commonly called Quakers, shall at any time after the said four and twentieth day of March depart from the places of their several habitations, and assemble themselves to the number of five or more of the age of sixteen years or upwards, at any one time in any place, under pretence of joining in a religious worship, not authorized by the laws of this realm, that then in all and every such case, the party so offending being thereof lawfully convict by verdict of twelve men, or by his own confession, or by the notorious evidence of the fact, shall lose and forfeit to the King's Majesty, his heirs and successors, for the first offence, such sum as shall be imposed upon him or her not exceeding five pounds; and if any person or persons being once convicted of any such offence shall again offend therein and shall in form aforesaid be thereof lawfully convicted, shall for the second offence forfeit to the King our Sovereign Majesty, his heirs and successors, such sum as shall be imposed upon him or her, not exceeding ten pounds ; the said respective penalties to be levied by distress and sale of the parties goods so convicted,, rendring the overplus to the owners if any be : And for want of such distress, or non-payment of the said penalty within one week, after such conviction, that then the said parties so convicted, shall for the first offence be committed to the common gaol, or House of Correction, for the space of three months and for the second offence, during six months, without bail or mainprize, there to be kept to hard labour : Which said monies to be levied shall be paid to such person or Persons as shall be appointed by those before whom they shall be convicted, to be employed for the increase of the stock of the House of Correction, to which they shall be committed, and providing materials to set them at work. And if any person after he in form aforesaid, has been twice convicted of any of the said offenses, shall offend the third time, and be thereof in form aforesaid lawfully convict, that then every person so offending and convict, shall for his or her third offence abjure the realm, or otherwise it shall and may be lawful to and for his Majesty, his heirs and successors, to give order, and to cause him, her or them, to be transported in any ship or ships, to any of his Majesty's Plantations beyond the seas.

1753 Joseph Besse's Collection of the Sufferings of the people called Quakers, for the testimony of a good conscience from the time of their being first distinguished by that name in the year 1650 to the time of the Act, commonly called the Act of Toleration, granted to protestant dissenters in the first year of the reign of King William the Third and Queen Mary in the year 1689. (offline)

(external link)

In 1662, the Act of Uniformity required both use of the Book of Common Prayer and an oath of allegiance.

The Conventicle Act of 1664 made it penal for any person to attend a conventicle. The punishment for the first offence was three months imprisonment. The Five Mile Act in 1665 punished dissenting preachers with a 40 pound fine if they came within five miles of towns.

Quakers arrested at City and East London meetings were imprisoned in nearby Newgate prison or the Tower of London. Conditions were horrific. See Edward Burrough

Sunday 11.5.1662 Besse 1753 (p.368) says that in consequence of the Quaker Act, five people were taken from a Meeting in John's Street by one Philip Miller "and a rabble attending him", without any Warrant. A Justice of the Peace committed them to Newgate. On [Tuesday] 13.5.1662 Miller returned with a Constable, entred the Meeting, and because the Persons assembled would not depart at his Command, he beat them with a Cane, and carried some of them before a Justice, who took their Words to come again next Morning, which they did, when he ordered them to go to the Justices then met at Hacks's-halL, who committed nine of them to Negate. On the t a Captain with Soldiers dragged thirty nine Persons by force out of the Bull and Month Meeting to Paul's Church-yard,

Blood on the alter and fire on the streaker

A Brief Relation of the Persecutions and Cruelties that have been acted upon the People called QUAKERS in and about the City of London, since the beginning of the 7th Month last, til the present time. With a general Relation of Affairs, signifying the state of the people through the Land. London, Printed in the Year l662. Ascribed to Edward Burrough and others.

"About the 7th day of the month [i.e., the seventh month] two women were committed to Old Bridewell, for going into Pauls in the time of their worship ; the one of them being moved to go at that very time into that place with her face made black, and her hair down - with blood poured in it, wich run down upon her sackcloth which she had on, and she poured also some blood down upon the altar, and spoke some words, and another woman being moved to go along with her, they were both taken away to Bridewell, where they remain to this day, and were not yet tried for any fact, nor any evil yet justly laid to their charge." (Page 5)

A few days before, Solomon Eccles was " moved to go through the Fair [at Smithfield], naked, with a pan on his head full of fire and brimstone , . . for which some rude people did abuse him much."

It has been suggested that these protests were a response to arrests under the Quaker Act.

Katie King (archive) traces the information in the following passage back to the (manuscript) Great Book of Sufferings maintained by Quakers. Katie King's paper analyses "going naked as a sign" as a more general category of behaviour which includes plain speech and all the social "rudeness" (my word) of early Quakers.

In response to the passing of the Quaker Act in 1662, [Phyllis] Mack recounts "The day after one government raid, Solomon Eccles passed through Bartholomew Fair as a sign, 'naked with a pan on his head full of fire and brimstone, flaming up in the sight of the people, crying repentance among them, and bade them remember Sodom.' The following Sunday two women appeared at St. Paul's, one 'with her face made black, and her hair down with blood poured in it, which run down upon her sackcloth which she had on, and she poured also some blood down upon the altar and spoke some words.'"

Colonials and slave owners

In the years of suffering for their dissent, many Quakers sailed for the new world to help build colonies in such places as Barbados - Carolina - New Jersey - and Pennsylvania. In the process some became the prosperous owners of black slaves. Whilst accepting, and benefiting from, the ownership of slaves, Quakers were sensitive to a tension between this and "being tender to that of God in all". It was this that precipitated one of the founding doctrinal statements, a letter of 1671 from Quakers to the Governor of Barbados, in which they set out the Christian responsibility of including slaves and natives in the family of God.

In 18th century England, Quakers were part of the triangular trade in slaves, and part of the crisis of conscience (conviction of sin) that led to its abolition. (See John Woolman)

Quakers usually emphasise the society as the pioneer of slave liberation. See external links: "Quakers and the Abolition of Slavery" and "Keeping it under their hats"

Elizabeth Eccles and Soloman Eccles or Eagle

1665 The last great plague of London. Some natural philosophers argued that God established nature by laws and so plagues were not a direct action or a sign of his wrath. Quakers would have none of this. In his A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), Daniel Defoe wrote: "...the Quakers had at this time also a burying ground set apart to their use"... and the famous Solomon Eagle, who... had predicted the plague as a judgment, and ran naked through the streets, telling the people that it was come upon them to punish them for their sins, had his own wife died the next day of the plague, and was carried, one of the first in the Quakers' dead-cart, to their new burying ground". An early Quaker victim of the plague was Henry Stokes, Spittlefields baker, who died on 24.4.1665. James Stokes, a descendent, has written his story.

Solomon Eccles (born 1617? buried Bunhill 1682), also known as Solomon Eagle, was a real person, even though most of what we think we know about him is a mixture of fiction and fantasy with fantasy and fiction!

His streaking can be traced back to 1662

He was (apparently) arrested in May 1665 in Southwark. He is said to have run naked through Bartholomew and Smithfield in 1665 as a religious warning respecting the plague. Pepys witnessed him running naked through Westminster Hall in 1667 (I have not seen the entry).

1671 Solomon Eccles went with George Fox and others on a three year American journey

William Penn

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:

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.

Fox and others in America 1671-1673

13.6.1671 Thomas Briggs, William Edmundson, John Rous, John Stubbs, Solomon Eccles, James Lancaster, John Cartwright, Robert Widders, George Pattison, John Hull, Elizabeth Hooton, Elizabeth Miers and George Fox sailed from near Gravesend in a yacht called the Industry, the captain's name Thomas Forster, and the number of passengers about fifty.



Gracious Street or White Hart Court

"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 in modern reckoning. After his funeral at the meeting house, some 4,000 people accompanied his body to Bunhill Fields for burial.

"January 1691" in modern reckoning was the 11th month of 1690 because, until the calendar changes of 1750 the new year in England started towards the end of March. Quakers numbered the months to avoid using heathen names and Fox's (19th century) tombstone shows his death as the 11th month of 1690.

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.

On 8.6.1772 the Yearly Meeting of Ministers and Elders was shocked by a man of peculiar appearance and manner who arrived half an hour after the start of meeting, presenting a letter of introduction from America. In ministry one Quaker counselled him to return there immediately. The stranger was John Woolman who, through his loving ministry, won the support of the Yearly Meeting. He died at York on 7.10.1772.

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. In the seventeenth century, refusing to take one's hat off before someone in authority was a highly offensive act implying complete lack of respect for the social order. Equally offensive in families was that when young men converted to Quakerism they kept their hats on in the company of their fathers. Dishonour to one's father also had political implications at a time when Royalist theory derived the legitimacy of the king from the fifth commandment. Before about 1660 the hat insult and calling everyone by the familiar "the and thou" were two signs taken to mean that Quakers were turbulent and possibly revolutionary people. (See also 5th monarchists and going naked as a sign) Gradually, as Quakers distanced themselves from these implications, with the Peace Testimony for example, refusing to pay hat homage and using the and thou, along with the Quaker dress, just became peculiarities that set Quakers apart.



The same Quakers who kept their hats on when talking to rich and powerful humans, took them off 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".


16.12.1789 Thomas Barton Beck (1764-1830) married Elizabeth Lister (1767-1857) in Gracechurch Street. Elizabeth was born in Aldersgate Street, St. Botolph's. "She and her sister were able, when children, to go before breakfast to the fields outside the city-walls, and return fresh with handful of primroses and cowslips" (Beck and Ball p.151)



Quakers met in Gracechurch Street continuously until 1821, when there was a fire.

Gracechurch St was rebuilt,

1827 Stoke Newington became part of Gracious Street Monthly Meeting (until 1850). "By arrangements with other Monthly Meeting, a district was formed for it, and officially connected... by a narrow strip." (Beck and Ball p.151)

1850 Sunday meetings at Gracechurch Street meeting house ceased

1861 William Beck lectured in the building abut the death and burial of George Fox.

May 1862 Last meeting for worship held at Gracechurch Street during yearly meeting

2.6.1862 Quakers relinquished Gracechurch Street



Devonshire House

1667 - 1675 - 1678 - 1679 - Plan - 1735 - 1745 - 1766 - 1792 - 1793 - 1800 - 1801 - 1820 - 1835 - 1840 - 1846 - 1851 - 1858 - 1860 - 1861 - 1865 - 1868 - 1894 (map) - 1902 (plan) - 1906 - 1910 - 1916 - 1922 - 1939 - 1977 - 2005 - 2007 - 2010 - 2011 - 2014 -

September 1666 The Bull and Mouth Bull and Mouth was lost in the 1666 Great Fire. Before it was rebuilt, Quakers took a lease on part of a house on Bishopsgate owned by the Earl of Devonshire: for use as a meeting-house. Original lease 3.4.1667 (Beck 1902). In 1675 the house was sold for development.

Stow's Survey of London describes this area as part of the "Suburbs Without the Walls". He mentions the Dolphin Inn, just north of Houndsditch and Fisher's Folly, an Elizabethan mansion built for Jasper Fisher the warden of the Goldsmiths' Company in 1567. Fisher's Folly stood just to the west of what is now Devonshire Square. Devonshire Street (now Devonshire Row) was the main entrance to Devonshire House from Bishopsgate and Sandwich Court (now Cavendish Court was the side entrance from Houndsditch. From 1620 to 1675 it was the Duke of Devonshire's town house. William Cavendish, second Earl of Devonshire, died here on 20.6.1628. He was only 28 years old and his death is said to have been from excessive indulgence in good living. He was buried in Derby. Remains of a wall of Fisher's Folly survive, forming the lower part of the rear wall of 4 to 18 Devonshire Row. (CSMS).

The bent alley called Sandwich Court (now Cavendish Court) links Houndsditch to Devonshire Street (near Devonshire Square), just north of the Quaker Meeting House. Having been the Houndsditch access to (the Duke of) Devonshire House, it appears to have become the access to the (old) Quaker meeting house before the Dolphin Inn was purchased. See present day photographs.

1667 Devonshire House Monthly Meeting established as a constituent meeting of London and Middlesex Quarterly Meeting. From 1.4.1943 it united with the Tottenham Monthly Meeting as Devonshire House and Tottenham Monthly Meeting. The constituent meetings of the Devonshire House Monthly Meeting were: Devonshire House (preparative meeting) 1667-1925 - Wheeler Street, 1667-1742 - Gracechurch Street from 1850-1862 - Peel from 1860-1926 - Stoke Newington from 1850 - Bunhill Fields from 1889 - Hoxton, 1916-1924 - Barnet Grove from 1924

1678 The Third and last part of Hudibras - Written in the time of the late wars by Samuel Butler published. Refering to the Rump Parliament it had the lines (Canto 2, lines 889-894)

And when th' have pack'd a Parliament,
Will once more try th' expedient:
Who can already muster friends,
To serve for members, to our ends,
That represent no part o' th' nation,
But Fisher's-Folly Congregation;

Devonshire House property in the 17th century
(From an old plan)
1675 Devonshire House was sold to Nicholas Barbon for development. Devonshire Square and a new Quaker meeting-house were built on the garden of the former house between 1678 and 1708.

Devonshire Square is an early example of a formal square in this area, but the present buildings were not part of the original square. CSMS

"Till 1678 meetings were held in the old mansion" (Beck and Ball p. 168) . Then a portion of land was rented on which a meeting house was erected later". This old meeting house is shown as "Quakers Mtg House" on the 17th century plan and as X on the 1902 plan.

See also Stone House Court

1679: A Quaker marriage On "the 13th day of ye 5th month 1679" Agnes Fisher married John Trueblood at Devonshire House. John Trueblood, of Shoreditch, was the son of Arnold Trueblood of Beckingham, Lincolnshire who died in the Lincoln Castle gaol for his Quaker beliefs (documented in John Besse's: Sufferings of the People Called Quakers). Agnes Fisher was born at Ulverstone, Lancashire (today Cumberland), which is the site of Swarthmoor, the estate of Margaret Fell.

It is believed that Agnes and John had a son who died in infancy, before they sailed to the new world, settling in North Carolina in 1682

Devonshire House and Whitechapel

Bakers Row, Whitechapel
1687 Six weeks meeting bought the reminder of the lease (150 years) of an acre of ground in Coverley's Fields, near Mile End Green. It became a 500 years lease in 1743. Whitechapel "was under the particular care of Devonshire House". Many Quakers from the east part of London were buried there, but "it would seem that ministers and persons of note were almost always buried in Bunhill Fields" (Beck and Ball, page 334). Whitechapel burial ground closed in 1857. See 1865

1716 Michael Holmes, the gravedigger, had a house at the gateway to Whitechapel. His son John Holmes and companions stole a corpse from the graveyard, as a result of which Michael lost his post and his home. Concern spread to Bunhill.

1735 The last Bishop's Gate erected. It was demolished in 1760

1745 Quakers allowed Devonshire House to be used by the militia as a guard room "at a time when the Metropolis was thrown into a state of alarm by the advance into England of the Young Pretender and his forces". (Beck 1902 p.810)

1766 Purchase of the old meeting-house by Thomas Talwin

8.11.1781 Thomas Lewes carried a wooden firkin containing 56lb of butter, on his shoulder, from Houndsditch through Sandwich Court to Devonshire Square, where he was stopped. Later convicted of stealing the butter, he was "publicly whipped in Bishopsgate-street, one hundred yards from the shop of the prosecutor". (Old Bailey online). At some time between 1781 and the 19th century, "Sandwich Court" became "Cavendish Court".

1792 Purchase of the Dolphin Inn. [See 17th century plan 1793-1794 Two meeting houses built on the Devonshire House site, (one for men and the other for women), each capable of accommodating 1,000. [See 1902 plan]. After these extensions, Devonshire House was used for the Yearly Meeting, previously held mostly at Gracechurch Street and for Meeting for Sufferings

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. [See Friends House Papers]

"Devonshire House Yard" from an "Old Print". The building in the centre (with the clock) is the
"Old Meeting House". Beck 1902. From Horwood's map of 1799 (below) it would appear there were two or, possibly, three entrances to the Yard: A possible one from Cavendish Court (the old entrance), and definite ones from Houndsditch (the main entrance) and from Bishopsgate along the passage that had led to the Dolphin Inn.

Beck 1902 says that the yard between the two meeting houses "opened out on to Houndsditch, from which was made the principle entrance through a pair of large carriage-gates next to which, fronting the street, was a caretaker's house with rooms over the gateway; adjoining this also were premises used as a Book and Tract Depository, presided over for many years by our late Friend, Edward Marsh."

In the marriage registers the name of the meeting varies. Terms include an assemble "near Devonshire Square" or "near Houndsditch" or "in Houndsditch" or "their meeting house, Houndsditch" or "Houndsditch near Bishopsgate".

1799 Devonshire Street faced across Bishopsgate to a street called Old Bethlem (see map). A short walk along this led to the famous Bethlem where lunatics were on public display. The Yorkshire Quaker family of Tuke (see below) were, at this time, developing new methods of confining and treating insane Quakers, which later generations were to adopt in public asylums

Elizabeth Fry began her married life with Joseph Fry in St Mildred's Court, "close to the Bank and he Guildhall" in the summer of 1800 . It was their home to 1807. Conveniently close to Devonshire House, leading Quakers used it for meals and lunch time naps during yearly meeting. Janet Whitney 1937, page 85 on, provides descriptions of the domestic situation and of the boredom of Elizabeth at (women's) yearly meeting.

1800-1801: Hannah Barnard silenced

Hannah Barnard, of the State of New York in North America was advised to desist from travelling, and speaking as a minister and return home by Devonshire House in 1800. She appealed to the Yearly Meeting at Devonshire House in May/June 1801 which upheld the previous decision. "It appears to us that the said Hannah Barnard does not unite with our Society in its belief of the holy Scriptures, the truth of which in several important instances she does not acknowledge, particularly those parts of the Old Testament which assert, that the Almighty commanded the Israelites to make war upon other nations - and various parts of the New Testament relating to miracles, and the miraculous conception of Christ ."

The Quakers appointed to Yearly Meeting by London and Middlesex (on this siject) were: William Forster, William Dillwyn, Joseph Gurney Bevan, Frederick Smith, Sparks Moline, Richard Phillips."

Edward Newman and the Devonshire Street printing house

1801 Edward Newman born to Ann and George and Newman in Hampstead. Hannah Prichard was present at his birth. Edward went in partnership with Luxford and Co., Printers, 65, Ratcliff Highway, London in 1839. He may have become the sole owner in 1840 about when the firm moved to 9 Devonshire Street. Edward Newman "did much of the printer's work for the Society" (Beck 1902), but the firm's main output must have been in natural history - See below - His son Thomas Prichard Newman continued the printing works.

17.7.1820 Insurance for Messrs Burton and Co 9 Devonshire Street Bishopsgate Street printers. In 1828 Verses for the parish of Aldersgate were printed and sold by Richard Clay, 9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, who also printed for the Quakers. From Bread Street, Clay printed the first edition of Edward Newman's The Entomological Magazine in 1833. By 1844 it is E. Newman, Printer, 9 Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate.

1835 Purchase of blocks in Cavendish Court and of houses in Devonshire Street. Beck (1902) says that purchase in Cavendish Court allowed a building for women's committees and similar activities behind the women's meeting house. (C on the plan).

1840 The first edition of A History of British Ferns and Allied Plants by Edward Newman published by John Van Voorst in Paternoster Row. The 1854 edition shows "E. Newman, Printer, 9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate" as the printer.

Modern photographs by Basher Eyre record the site of Edward Newman's printing works. It is also the site of Fisher's Folly and one of the access points to the old Meeting House.

Tracts and books - Tract Library Association

Edmund Fry upholsterer etc became a bookseller. He was the nephew of Edmund Fry the type-founder and father of Edmund Fry the artist. Edmund Fry bookseller was born in Worship Street on 9.1.1783. His wife, Harriet, was born about 1780.

23.6.1807 Edmund Fry, upholsterer of Bristol, son of Henry Fry, printer, of Basinghall Street in the City of London and Priscilla, his wife, married Harriet Windover Reeves, daughter of John Reeves of Kingsclear, Hants, Surgeon, and Elizabeth Ann his wife. at a public assembly of Quakers near Devonshire Square, London. Witnessed by William Storrs Fry, Tea dealer of Mildreds Court, Poultry, London and Edmund Fry, Letter founder, Type Street, Finsbury.

After their marriage, Edmund (upholsterer and cabinet-maker) and Harriet lived in Bristol, where Cornelius Fry was born 29.3.1808 and another Edmund Fry on 18.9.1811.

October 1809 Address of Henry Fry of Overton (a Quaker) to A brief Account of the lately-intended visit of two Female Preachers of the people called Quakers, to the inhabitants of the borough of Overton, Hants London: Printed 1810; reprinted 1824, For Edmund Fry, 73, Houndsditch. [Horwoods Map (1799) shows irregular numbering at the ed of Houndsditch. 73 is on the other side of the road to the men's meeting house. 84 Houndsditch (see 1841 below) is near the entrance to the men's meeting house. 4 Bishopsgate is between Houndsditch and Cammomile Street]

2.5.1816 Sarah Fry born at 73 Houndsditch. Hubert Fry born in Houndsditch 22.5.1818.

1824 "The Following (among many others) are Sold by Edmund Fry, Paper Hanger and Bookseller, 73, Houndsditch." [Catalogue at end of 1824 book]

1824 A depository of tracts and books to be formed at 73, Houndsditch, under the care of Harriet W. Fry. To be open to any persons inclined to purchase, at reasonable prices, wholesale or retail. The committee were all women and the aims of the Assocition were "To form an extensive but well chosen selection of instructive and improving Tracts, and other small publications, suitable for the use of labourers, mechanics, servants, and children ; and to assist persons wishing to form small Tract LENDING Libraries, among the poor in England and elsewhere." The Treasurer was Mariabella Howard. Secretaries were Anna Bradshaw and Jane Forster. The members of the committee in 1824 were Lucy Bradshaw, Anne Dale, Caroline Fry, Rachel Foster, Isabella Harris, Martha Horne, Elizabeth Howard, Rachel Stacey and Rachel Womerslet.

21.11.1833 Harriet Windover Fry (aged about 53) of 73 Houndsditch, wife of Edmund Fry, died. On Sunday 1.12.1834 she was buried by Thomas Colcock in Bunhill Fields

9.9.1839 Partnership disolved by mutual consent between Edmund Fry and Cornelius Fry who had been in business as booksellers, stationers and paper-hangers at 4 Bishopsgate Without under the firm "Edmund Fry and son". Edmund to continue the business and responsible for all debts. (Gazette). Cornelius, who married Lydia, became a grocer in Bethnal Green.

1.7.1840 Shoreditch railway terminal, renamed Bishopsgate on 27.7.1846. Liverpool Street opened as its replacement in 1874

1841 Census: Edmund Fry (aged 58), Bookseller, living with Sarah Fry (aged 25), Hubert Fry (aged 23) and one male and one female servant in Bishopsgate. The death of an Edmund Fry living in East London (which included Bishopsgate) was recorded in July-September 1841.

1841 The Depository of Friends' books at 84, Houndsditch was set up in 1841, "the subject of providing a public depot for the sale of Friends' Books near these premises " having been brought before the Yearly Meeting by a Meeting for Sufferings minute. Edward Marsh was appointed Superintendent, and the Printing Committee drew up paper of regulations as to the conduct of the business, and a catalogue of books to be sold. (Littleboy 1920)

1846 Testimonies concerning deceased Ministers presented to the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London, 1846. London: Edward Marsh, Book and Tract Depository of the Society of Friends, 84, Houndsditch. London: Edward Newman and Samuel Darton, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate.

1851 Edward Newman a master printer, employing 8 men at 9 Devonshire Street, City of London. A son, Thomas Prichard Newman (1846-1915), started working there as an office boy when he left school (about 1860?), and worked his way up. He took over from his father in 1870, when he was 24. Edward died in 1876. Thomas Prichard Newman remained active in the printing firm throughout his life. Amongst his many articles are "The Housing of the London Poor in 1884.

1858 Edward Newman's The Zoologist was the first to reprint articles from the Proceedings of the Linnean Society by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on the variation of species. In 1861 Newman published a long and thoughtful analysis of the third edition of The Origin of Species, and the related debate, in which he criticised Darwin for not having given weight to the authority of God's revelation through the Bible as a source of knowledge.


May 1865

YEARLY MEETING 1860

1861 Birdnesting : being a complete description of the nests and eggs of birds which breed in Great Britain and Ireland by Edward Newman. Published London: E. Newman 1861. 52 pages

1864 Agreement tha the underground railway would not pass under Quaker meeting houses. (White 1971 p.65

May 1865 Four unposed stereographs by Samuel Francis May (1842-1900), taken in the courtyard of Devonshire House, of the Yearly Meeting gathering. See top hats and billowing dresses. Samuel Francis May, a Quaker, had "Photographic Rooms' at 5 Bishopsgate Street from 1865 to 1868. His studio was taken over by Charles Alfred Gandy.

Friends House Library also has a carte de visite of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite (senior), taken in Athens by Margaritis et Constantin. source

1866 Lease on Bishopsgate building converted to Friends Institute. (I on plan)

Houses in Devonshire Street (including 9) owned by the Quakers and other parts of the Devonshire House property were "scheduled for purchase by a railway company" (early 1860s?). "The project for their use as a station was defeated and arrangements were made that after the line (which was an underground one) was completed, the site above ground should be returned to Friends. The money received in compensation, allowed the erection of new premises, which, after having been let to tenants for some years, have now for the most part been devoted to the purposes of the Society, and by alterations adapted to their present use as added committee-rooms, and offices for the Foreign and Home Mission work, and that of the Friends's Temperance Union, Friends Tract Association, and Friends' First-day School Association." (Beck 1902)

1868 and 1875 Purchase of houses in Houndsditch and Bishopsgate Street.

2.10.1874 Local trains began using Liverpool Street station, which was fully opened on 1.11.1875. The adjoining Great Eastern Hotel 1884. The sub-surface "Metropolitan Railway", running not far below ground level, also had a station from 1875.

18.11.1876 Aldgate underground station opened. The tunnel from Liverpool Street runs under the buildings on the south side of Devonshire Street (now Row) and under Devonshire Square.

1878-1879 Devonshire Chambers (now 142-146 Bishopsgate) built on the corner of Bishopsgate and Devonshire Street (now Row). Facade retained 2015: "in painted stone with restrained classical detailing, with a central bow window and columns". "142-150 Bishopsgate is a smaller scale Victorian building fronting onto Bishopsgate with a return elevation to Devonshire Row, in retail and office use."

1879 A terrace of brick warehouses with shallow three and five light windows built along Devonshire Street from Devonshire Chambers. Now 1-17 Devonshire Row (odd numbers). Front sections retained 2015. "Nos. 1-11 and 13-17 Devonshire Row comprise a smaller scale Victorian terrace again providing retail accommodation at ground and lower ground with offices above."

1889 Date on large dred brick floral plaque on Devonshire Row wall of 154 Bishopsgate.

1894 Devonshire House on the Ordnance Survey

Janet Whitney (1937) describes Devonshire House as having "stood on the east side of Bishopsgate; it faced the shops between St Botolph's Church and Liverpool Street" (footnote, p.85).

It is easy to see how the Devonshire House Hotel front became the face of Devonshire House. Beatrice Potter (Later Webb), who worked on social science from the hotel in the late 1880s, described it as the Quaker headquarters.

A. Men's meeting house

C. Women's committee rooms

D. Devonshire Street house/s

E. Women's meeting house

I. Friends' Institute

X. Old Meeting House

See also 17th century

See also Stone House Court

1906 Headley Brothers of 14 Bishopsgate Without published "Yearly Meeting, 1860 : from original pen and ink sketches" by Joseph John Willson 1836-1903 [illustrator].


1907 Albert Edward Richardson (1880-1964) and Charles Lovett Gill (1880-1960) formeed their architectural practice. They designed the buildings which replaced Devonshire House.


1908 Friends' Association for Abolition of State Regulation of Vice. M. Gregory. 19, Devonshire Chambers, Bishopsgate Street, Without,
1908 Howard Association. Thomas Homes. 43, Devonshire Chambers, Bishopsgate Without.


1910 Bishopsgate formed by merging Bishopsgate Street Within and Bishopsgate Street Without. Within and Without had met at the junction of Wormwood Street and Camomile Street. The street numbering was altered. (
(source)

2.4.1911 Joseph William Chalkley, part proprietor, signed the census for Devonshire House Hotel, 136 Bishopsgate, London, EC. It had 74 rooms. 42 people living there including servants. Elinore Marie Essex (27) was the manageress and Isabel Elizabeth Ford (34) the housekeeper.


1913 Leaflet issued by the Peace Committee of the Society of Friends, 136 Bishopsgate London.


Saturday 8.4.
1916   No Conscription Fellowship. National Convention . Memorial Hall.

1920 Norman Penny FSA, Librarian, Friends Library, Devonshire House, 136 Bishopsgate

1920 Journal of the Friends Historical Society 1920. (offline text) - (offline pdf) - Includes "A History of the Friends' Reference Library: With Notes on Early Printers and Printing in the Society of Friends, Being the Presidential Address of the Friends Historical Society for the Year 1920" by Anna L. Littleboy.

The Devonshire House 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 was, until recently, still part of the name of the local Monthly Meeting to which Bunhill and Stoke Newington belong. (Devonshire House and Tottenham Monthly Meeting - archive)

1927 A deputation of "the most prominent business men in Houndsditch" petitioned the City Corporation to change the name (Houndsditch) but the City wanted to retain the historical associations. The district was, however, moved fro "the E1 postal district to the more dignified EC3" (Harold Clunn)


Stone House and Staple Court

Harold Clunn 1932 wrote that "Houndsditch was the Cinderella quarter of the City, but of late years several fine buildings have been erected here. Theses include... the Staple House, and the towering Stone House at the corner of Bishopsgate, erected on the site of the late Devonshire Hotel".

Stone House and Staple Hall were designed by Richardson and Gill in 1928. They had shops at ground and lower ground floor levels with office accommodation above.

Stone House was 128-140 Bishopsgate and 77-84 Houndsditch. Staple Hall was 87-90 Houndsditch. Postcode at time of demolition EC2M 4HX

The crooked line (yellow) of Cavendish Court is still that of Sandwich Court and shows the eastern boundary of the Quaker premises.

At 9 Devonshire Row (green), by the entrance to Cavendish Court, is the printing house of Edward Newman and Thomas Prichard Newman

Until about 2012, you could not only walk from here to Houndsditch along Cavendish Court, but could take an alternative route turning right at the first bend of Cavendish Court into a private pedestrian thoroughfare called Stone House Court. The other entrance to Stone House Court was on Houndsditch. Stone House Court ran between Stone House and Staple Hall and on the east behind Staple Hall. It was gated and closed to the public outside normal business hours.

Comparison of maps suggests that Stone House Court was close to the Devonshire House Yard of the Quakers.

In 1997 numbers 1, 3 and 5 Stone House Court became grade 2 listed buildings. They all had white faience cladding (tiles stick on brick or another sub- surface) and this was also used in Cavendish Court and on the rears of adjacent (brick) houses in Devonshire Street Row. I presume there was an intention to give a superficial stone appearance consistent with the Stone House. Faience is glazed terracotta (fired clay) and is easy to clean and maintain in smoky environments.

1 Stone House Court was a segmental bay shop front with faience cladding on the upper floors. In 2014? it was dismantled for reconstruction as an end-piece to Devonshire Row linking to the new public plaza. The new shop front will not be exactly the same as the old one.

Number 3 and 5 Stone House Court are thought to have bene Victorian buildings remodelled with later shop fronts in a similar style to that at Number 1.

1939 Devonshire Street, City, EC2 became Devonshire Row.


1977 Kelly's Post Office Directory:
Bishopsgate
Hounsditch
128 to 140 Bishopsgate: Stone House
Included Devonshire House Restaurant
136 Bishopsgate: National Westminster Bank
138 and 140 Bishopsgate: Dolcis Shoe Company
[142-146 Bishopsgate: Devonshire Chambers. Built 1878-1879].
142 and 144 Bishopsgate: Aerated Bread Company
146 Bishopsgate: Devonshire Chambers
146 and 150 Bishopsgate: J.H. Dewhaurst, butchers
Devonshire Row
152/154 Bishopsgate

Devonshire Row from Bishopsgate to Devonshire Square

South side of Devonshire Row
[1-17 Devonshire Row: A terrace of brick warehouses built 1879.
13 Devonshire Row
15 Devonshire Row
Cavendish Court

North side of Devonshire Row
[See
rear wall of 4 to 18]
4/6 Devonshire Row: Bull Public House
8 Devonshire Row:
10 Devonshire Row:
12 Devonshire Row:
16 Devonshire Row:

Cavendish Court EC3 (City) from from 17 Devonshire Row to 97 Houndsditch.
Londn Electricity Board (sub station)
3 Cavendish Court: Imperial Continental Gas
4 Cavendish Court: Cavendish Club of London

Houndsditch EC3 (City) from Bishopsgate. Noth East side
Stone House
77 and 84 Houndsditch: Lewis Tobacconists
Stone House Court
Cavendish Court

Stone House Court EC3 (City) from 90 Houndsditch to Cavendish Court.
7 Stone House Court: S.W. Mackness postage stamp dir.
Staple Hall
7 Stone House Court: Gare (Transit Services)


15.8.1997 Grade 2 listed building status for 1, 3 and 5, Stone House Court EC3


2005

(Stone House maps offline)


2.12.2005: Background Papers: Heron Tower DESIGN STATEMENT (offline) - ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT (VOL 1) - ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT (VOL 3) - ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT (VOL 3 - APPENDICES) - Drawing - APPLICATION DRAWINGS

September 2007 Basher Eyre joined Geograph. In April 2015 he said "The city of London, the historic buildings will be there for ever, but around them you could photograph the streets every five years and it would be different. Photographs of Cavendish Court, Stone House Court and nearby were taken on Sunday 12.10.2008 and Saturday, 13.2.2010. All of Stone House Court and part of Cavendish Court has since been demolished.

2010

4.6.2010: Applicants covering letter (offline) relating to Stone House - Staple Hall - Stone House Court - 142-150 Bishopsgate - 1-17 Devonshire Row 19.8.2010: Decision Notice (offline) -

19.7.2010 GLC Planning Report Stone House, Bishopsgate. (offline) -

11.1.2011 Heron International granted planning permission by the City of London Corporation for Heron Plaza, a £500m project next to Heron Tower (now nearing completion). Heron Tower is an office block. Heron Plaza is an hotel, residential and retail site. (Planning and Transportation Committee report offline)

2014? Stone House demolished
A google street view of July 2014 shows the temporary hole to the sky opened opposite Alderman's Walk, just south of Liverpool Street, by he demolition of Stone House. This was once was the Bishopsgate entrance to Devonshire House, under
Devonshire House Hotel.

Devonshire House as a heritage site

Middlesex Street Conservation Area incorporated into Bishopsgate Street Conservation Area 14.6.2007. A Character Summary was produced for Middlesex Street Conservation Area (CSMS) in 2003 under the direction of Peter Wynne Rees, the City Planning Officer. This was superseeded by one for Bishopsgate Street Conservation Area (CSBG) in September 2014. The author of this one was Tom Nancollas.

September 2014 City of London - Bishopsgate Conservation Area - Character Summary and Management Strategy SPD

Friends House, Euston Road

1922: Euston Square Gardens (South), and their trees, removed by property speculators. Charlotte Mew's first poem of grief at the loss ("murder") of the trees. (Published January 1923)

1923: Quakers by part of the site for £45,000 and appoint a Quaker Architect, Hubert Lidbetter, to build their central offices and meeting rooms.

"Hubert Lidbetter (1885-1966) established his own architectural practice in London after the First World War... he responsible ... for a large number of Quaker meeting houses, one of his most ambitious being that on Euston Road, built 1927 (listed Grade Two)" In 1950 was joined in practice by his son Hubert Martin Lidbetter (1914- 1992).

7.5.1926 The first Meeting for Sufferings to be held at Friends House

May 1927 The first Yearly Meeting to be held at Friends House

Download Friends House History Leaflet (pdf)
Seems to have been lost. Does anyone know where they have put it?


Devonshire House and the books of Quaker discipline

It was at Devonshire House in the early 19th century that, every Whitsun, the Quaker women whitened the streets as lilies, and here, in the 19th century, that the printed works of Quaker collective discipline were written under the supervision of the Clerk of Yearly meeting, whose minutes summarised the "feeling of the meeting".

In 1738, the Quakers had begun:
Christian and brotherly advices given forth from time by the Yearly meeting in London, alphabetically digested under proper head
Quaker ABC - 1738
to 1834
as handwritten volumes made available to the clerks of the Quarterly and Monthly meetings, in which Quaker meetings were organised in regions and districts .

The first printed book was Extracts from the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London from its first Institution, which was agreed by the yearly meeting in 1782 and provided with a preface by Meeting for Sufferings on 24.1.1783. (William Tuke was appointed Clerk to yearly meeting in 1803). A second edition was issued in 1802.

Samuel Tuke (1784-1857) was Clerk to yearly meeting when the 'Beacon' controversy divided it. The author of A Beacon to the Society of Friends (1835) wanted more emphasis on the authority of written words of God (the Jewish and Christian Bible), whilst traditional Quakers like Tuke put the emphasis on the workings of the spirit. [All held the then Quaker belief that Jesus is the word of God, as stated in John's gospel]. Tuke had devoted much of his time to the third edition of Rules of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends, with Advices: Being Extracts from the Minutes and Epistles of their Yearly Meeting, held in London, from its first institution, printed and published by Darton and Harvey, Gracechurch Street, in 1834 with a long introduction "On the origin and establishment of our Christian discipline", written for the occasion by Samuel Tuke.

The 1834 book was still an ABC of Quaker Discipline in which one could look up Books (a warning) before Love and Unity (a first principle). But, after this, the Society put aside its alphabet.

In 1861, book chapters were grouped into three parts: Christian doctrine, Christian practice and Church government. And then, in 1883, yearly meeting finalised what was to be the last revison of the whole book for over a hundred years: The Book of Christian Discipline of the Society of Friends in Great Britain


1857 Whitechapel burial ground closed. This picture is reproduced from The London Burial Grounds by Mrs Basil Holmes in 1896

1896 Burial-ground (closed) - very nearly an acre. Now leased by the Quakers to the Whitechapel District Board of Works, who maintain it as a public recreation ground. "It is well laid out and well kept, being chiefly used by children."


Ratcliff Meeting

Ratcliff lies between Wapping and Limehouse

Ratcliff Meeting began when in 1655 Captain James Brock of Mile End opened his house to Quakers. At this time Ratcliff was one of the rural hamlets east of the Tower of London, close to the industry of the river Thames.

About 1666 land in Ratcliff was bought by Thomas Yoakley on behalf of the Quakers. This was used for a burial ground and a meeting house. Numbers grew and in 1700 a sister meeting was established at Wapping. Wapping was part of Ratcliff Monthly Meeting for nearly a hundred years.

1734 The land being originally copyhold, was enfranchised for £21. (Holmes 1896 p.139)

"A little meeting-house with a burial-ground attached in Wapping Street, which seems to have been used until about 1779". (Holmes 1896 p.139) [Sun Tavern Fields, Shadwell. Wapping Street.}

1794 Meeting House erected that was pulled down in the summer 1935. This stood at the corner of School House Lane and Brook Street.

1821 Junction of Ratcliff and Barking brought Plaistow Particular Meeting into the monthly Meeting

17.5.1832 " James Bull of Whitecross Street in the Parish of St Lukes (so called), London, Mddx, Oilman. Son of Daniel Bull of Ramsden Bell House in the County of Essex, farmer and Sarah his wife and Mary Ann Radley. Daughter of Isaac Radley of Purleigh in the county of Essex, farmer and Mary his wife, took each other in marriage, in a public assembly of the people called Quakers in Brook Street, Ratcliff in the County of Middlesex."

The Meeting declined in the nineteenth century, and the Bedford Institute took it over.

1867 Opened by Bedford Institute. (Farrand Radley, who gives the address as Friends Meeting House, Schoolhouse Lane, E1)

1895 Burial-ground - 800 square yards - approached through the house on the south side of the meeting-house. It is neatly kept, and has four small upright stones.

1900

1935 The Ratcliff building was declared a dangerous structure and had to be demolished; various plans for replacing it were overtaken by the war.

1941 Book of Meetings: Ratcliff: 30 members. 21 Barnardo Street, E1. Sunday meetings 11am and 6.30pm. Tuesday 7.30pm. Clerk: Frederick Newbery, 6/425 The Highway, E1.

Ratcliff still has no building of its own. For many years, the meeting was held every Sunday at Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial St, London E1. (External link to history of Toynbee Hall

In autumn 2003 they moved to:
DeafPLUS,
Trinity Chapel,
Key Close,
London, E1 4HG
Sundays 11.00 a.m. to 12
(map link),

Ratcliff is now Bethnal Green. Meeting for Worship is held Sunday at 10.30 am at 17 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PJ

2003 Ratcliff and Barking Monthly Meeting website - archive   It became North East Thames Area Meeting.
"Sitting above the Thames estuary, Ratcliffe and Barking Monthly Meeting comprises seven indivudual meetings for worship". These were Harlow, Leigh, Ratcliffe, Romford, Southend, Walthamstow and Wanstead.

Barnet Grove in Bethnal Green

1874 Opened. (Farrand Radley, who gives the address as Friends Hall, 36 Barnet Grove, E2.)

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. (modern map)

1886 At Hart's Lane six Quakers and twelve other teachers were engaged in the work, which is similar to that at the Bedford Institute, but of smaller extent as accommodation was much more limited. The junior Sunday School was full and applicants had had to be refused, but new buildings were being erected. The Adult School for men had an average attendance of thirty-five. A Mission Church had also been formed.

1897 Hart's Lane became Barnet Grove. (Bruce Hunt's London street change list 2003)

1938 Charles Haynes Haworth and Harriet Haworth were registered to vote at 18 Victora Park Square. This is the building that has since become the office of Quaker Social Action.

1941 Book of Meetings: 38 members. Friends' Hall, Barnet Grove, E2. Sunday meetings 11am and 6.30pm. Clerk: Robert H. Mason, 8 Eddison Road, Crouch End, N8. Half a mile from Bethnal Green (London North Eastern Railway). Buses 8 and 60 to Barnet Grove.

1944 "Charles Haworth, warden of the Barnet Grove branch of the Bedford Institute (36 Barnet Grove, London E2) would be very grateful for any swimming caps which readers could spare. Owing to the rubber shortage, the girls cannot always get caps and sometimes have to miss swimming for that reason." An advertisement in the same issue asks for help - "SWIMMING CAPS, tennis balls, rubber shoes and sports shoes are in great demand for summer activities - please send your old, unused ones to Charles Haworth, Friends Hall, Barnet Grove, E2)".

1945 Registered to vote at Friends Hall, 36 Barnet Grove: Phyllis Malile, Charles H. Haworth and Harriet Haworth, May Scott, John W.H. Maule

1950s Someone a child at 29 Barnet Grove which was opposite The Friends Hall. "It was run by Harriet and Charles who i think were Quakers. I attended sunday school and later The Woodcraft Folk (a kind of scouts). I'm sure there was a youth club but i was too young at the time. I remember jumble sales and taking part in a show in the big hall, there was a christmas club and film shows. My parents told me they sheltered in the basement during the air raids, also there was a mothers club, which I have a photo of. I remember the yearly mum's and children outing to Eastbourn by coach, on the way stopping off at Polegate for lemonade, where there some retirement homes, I think?"

1970: Lease surrendered. Work carried on by local Unitarians, Mansfield Street. (Farrand Radley archive)

Barking

Barking Meeting formed in the late 1650s

1672 Burial Ground established by the Barking Meeting of the Society of Friends. "Across North Street from the Burial Ground is the former Society of Friends Meeting House, converted from part of an old house purchased in 1673 but completely rebuilt in 1908 in Queen Anne style".

from 1673 "Barking Friends used Tate's Place, or part of it".

1758 A purpose-built meeting house. Replaced 1908.

1845 Elizabeth Fry buried.

By 1870s Quaker Meeting had transferred to Wanstead.

Late 19th century Elizabeth Fry's stone moved to Wanstead.

1891 Institute opened by the Bedford Institute Association. (Farrand Radley, who gives the address as Friends Meeting House, North Street, Barking)

1908 Building completely rebuilt in Queen Anne style. Architect Charles James Dawson (1850-1933). (biography by Bill George

"The Barking Meeting House closed in 1924 [???] and eventually the building was sold to the East London Sikh community and inaugurated as a Sikh Temple in 1971."

1941 Book of Meetings: Barking: 28 members. North Street. Sunday meetings 11am and 6.30pm. Clerk: Edward A. Skinner, 103 Frizlands Lane, Dagenham, Essex

about 1950 Bedford Institute Association work at Barking ceased

1980 The burial ground became a small public garden and all remaining headstones and monuments were then removed.

A fragment of the 19th century east, north and south brick walls of the burial ground survive, including on North Street the iron gate flanked by brick piers with the old Society of Friends Quaker Burial Ground sign. 20th century railings border the fourth side. Most of the site is turfed, with tarmac paths and some small trees including holly and ash on the perimeter beds. Apart from being mown the condition is poor with broken seats and litter bin, and a partially collapsed brick wall. Two signs have been erected: 'Quaker Burial Garden - A Garden of peace and rest, please respect this historic site. No ball games'. (London Gadens online)

April 1971 Barking building sold to Singh Sabha London East - who are proud of their Quaker heritage!

Heritage: see Devonshire House and Bunhill Fields: 1972 - 2015

Plaistow

1677 The Plaistow meeting was being held at the house of Solomon Eccles. " Solomon's wife Ann left the meeting the reversion, after his death, of two cottages and land in North Street, and in 1704 a meeting-house was built on that site. It was probably there that John Wesley preached on his visits to Plaistow in 1739." (Victoria County History - Essex)

1870 "decided to transfer the meeting to Wanstead, to which area the richer members had already migrated", but "agreed that meetings should continue in the 'small meeting-house' adjoining the main building."

1900 Bedford Institute Association erected an iron building in Green Street, Forest Gate. Called Barclay Hall in memory of Joseph and Jane Barclay. Within a year about 800 people were connected with its activities.

1904 Sunday meeting Barclay Hall recognised, as Forest Gate, as part of Radcliff and Barking monthly meeting

1906 A permanent brick Barclay Hall opened.

1925 Lease on Plaistow building surrendered by six weeks meeting.

1941 Book of Meetings: Forest Gate: 44 members. Barclay Hall, Green Street, E9. Sunday meetings 11am and 6.30pm. Clerk: Marjorie Derring, 101 Greenhill Grove, Manor Park.

1948 Barclay Hall bought by the borough council and reopened in 1949 as an adult education and social centre.

Wheeler Street - Quaker Street and, much later, Bedford House

Wheeler Street meeting house in Spitalfields was on the corner of Westbury Street, which became known as Quaker Street instead. (modern map)

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.

Open Street Map showing Bedford House.

Reading Beck and Ball 1869 suggests the meeting house of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century were not on the same site as the Bedford Institute buildings of the nineteenth century.

The Bedford Institute Quaker Social Action

In the early nineteenth century Quaker interest in this area of Spitalfields was revived by Peter Bedford (1780-1864), a silk merchant of 28 Steward Street (modern map)

26.7.1780 Peter Bedford born in Old Sampford, Essex. His parents, Isaac Bedford, a draper, and Mary [Smith], were Quakers and Mary Burrows and Ann Clarance (accoucheur) were present at the birth and signed the register prepared by John Kendell, Register to Essex Quarterly Meeting.

16.3.1797 and 9.12.1801 His father and, then, his mother died at Plaistow.

1810 to 1835 Lived at 28 Steward Street. He retired to Croyden in 1836.

Peter Bedford 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,

April 1849 Friends First Day School opened in Quaker Street by some Quakers from Devonshire House Meeting.

Timelines for social science history and crime when Peter Bedford died.

1.12.1864 Peter Bedford died in Croydon. There are problems about commemorating socially significant Quakers that in the case of Elizabeth Fry, who died in 1845, and Peter Bedford could be resolved by building an institution.

"In 1865 the Bedford Institute was formally opened to provide the "labours of a religious, social and benevolent character among the poor and ignorant of...Spitalfields and Bethnal Green. Preference was given to children who had received no previous education, and reading and writing were the subjects taught. Along with the opportunity for education, the BIA also provided meetings for Band of Hope, Sewing and Mothers' Meetings, Bible classes and Temperance meetings. It also provided funds for the payment of rent arrears, provision of meals, and provision of clothing after confirmation by district visitors that relief was needed. Again a focus on moral reformation is evident in the provision of education to the poorer classes, but the Bedford Institute also incorporated philanthropic endeavours, along with the teaching of practical skills" (Jones 2010)

1865 William Tallack Peter Bedford, the Spitalfields Philanthropist London, S.W. Partridge

The picture of Peter Bedford conversing with two thieves is the frontispiece to William Tallack's book. As Tallack was a friend of Peter, a likeness seems probable.

William Tallack's (1831-1908) career as a penal reformer is said to have been started as a result of the young man's friendship with the elderly Peter.

"As an example in point, - on the 14th of February, 1865, there was opened (at the corner of Quaker Street and Wheeler Street, Spitalfields) a very neat and spacious edifice, built by the Society of Friends for the joint purposes of a Sunday-school, a working men's institute, and a chapel for occasional services by preachers of their own and other denominations. At the opening meeting the chair was occupied by a second Gurney Barclay (the head of the Lombard Street firm), and he was supported by his cousin, Mr. Samuel Gurney, M.P. These two gentlemen alone had, between them, personally contributed upwards of a thousand pounds towards the erection of the new building. Amongst the large company present there were representatives of most of the very names of the projectors of the old beneficent societies, established in Spitalfields fifty years ago. And to connect the past and the present still more closely, it was decided to call the new premises "The Bedford Institute", in honour of the genial and warm-hearted old gentleman, the subject of the present sketch, with whom, for two generations, almost all that was good in Spitalfields' efforts had been more or less associated." pages 24-25

1865 The Bedford Institute, named after Peter Bedford, built in Wheeler Street, Spitalfield. Its architect was William Beck of 33 Finsbury Circus. The Testimony of Devonshire House Monthly Meetin on Beck's death in 1907 says "It was largely his enthusiastic energy that founded the Bedford Institute and Friend's mission work in London and guided the Institution's extended work later" (Simon Dixon and Peter Daniels' introduction to Beck and Ball)

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.

1866 Cholera killed over five thousand people living in the Whitechapel area in the last of the four 19th century epidemics in London. In The Friends (page 243) William Beck wrote:

"new premises were built and had already been opened when a visitation of cholera drew the sympathetic attention of all England to this afflicted district, and the help that poured in from all quarters led to these buildings being called after good old Peter, the " Bedford Institute," inaugurating its subsequent career of manifold usefulness. About this time, 1865 to '70, some Friends had felt it their duty to hold Meetings in the crowded districts of the East End. A large tent obtained many years before for Samuel Capper when under religious concern, to hold meetings in country places of our Western Counties "was discovered stored away under a London Meeting-House, This was now set up in a disused Burial Ground in Whitechapel, with such evident blessing that during another summer it was asked for by an earnest promoter of such services (not himself a Friend), and he set William Booth (then just come to London seeking a sphere of labour) to conduct gospel services in it which proved so successful that this old tent became as a cradle, out of which his future East End work developed into the enormous proportions of the Salvation Army."
2.7.1865 William Booth's first tent meeting. He was invited to preach by the East London Special Services Committee, including Richard Cope Morgan and Samuel Chase, editors of The Revival (which became The Christian after 1870. The tent blew down in the autumn (1865) and the East London Christian Revival Society moved its meetings indoors.

"On William Booth obtaining permanent quarters, Friends shifted the tent to another of their closed Burial Grounds, near Bunhill Fields, where it also attracted, during several summers in succession, various zealous workers, both in and out of the Society, so that when finally wrecked during a heavy storm Friends replaced it by an iron room. In this grew up an Adult [p.241] School with other work of bo much promise as to lead to the erection at great cost of the new permanent Memorial Buildings in which all kinds of Mission Work now find excellent accommodation on a site close to where George Fox and other valiant in the Lamb's army were laid to rest."

1867 Bedford Institute Association formed by the Bedford Institute, Peel and Ratcliff.

1867 Thomas Frederick Ball (1834-16.5.1894) appointed as secretary of the Bedford Institute First-Day School and Home Mission Association.

1871 Plans to build missions on the disused burial grounds

1873 Some kind of christian society established in connection with the Adult School or other work at the Bedford Institute. This was the second oldest of twelve tabulated by Ellwood Brockbank in 1895. The oldest was Sunderland (about 1869). The next was Severn Street, Birmingham about 1874.

February 1874 Thomas Frederick Ball dismissed as secretary

1874 Barnet Grove and tent at Bunhill followed by iron room in winter 1875.

1877 Theodore Godlee secretary of the Bedford Institute. As a member of six weeks meeting he found himself rising to give different views in the same meeting.

1881 Bunhill Memorial Buildings

1886 Mission work conducted under the care of the Bedford Institute First-day School and Home Mission Association, at the Bedford Institute, Spitalfields - Hart's Lane Hall, Bethnal Green - and the Memorial Buildings, Bunhill Fields. Also at Peel, Ratcliff, and Deptford.

At the Bedford Institute thirty-six Quakers and thirty-nine other teachers were engaged in the work. Most of the Quakers belonged to Stoke Newington Meeting. The Sunday schools had an average attendance of 486 adults and children. A Scholars' Meeting had an attendance averaging 140. A Mission Church had 190 members "and serves greatly to strengthen the spiritual growth of the more thoughtful scholars". Special children's meetings were held on Sunday evenings, with an average attendance of 81.

The "extensive work carried on at this centre" included week-evening schools, Sunday breakfast meetings, a total abstinence society, a Band of Hope, Mothers' Meetings, an Invalid Kitchen, Bible-reading meetings, visiting the poor and periodical tract distribution at their Homes, open- air preaching, and special evangelistic services.

1891 Barking Meeting House, closed 1830, reopend as both a meeting and Bedford Institute.

1894 William Beck's building replaced by a red brick gabled building constructed to a florid English Renaissance design by Rutland Saunders. The red brick from Rowlands Castle Brick Fields. Used with Monks Park stone and terracotta dressings. Rutland Saunders and Henry T. Chalcraft carrying on business as Architects and Surveyors at 48 Bishopsgate Street as "Edward Saunders and son" dissolved their partnership from 18.1.1904.

1895 Hoxton Hall became the the Bedford Institute's eighth centre.

1901 Iron building erected at Forest Gate

1903 Peter Bedford: The Spitalfields Philanthropist by William Beck, London, Headley Brothers.

1903 Walthamstow. Greenleaf Road

1915 Bedford Institute First Day School and Home Mission Association published Fifty Years Story of the Bedford Institute 1865-1915 by Alexander Alfred Tuke, London

1917 In considering the annual report of the Bedford Institute Association, London Yearly meeting were "impressed anew with the need of men of all races and classes for the salvation of Jesus Christ". The report began by saying that its work had been maintained "in each of its nine centres" although "severely handicapped in many ways by the effect of the war". Work included "religious services which are regularly held every week in no less than twelve different buildings. Seven Meetings for Worship are also held every Sunday morning"

Bedford Institute Association Centres
1941 Book of Meetings (page 144):
Barking: Meeting House, North Street
Bethnal Green: Friends Hall, Barnet Grove, E2
Bunhill Fields: Memorial Buildings, Roscoe Street, EC1
Forest Gate: Barclay Hall, Green Street, E7
Hoxton: Hoxton Hall, 128 Hoxton Street and 1 Wilk's Place, N1.
Peel: 33 Lloyd Baker Street, King's Cross, WC1
Ratcliff: Friends Institute, 21 Barnardo Street, E1
Spitalfields: The Bedford Institute, Quaker Street, E1
Walthamstow: Friends' Hall, Greenleaf Road, E17

Bedford Institute not needed?

"During the Second World War, the East End of London suffered from heavy bombing. Homes were destroyed and residents dispersed to other areas, breaking up old communities. In the post-war period, the newly established welfare state, together with new legislation, ensured a better standard of living for many. Some of the work previously done by the BIA was no longer needed." (Quakers in the world)

1947 The Bedford Institute moved from Bedford House to Hoxton Hall. Bedford House was converted for industrial use as a warehouse and bottling plant for E.J.Rose ans Co Ltd, wholesale suppliers of spirits and wine. When they moved out the building remained empty for 20 years.

1950 Bedford Institute First Day School and Home Mission Association published One Hundred Years of Friends? Service in East London by John Hoare, which was reprinted from The Friends? Quarterly London

1967 Bedford Institute Association, 128a Hoxton Street, London, N1 published B.I.A. Centenary Report, 1867-1967 , Quaker Service in East London [Box 532/15 somewhere]

Friends Neighbourhood House

Friends Neighbourhood House in Lonsdale Square, Islington, was run by the Bedford Institute Association in the early 1970s [from 1967?] to support what was then a poor area, with nurseries, adventure playgrounds and other facilities.

Friends and Neighbours in Islington: The story of Friends Neighbourhood House by Hope Hay Hewison. Published London: Race Relations Committee of the Social Responsibility Council of the Society of Friends, 1972. 4 and 26 pages: illustrated with a map.

Friends Neighbourhood House: A Quaker project in Islington 1967-1978 by Sam Clarke and Paul Henderson (1942- ). Published London (Friends House, Euston Rd., NW1 2BJ) : Friends Community Relations Committee (Social Responsibility Council), [1978].iv and 52 pages

1968 Peter Bedford Project

1972: Re-launch of the Bedford Institute Association, giving rise to projects concerned with ex-offenders and employment training.

1977 Michael Sorensen, Director of the Bedford Institute Association, moved its head office from Hoxton Hall to Bunhill

Late 1980s Activities of the Bedford Institute Association began to grow rapidly.

1998 The Bedford Institute Association was renamed Quaker Social Action

The following list of projects relates to about 1999

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.

Quaker Social Action, Bunhill Fields Meeting House, Quaker Court, Banner St, London EC1Y 8QQ.
Tel/fax: 020 7 490 2184.

Until February 2006, Quaker Social Action had its offices at Bunhill.

2006 Quaker Social Action moved to 18 Victoria Park Square Bethnal Green. It is now at 17 Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PJ

August 2010 Quakers and Social Reform in England 1780 - 1870 Ann Maree Jones. Thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University.

2015

"Today, 49% of residents in Tower Hamlets, one of the key areas in while QSA works, are from ethnic minorities, with one third being of Bangladeshi origin. The area has high rates of unemployment, indebtedness and homelessness. One in every two children in Tower Hamlets is considered to be living in poverty.

QSA works with families and individuals, helping them to tackle everyday issues and giving them a voice. Current projects (as of 2015) include:

Down to Earth, which provides practical help to those struggling with funeral expenses

Made of Money, which provide three to six week courses of workshops to people on low incomes in east London, teaching the use of planning and monitoring tools, discussing budgets and financial products. There are also specific workshops for women in the process of escaping domestic violence, helping them to find financial independence.

Homestore, which - for the past 25 years - has collected unwanted good quality furniture from households in east London, and made it available alongside new white goods to people on a low income.

As well as these projects, QSA runs or supports a number of campaigns which seeks to give a voice to those who live on a low income, feel socially isolated, have sporadic or insecure employment, have been homeless or in prison - those who, as it says on their website, "feel that nobody will listen to their stories or bear witness to their everyday experiences."

Current campaigns, as of 2015, include the Fair Funeral Campaign, which seeks to influence both government and funeral providers to do more for those struggling to pay for funerals. QSA is also a member of the Living Wage campaign (which lobbies for employers to pay workers enough to provide an adequate living) and the Who Benefits? Campaign (which seeks to counter the negative image of those receiving government benefits). " (Quakers in the world)

Bunhill index Visit

The burying ground is now Quaker Gardens. In it, someone left a message to George Fox hoping that the gardens are as vibrant (living) now as when he first saw them.

Before Quakers - Before Bunhill - "Our burial ground under Bunhill": 1661 and burial index - 1665 extension - 1671 - 1672 - 1675 - 1682 Solomon - 1684 - 1686 - 1687 extension - 1689 extension - 1691 Fox - 1696 extension - 1708 extension - 1745 Map and extension - 1750s - 1750 - 1757 - 1760 - 1771 - 1783 - 1789 extension - Coleman front and 7½: 1798 and 1799 extension - 1810 streets - 1812 - 1813 - 1827 map - 1830 burials - 1839 extension - 1841 house in census - 1840s Chequer school - 1842 room to bury - 1845 extension - 1850s - 1851 census - 1852 - 1853 Act - 1854 last burials - 1855 closed - 1860 Peel to Devonshire? - 1861 census - 1862 - 1864 - Site for a mission: 1865 - 1866 Chequer alley - 1867 - 1868 map - 1869 - 1870 Chequers - 1871 census - 1872 - 1873 - 1874 - 1875 - 1876 - trees and Foxstone- 1877 - 1878 - 1879 - 1880 - 1881 census - 1881 building drawing - 1882 - 1883 Peabody - 1884 - 1885 - 1886 - 1887 - 1888 building drawing - 1889 poverty map - 1889 - 1891 census - 1894 - 1895 Manchester - 1896 - 1900 - 1901 census - 1908 building plan - Hymns and songs - 1911 census - 1914 - 1917 - 1924 history 50 years and tercentenary - 1925 - 1930 building plan - 1936 - 1937 - 1938 - 1939 - New role for the cottage: 1940 - bombs - Book of Meetings - 1941 - 1942 - 1945 - 1952 tercentenary, garden opening and history plus map - 1953 - 1956 - 1957 transfer of land - 1960 map - 1960 - 1965 flats arise - 1966 - 1968 - 1969 flames - 1970 healing starts - 1971 photograph - 1972 - 1973 history and proposals - 1974 - 1976 - 1979 - 1983 - 1986 - 1987 community - 1989 - 1990 photographs - 1991 tercentenary and history - 1996 - 1997 - 1998 - Shoreditch exhibition - 2005 new gardens - 2006 new meeting - 2007 - 2008 tree preservation - 2010 - 2011 photographs - 2012 - 2013 - 2015 - 2016 -

Before Quakers: Bunhill Fields deeds. 9A: 5 deeds Bunhill Fields 1635 to 7... 1656 plus old 17th (18th?) century deeds.

Bethlehem churchyard by Bishopsgate

John Lilburn died in Eltham, Kent, on 29.8.1657. Beck and Ball page 332) say his corpse was carried from the Bull and Mouth Meeting to be buried in a graveyard now under Broad Street railway terminus. Andrew Sharp in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says he was "taken for burial in the Quaker burial-ground at Bethlehem churchyard by Bishopsgate". He refers to two scuffles "over whether a velvet pall should be thrown over his coffin".
Ogilby and Morgan's Large Scale Map of the City As Rebuilt By 1676

Bunhill Fields (Quaker) Burial Ground Visit

Bunhill Fields burial ground was the first freehold property owned by Quakers, bought in 1661 and used until 1855 for 12,000 burials. It predates the more famous non-denominational ground across Bunhill Row, although the area ("Bone Hill") was long associated with burials. First known as Chequer Alley, this appears to have been the first graveyard of significant size for protestant dissenters anywhere in England and Wales.

10.11.1661 "Sir Reginald Foster, bart., and Dame Blandina, his wife, in consideration of the sum of £270, devised to Amor Stoddart, 'for the use and service of the elect people of God in scorn called Quakers,' that extreme western portion of the ground" [as it eventually became]" measuring about 90 feet square". "A portion of this plot was re-sold to Sir Reginald for a time, but ultimately came again into the possession of Friends." (Beck and Ball page 332)

FTL Archives:
Inventory Recording Purchase by Amor Stoddart - Stored In Friends House Library Strong Room One (missing)

Amor Stoddart had been an army officer in Cromwell's army. He was a long-time friend of George Fox.

A Two houses and a garden in or near Whitecross Street between the said Street and Finsbury Fields - bought of Elizabeth Hovenor / For particulars of Deeds see page 51.

B A messuage and garden in or near Chequer Alley between White Cross Street Finsbury Fields abutting North on Coleman's Alley and measuring from East to West on the south side 35 ft and from North to South on each side 90 feet - bought of Sir Reginald Fowler / For particulars of Deeds see page 52

Buried at Bunhill (Chequer Alley)
1663 - 1665 - 1682 - 1691 - 1715 - 1723 - 1724 - 1725 - 1745 - 1814 - 1815 - 1823 - 1830-1833 (numbers)

1663 Edward Burrough died 14.2.1663 [12 month 1662 old style] and was buried at Bunhill. He had been in prison for about eight months after being arrested at the Bull and Mouth in the summer of 1662. Born in 1634, Burrough had come to London in July 1654. He was 29 years old when he died. His writings were published in 1672 under the title The Memorable Works of a Son of Thunder and Consolation.

Also buried at about this time Samuel Fisher and Richard Hubberthorne "and about ninety other martyrs ... carried from the prison.

new purchase Beck and Ball (page 332) say that in February 1665 "Friends increased their territory in an easterly direction by buying two messuages and gardens in Coleman Alley, now Coleman Street, For this addition £210 was paid".

C The south part of gardens in Coleman Alley - abutting west on Quaker burial ground, and containing north to south 44 feet - east to west 62 feet - bought of Judith Rogers and others / For particulars of deeds see page 53.

1665 Among the many buried at Bunhill during the plague (1665) were 27 Quakers who died still in harbour on the ship Black Eagle "when under sentence of banishment for the Truth", as the burial register entries read.

1665 Elizabeth Eccles buried at Bunhill

1665 Ann Austin is said to have been a victim of the plague and buried at Bunhill.

1667

August 1671 original six weeks meeting formed. A "very different body" than it became in fifty years. Established by George Fox before he left England for a prolonged visit to America.

Bunhill Fields deeds. Bundle formerly marked 11F or 14F. 18 deeds and papers 4.6.1672 to 20.8.1708

1675 Meanwhile: Quakers meeting in Westminster bought a small piece of land known as "The Hole in the Wall" in Long Acre, by Castle Street, for burials. The lease was not renewed in 1757, but by then at least 510 people had been buried there. From then (and probably before) Westminster Quakers may have been buried at Bunhill. In 1838 a plot of land was bought for their use at Bunhill, but was not used as they continued to be buried in the general plots. In July 1892 someone dug up the Long Acre plot and discovered the bones. They were reburied at Isleworth (Brentford).

1682 Solomon Eccles (Solomon Eagle) buried at Bunhill

Solomon Eccles (1617?-1682), musician and Quaker missionary, was probably baptized 14.9.1617 at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the son of Solomon Eccles, a musician. Solomon the Quaker appears to have lived at Spitalfields for most of his life. His first wife Elizabeth died in 1665. He died at Spitalfields on 2.1.1682 and was buried at Chequer Alley. (Caroline L. Leachman Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

This drawing of Soloman from the imagination of George Cruikshank appeared in 1835. Other artistic representations include Solomon Eagle by Paul Falconer Poole 1843 (in Sheffield) - "Solomon Eagle Denouncing the City" by John Franklin 1847 - "Solomon Eagle striding through plague ridden London with burning coals on his head, trying to fumigate the air" Chalk drawing by Edward Matthew Ward, 1848.

1684 Monthly Meetings to appoint some members of Six Weeks Meeting. Beck and Ball (1869) (pages 95-96) suggest this date for a paper by George Fox referring to the constitution os six weeks meeting. Their summary includes:

The Six-Weeks Meeting was at this time, as it still is" [1869] "the custodian of all the title-deeds of the several Monthly Meetings of the London district"

"And as the Quarterly Meeting calls for wills, Deeds, and public legacies concerning the Church, so to recommend them to Six Weeks Meeting, and then to the Meeting of Twelve to be safely kept and registered - and to see the Trustees be faithful to their trusts, and that the trusts be faithfully performed, and that according to the donors, or testators mind or will."

Since 1923 Friends Trusts Limited appears to have become the custodian of legal documents.

Meanwhile: 1672 John Oakley, a Quaker weaver and silk merchant from Spitalfields, purchased an acre of land at Winchmore Hill with a house and barn. In 1682 he gave the property to the local Quakers on condition that he and his wife could live in the house until their deaths. Oakley died in 1684 and his wife, Elizabeth, died two years later. They were the first burials in the grounds. The barn was already being used for Quaker Meetings before Oakley's death. In 1687 the Quakers moved on to the site and made a decision to build a permanent Meeting House. A year later the new building was finished. The present Winchmore Hill Meeting House replaced this one in 1790.

September 1686 "A paper being read of ye encroachments in ye burying-ground in Chequer Alley, through several keys, drying-cloathes, settling posts, etc upon it, thereupon it was agreed, that the keys be called in, that ye washer-women and leather-dryers, mentioned in ye paper be debarred at present, that the gravemaker have a note from Richard Richardson concerning Friends' mind, that ye new door be opened only at a burial, and that also next to Chequer Alley. The graves lying open not to be suffered for ye future, but filled up at every burial before night" (Six weeks meeting minute quoted Beck and Ball page 333)

Grave maker. See 1702 - 1726 1733 - 1745 - 1769 - 1787 -

Meanwhile: 1687: Whitechapel burial ground

"This burial-ground was under the particular care of Devonshire House, and a very large number of Friends who dwelt in the eastern parts of the Metropolis were buried there; but it would seem that ministers and persons of note were almost always buried in Bunhill Fields" (Beck and Ball page 334)

1687 and 1689 extensions eastwards at the cost of £85 and £100.

D A piece of ground with a little house and shed thereupon at or near Bunhill Fields, abutting north on the Quakers Burial Ground, and west on Miching? Alley and measuring on the north side 55 feet 6 inches, on the east side 44 feet six inches - on the west side 45 feet - on the south side 56 feet 6 inches - bought of Elizabeth Bookey / For particulars of deeds see page 53

1688 Constitutional monarchy followed by 1689 Bill of Rights and Act of Toleration.

E A piece of ground formerly a garden conatiing in breadth at west end 44 feet and in length on south side 113 feet, on east side or end 88 feet, on north east 57 feet and on south next B 44 feet and on north 57 feet, and 3 houses bought of Elizabeth Boskey / For particulars of deeds see page 53.

1689 Alexander Parker (died 8.3.1689) buried at Bunhill

13.1.1690 (old style) - 13.1.1691 (new style): George Fox died. He was buried at Bunhill to the north of Alexander Parker three days later. Henry Cadbury (1972) says a gravestone was erected over his grave that gave "the initials of the name, the age, and the birthplace of the interred"

Map 1740s includes land to east south of Coleman's Alley. If Fox was buried where tradition says, I think it would be near the "rou" of "Ground".

1692 Stephen Crisp buried at Bunhill on the east side of George Fox. [George Watts was buried to the west]

1698 Francis Bugg's The Pilgrim's Progress from Quakerism to Christianity badly upset the Quakers. Its illustration of what it calls "The Quakers' Synod" has become famous. Of the leaders named, William Bingley and George Whitehead were buried at Bunhill. I do not know where Benjamin Bealing the Recording Clerk from 1689 to 1737 was buried.

1696 extension eastward at the cost of £400

1702

7.4.1702 [Six weeks minutes, volume 4 (1698 -1704): 7 2mo (April) 1702] GRAVEMAKERS TO HAVE BOOKS TO ENTER BURIALS IN: Wm [William] Fisher was to get a book to take an account of those that are buried in Friends Burying Ground and the Meeting of Twelve to pay the charge of it. And Friends that are gravemakers of other burying grounds may if they please have books if they want for that service and the charge to be paid by the Meeting of Twelve also.

1708 extension eastward at the cost of £190

1712

21.8.1712 Peter Briggins recorded in his diary that W. Powel had died that day and was buried at night. On another occasion he went "about 11 at night" to see a friend's body deposited in a vault at Bunhill Fields. (Eliot Papers p.53)

1713

1715 William Bingley (1651-1715) buried at Bunhill. He died in Tottenham, on 11.8.1715, and was buried in the Quaker burial ground in Bunhill Fields, London, on 15.8.1715.

1716 Following grave robbing at Whitechapel, Peel expressed concern to six weeks meeting lest bodies be stolen at Bunhill. They were authorised to change the tenants for Quaker and it was ordered that all gates but one should be locked at dusk and the excepted one not later than 10pm. (See 1827)

27.9.1717 Peter Briggins died aged 51.

Before 1719 John Eliot one (about 1683- 1762) and two (his son) moved from Falmouth in Cornwall to London. John Eliot one was a widower when he moved to London. He married Theophila Bellers, daughter of John Bellers in 1719.

1721 Fifty years after the six weeks meeting was formed its remaining duties were "To inspect the condition of the several meeting-houses and tenements belonging to Friends in the City, and to order the building, rebuilding and repairs thereof; to take care of burial grounds, repairing their walls, &c.; to make purchases for the general service of Friends in the City; receive the rents of tenements and parts of meeting houses let out; pay taxes for the same; the clerk's wages, and the expenses of public Friends' horses; to provide for the casual poor; - also such other contingencies as affected the Society in general, including the distribution of testimonies of denial to the various Monthly Meetings" (A quotation in Beck and Ball page 100)

Beck and Ball also say that it was the custodian of title-deeds

Other six weeks meeting sources: White 1971

13.1.1723 George Whitehead buried at Bunhill. He died 8.1.1723 aged about 87. Buried in "Friend's burial grounds, among many of his ancient brethren, next to George Fox; his burial was attended by a very large number or friends and others". (Monthly meeting at the Devonshire house)

1724 Daniel Quare, clock and instrument maker who died 21.3.1724, buried at Bunhill.

1725 John Bellers buried at Bunhill


1726 The Register [Burial] 1726 to 1757 . Front of book has Bull, Devonshire House, Peel (and possibly other) Meetings. Back of book has Westminster, Ratcliff and Horsleydown.

John Russell or Jn Ellwood? signed for Peel. John Baker for Devonshire House.

The Bunhill grave makers listed in the books were: William Highor until 1728, then Lambert Morris until 1845. Deborah Morris, his daughter (Deborah Catchpool) to 1757, then her husband Isaac Catcpool to 1769. Thomas Bishop from 1785 - George Harding 1799 - Thomas Colcock 1804 - John Clark 1836 - Mariah Clark 1843 - James Bull

1727 London Quaker burials: Figures supplied to William Maitland by Benjamin Bceiing (??), General Register-Keeper. From the Bull and Mouth Division: 27 - from the Devonshire-House Division: 72 - from the Peel Divifion: 30 - from the Ratcliff Division: 32 - From the Sothwark Division: 67 - from the Westminster division: 18. Total: 246


1727 St Luke's Church in Old Street was built between 1727 and 1733 to relieve St Giles Cripplegate. The Quaker Burial Ground appears to lie on the boundary between the two parishes. The following two purchases are after this, sometime before 1789.

F A piece of ground on or near Chequer Alley in the parish of Saint Giles without Cripplegate in the county of Middlesex bought of Judith Perry and others - / For particulars of deeds see page 54.

G A messuage and garden in Coleman Alley - parish of St Lukes - bought of John Geering and others / For particulars of deeds see page 54.

Edward L.B.C. Rogers, the last Rector of St Luke's (1959-1966) wrote a history of the church in which he said
"During the years of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Society of Friends had a large meeting in the parish each week, which maintained a friendly relationship with the Clergy of St. Luke's. This was because the Quaker Meeting House in Roscoe Street was a near neighbour. George Fox, the Founder of the Society of Friends, lived here for some years until his death in 1691. Fox is generally remembered as a travelling preacher. He was arrested in Derby in 1650, when preaching in the open air, and charged with blasphemy, for which he was convicted and spent a short time in prison. It is said that at his trial he enjoined the Judge, Judge Bennet to `quake at the word of the Lord' and this is why the word Quaker was applied to him and his followers in a derogatory manner. He was buried in the garden behind the house."

Reverand Rogers confused his history in a most friendly way and I hope he was right about the good relations.

1730

8.2.1730 " Bull Meeting 8th of the 2nd month 1730. James Lamb of the parish of Allhallows the great In thames Street London aged about sixty years who died the 25th day of the first Month 1730 searchers reported of a fever and was buried the 28 instant by me Lambert Morris. Jam' Turner" (Burial register)

1733 "The herbidge of the several burying grounds being under consideration of this meeting, it is agreed that for the future the grave diggers do not suffer any cattle whatsoever to graze therein, sheep only excepted" (Six weeks minute quoted White 1971 p. 54)

Cattle and sheep continued to travel to Smithfield Meat Market by foot until the mid-nineteenth century. Bunhill may have been their last meal.

1733

11.4.1733 John Eliot two (1707-1735) married Mariabella Farmborough Briggins, the daughter of Peter Briggins

1735 birth of John Eliot 3 (1735-1813) to Mariabella and John 2. Followed 19.12.1735 by the death of John Eliot 2. The Eliots lived in the City and mainly attended Peel. They also had a country house in Croydon and helped to establish the meeting house there. The father's funeral was on 26.12.1735? when his body was taken from his London house to the Friends Burying Ground in Croydon in a horse hearse with 6 horses. He was worth about £100,000. (Croydon Radical History Newsletter 3. See Howard and Eliot Families Eliots were a merchant family whose trade included trade overseas in cotton and duck cloth and Cornish tin. They provided finance for Robert Howard.
See 1767 - 1771 - 1789 - 1800 - 1813 -

"ROCQUE 1740" (Pencilled on the back of photocopy) 1745?

1745 John Nickolls, collector and antiquary, buried at Bunhill

5.11.1745 Lambert Morris, the gravedigger at Bunhill, and a member of Peel, died of old age. He was about 77. He was buried at Bunhill on 8.11.1745. His daughter Deborah Morris became the gravedigger at Bunhill in successsion to her father. On 23.10.1746 she married Zachariah Catchpole at Peel and he became the gravedigger (White 1971 p. 53 and marriage records). [Deborah Catchpole seems to have done much the burying even when married. In the second book she is grave maker until 1769 when Isaac takes over.



About 1757 George Fox headstone removed when the body was reinterred in order to facilitate the enlargement of the burial-ground. A stone about six inches square, bearing the initials 'G. F.,' was then built into the wall.

Letter from Benjamin Read. "??th mo., 1852. "When my father, Thomas Read, who died about thirty-four years ago, at the age of 76, was about 15 years of age, being apprenticed to John Biddle, of Whitechapel, J. B. was employed by the Society of Friends to remove a wall on part of their burial ground, Bunhill Fields, in order to enclose an additional piece of land purchased by the society. On taking down the old wall, the footings of which were many feet deep below the surface, it was found expedient to remove the coffin which contained the remains of our worthy pre-decessor, George Fox. Whilst in the act of digging, after removing the headstone, several fragments of the oak case which surrounded a leaden coffin were found, and to one of them was attached a breast-plate about 14 inches by 10, on which were engraven the initials of the name, the age and the birthplace of the interred; but the inscription was barely legible. The leaden coffin was in pretty good condition, and before it was disturbed, my father's curiosity was so great that he urged one of his fellow-workmen to cut a hole in the top of it, near the broadest part, about 12 inches by 8, so that one side or end answered for a hinge. On raising this flap, the countenance of the corpse appeared to be in a perfect state, showing the features very distinctly, with the hair over the forehead. As soon as my father had seen it, he went in haste to acquaint his master, J. Biddle, with the circumstance, but previous to his arrival the features became shapeless, and very little could be seen beside the hair and skull. Some influential Friends, on hearing what had taken place, gave directions for the flap above mentioned to be securely soldered, when they fixed upon a place for re-interment. But they would not allow the headstone to be put up again, on which there was a similar inscription to that on the breastplate. They only suffered a small stone, about six inches square, to be built in the wall opposite the head of the grave, with the initials, G.F., cut in it. This stone I well remember when a child to have seen. "Benjn. Read." (Reproduced Webb 1865 pp 369-370)

William Beck wrote that the body of George Fox "having crumbled to dust is a well-known tradition, as mentioned in a letter published in Maria Webb's book on "The Fells of Swarthmore." A London Friend, when a lad, about a century after the interment, was at work with others on the removal of a wall for the enlargement of the ground; their labours laid bare the coffin identified by initials as that of George Fox, and he, with youthful curiosity, took the opportunity of the rest having gone to a meal to force open the lid, when, surprised by an apparently perfect corpse of a fine countenance and long white hair, he ran to find his father who was at work in another part of the ground. Unfortunately the ladder slipped as they descended and so shook the coffin that all within vanished as in instant to indistinguishable dust and bones. So says the story, and I heard it myself from an independent source to that of Maria "Webb's, and long before the publication of her book. It was told me by the late Samuel Sturge (a man of great accuracy, and not given to imagination), and he said he had it direct from the Friend who, when a bricklayer's apprentice, had thus opened the once "smooth and comely" coffin with such a subsequent result."

Eliots and Howards John Eliot (3) and Robert Howard were members of Peel Meeting who are noted for a donation of graveyard land (John Eliot) and ordering the destruction of a stone commemorating George Fox.

about 1760 Thomas Howard (1736-1824) and his brother Robert began business together in London. After the while they specialised, Thomas pursuing the braziery (working in brass) business in a shop in Thames Street and Robert remaining in the tin trade in what was called Smithfield Bars. (Howard 1862)

1767 John Eliot 3 and his wife Mary built a house In Bartholomew Close, St Bartholomew's. They attended Peel Meeting.

26.11.1769 Mary Eliot, wife of John Eliot 3, gave birth to Mariabella Eliot (married Luke Howard. died 24.2.1852) in Bartholomew's Close, City of London.

1769 Complaint made of the dirt and bones thrown into the graveyard by neighbours. Six weeks meeting visitors found the grave maker had tidied up the stones and rubbish into heaps, which were to be removed. The ground was "reasonably tidy" and the few sheep sometimes let in were "rather a help to the ground than a nuisance". The grave maker later spent six days planting trees, for which he received an ex-gratia payment of 2s a day. (White 1971 p.54).

26.11.1771 Mary Eliot, wife of John Eliot 3, gave birth the baby John Eliot 4 (1771-1830) in Bartholomew's Close, City of London.

28.11.1772 Luke Howard born in Red Cross Street, St Giles, Cripplegate. He was the first son of Elizabeth, the second wife of Robert Howard and his birth was recorded by Peel. See 1796: marriage and Askesian Society - 1802: Clouds - 1813: Tottenham - 1820: seasonal country gentleman - 1828: full time country gentleman - 1830: marriage of John Eliot - 1833: The Yorkshireman - 1837: baptised - 1864: Died

About 1778 Robert Howard moved from Red Cross Street to a large house in Old Street which had room behind for extensive building, where he created a "little town" of workshops and warehouses. From 1777 (possibly 1776), Robert Howard, tin plate worker metal work is listed in Kents Directory at 115 Old Street, [Moorfields] London. See 1799 - 1819 - 1842 - 1847 - 1921 -

1779 Elizabeth Howard born. "My parents then resided in the house attached to my father's business premises in Old Street, St. Luke's. The neighbourhood of the old mansion was at that time almost rural and there was a small garden at a little distance from the house, which I well remember as a delightful play place for the younger part of the family. There was an old wall at the back on which grew the finest jasmine tree I ever remember to have seen. But all this so pleasant to my earliest recollections was sacrificed for the sake of supplying additional workshops, and as the neighbourhood became more populous of course it lost its rural character." See 1824 - 1828 - 1851 - 1862

"Ackworth School from its commencement in 1779 was a very favourite object of Robert Howard's attention. He was [on] the London Committee and a very diligent member as long as ability remained," (Howard 1862)

1780

24.3.1780 Henry Colcock born to Margaret and Thomas Colcock, Tinplate worker, Quakers, of Whitecross Street. Thomas Colcock, son of Silvester Colcock of Dorking, Surrey, was at some time apprenticed to Thomas Beck for eight years. Henry's older brother Thomas was born in Surrey about 1775. He became a tinplate worker and married in 1775. A Thomas Colcock became grave maker (30.12.1804 to 27.10.1836) in succession to George Harding (9.1.1799 -1804?)

About 1783 (according to Cadbury 1972)   Robert Howard ordered a stone destroyed

"There was once extant in Friends' Burial-ground at Bunhill Fields, a stone fixed in the wall, with the initials G.F., and a date on it, to denote the spot where 'our honourable Elder, George Fox' was interred. But on occasion of enlarging the ground this stone was removed, together with the wall, and laid by. In the corner where it lay, however, (no longer denoting anything real,) it was found to attract too much of the attention of visitors, and as my father told me, he himself pronounced it "Nehushtan", and ordered it to be knocked to pieces." The Yorkshireman, A Religious and Literary Jounal by a Friend [Luke Howard], volume four. No.80. 1835 p. 115.


1787 [Why do burial books for Bunhill, Long Lane and Whitechapel (separate) begin in 1787/1788?]

Bunhill Fields Burial Ground 1787 to 1854

15.3.1787 First entry in the Bunhill Burial Register (1787-1854). Thomas Bishop the grave maker.


1789 The western part of the graveyard was considerably widened by presentation of ground by John Eliot in 1789 and the purchase of land at various dates up to 1845 (Beck and Ball page 332) [The land added appears to be 1) possibly H, I, J, and K, not shown on the plan to 1844 (because not known what the exact position was) and 2) L, M, N. and O, added after 1825. But I cannot see how these fit the description "western part of the graveyard"]

H A piece of ground in Chequer Alley whereon two Messuages formerly stood, the north and east part thereof abutting on the wall belonging to Bunhill Fields Burial Ground - presented by John Eliot / For particulars of deeds see page 55

1791 First centenary of the death of George Fox.

1791 Death of Robert Howard (1765-1791), son of Robert. Sent to Paris to help devalop the Argand lamp, which the firm sold, he had adopted French ways. Returning to England, he fell ill and repented.

About 1794 Aged 55, Robert Howard moved hs family home to Stamford Hill, three and a half miles distant, whilst retaining Old Street as his Town House, "going in his carriage almost daily to town".

1795

30.9.1795 Thomas Colcock, son of Margaret and Thomas, married Judith Ann Roulstone, daughter of Anne (deceased) and John Roulstone, cordwainer, at Peel (St John Street). Thomas father and son both of Whites Yard, Whitecross Street and both tin plate workers. Robert Howard, Old Street tinplate worker the first witness.

1807 Abolition of the slave trade. Demonstration of gas light. Where did Quakers stand on enlightenment?


An Argand oil lamp illustrated in the 1822 portrait of James Peale by his brother Charles Wilson Peale

7.12.1796 Luke Howard, of Fleet Street, London, druggist, son of Robert Howard of Old Street, Middlesex, Tin Plate Worker and Elizabeth his wife married Mariabella Eliot daughter of John Eliot of Bartholomews Close, London and Mary his wife. Monthly Meeting of Peel's Court, John Street, Westminster.

Coleman Alley/Street Frontage

1798 - 1799 The Coleman Alley (later Coleman Street) frontage on the burial ground was obtained by buying seven houses and gardens in 1740, 1788 and 1799. Houses and gardens can be seen on Rocque's map. The metal (iron) notice below is believed to have been moved about 1881 from the wall that was built in 1799 facing Coleman (Alley or Street) . It says

" This wall and seven inches of the ground on the north side are the property of the Society of Friends 1799"
It is now fixed to the wall behind the meeting house which separated the memorial gardens from the coffee tavern in 1881.

The date on the wall suggests to me that this was also the date of the new entrance.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the first edition of Horwood's map of London showed houses and gardens along the south of Coleman Street, as in Rocque's map of 1745. By 1813, Horwood's map showed the new buildings (left), which is also shown on a map in 1827. Examination of plans later in the century (See 1876, for example) suggest that the shape outlines a complex of structures rather than a single building. 7½ Coleman Street would seem to have been built as part of this set of structures.

The present building at Bunhill is constructed of London stock bricks with red brick decoration. Stock brick, often made on site from local clay, was the main building material for London houses from 1700 to 1840 - after which bricks became more varied.
At the corner of Banner Street and Whitecross Street (130 Whitecross Street) is a house of London stock brick with similar red-brick banding to the Quaker Meeting House. This appears to date from the late eighteenth century. There is a house with a similar footprint on first edition of Horwood's map, published in or by 1799. Red-brick dressings enlivened the fronts of such houses until about the end of the eighteenth century. In the early 19th century fashion moved towards uniformity of brick, but returned to the use of red brick at the end of the century. (Alan Cox 1997)

9.1.1799 First burial in the Bunhill Burial Register with George Harding as grave maker. Served six years to end of 1804.

1800 Demonstrations outside Robert Howard's house in Old Street by people convinced that Quakers were hoarding corn in time of shortage. Robert Howard and John Eliot were amongst a delegation appointed to speak to the Home Secretary on this subject in 1801.


1804

7.3.1804 British and Foreign Bible Society formed. Robert Howard was on its committee. He, with two others, formed the Sub-Committee of Finance (elected annually) which had the care of the funds. On his death, his son Luke took his place. John Owen, Anglican historian of the society's early years, said of first taking his seat at the inaugural meeting:

"he observed, among their number, three individuals of respectable appearance, whom, from wearing their hats and from the peculiarity of their garb, he perceived to be Quakers. It had long been an opinion current in the world, that this class of Christians entertained only a qualified respect for the letter of Scripture; and that, consequently, the Bible was very little read and recommended among them. Participating in the influence of this popular prejudice, the author could not contemplate the appearance of Quakers in such a connection, without feeling a sort of astonishment, of which his subsequent experience of their conduct in the British and Foreign Bible Society has repeatedly made him ashamed."

30.12.1804 First burial in the Bunhill Burial Register with Thomas Colcock as grave maker. Served almost thirty two years to autumn 1836.

1806 See James Bull


January 1810 Lockie's Topography of London

Bunhill-Row St. Luke's, - the first W. parallel to Finsbury- square and the Artillery-ground, extending from 63, Chiswell-st. where the numbers begin and end, viz. 1 and 133, to Old-st, op. St. Luke's hospital, about 1/3 of a mile in length.

Coleman Street, Bunhill-Row,--at 83, about 1/4 of a mile on the L. from 63, Chiswell-st. leading to 45, Banner-st, Coleman-Street (Lower),- - is the end of the last, next Bunhill- row.

Coleman - Court, Coleman-Street, Bunhill-Row. - is the first on the L. a few yards from 84, Bunhill- row.

Salmon and Ball -Court, Bunhill-Row, - at 94, op. the Burying- ground, leading to Chequer-alley.

See 1844 plan - Demolished 1871-1874

Chequer-Alley, Bunhill-Row, St. Luke's, - at 99, about of a mile on the L. from 64, Chiswell- street, leading to 109, Whitecross- street.

Chequer - Court, Chequer - Alley, Bunhill-Row, - the first on the L. from 99, Bunhill - row towards Whitecross-street.

Davies - Court, Chequer - Square, Chequer-Alley, Bunhill-Row, St. Luke's, - at the N. W. corner, a few doors on the R. from 99, Bunhill-row.

Burying - Ground - Alley, Chequer. Alley, Bunhill-Row, - about the middle of the N. side of it, entering from 99, Bunhill-row, or at 107, 'Whitecross-street.

Whitecross - Street, Cripplegate, or St. Luke's, - at 115, Fore-street, extending to nearly op. the church, Old-st. the numbers begin and end at Chiswell- street, viz. 1 and 220.

Pump-Alley, Whitecross-Street, St. Luke's, - at the E. end of Foster's Buildings.. entering by 123, White- cross-st.


January 1812 Robert Howard died. Luke Howard's move from Plaistow to Tottenham in 1813 followed the death of his father.

9.1.1813 John Eliot (3) died. He was buried at Winchmore Hill on 16.1.1813 Records of Monthly Meeting of Peel's Court, John Street, Westminster Burials (1795-1837). Most burials on he sheet are at Bunhill Fields.

1814 Joseph Gurney Bevan (died 12.9.1814) buried at Bunhill

1814 Birth of William Brass whose firm William Brass and son built the memorial buildings

1815

Wednesday 1.11.1815 Death of John Coakley Lettsom, whose "remains were interred in the Friends' burial ground, Little Coleman-street, Bunhill row"

1819 Post Office guide has Robert Howard and Co tin plate workers 115 Old Street at the City Road and Old Street intersect. [If so, not where 115 was in 1922]

1823

24.9.1823 Mary Dudley died at her house at Peckham aged 74 years, having been a minister about 50 years. She was buried in "Friends' Burial Ground, near Bunhill Fields" on 2.10.1823 "after a solemn Meeting at Southwark. Signed in Southwark Monthly Meeting 10th of 2d month, 1824, by many Friends". At a Quarterly Meeting for London and Middlesex, held the 30th of the 3d month, 1824. The foregoing testimony concerning our beloved friend Mary Dudley, whose memory is precious to us, in the remembrance of her " work of faith and labour of love," has been read in this Meeting, and being cordially united with, after some small alterations, is signed in and on behalf of the Meeting, by John Eliot, Clerk.

William Ward Lee and William Beck, architects

1.7.1823 William Ward Lee, architect of the memorial buildings born to Mary and William Lee. He was baptised at the Old Church, Saint Pancras,London on 27.8.1823. When he died on 26.4.1885 his address was 91 Lordship Park, Stoke Newington.

William Beck 12.8.1823 Rachel, wife of Richard Low Beck, a Quaker wine merchant, gave birth to William Beck at 3 Token House Yard, St Margarets Lothbury, City of London. About 1830, the family moved to Stamford Hill (near Stoke Newington). Wiliam Beck was eventually buried in the Quaker graveyard at Stoke Newington in 1907.

In 1848 William Beck designed working class housing in Whitechapel that included a library and reading room and coffee room,

William Beck was a member of six weeks meeting from 27.11.1848. An architect (Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects from 1845 to 1877). William Beck was six weeks meeting surveyor from sometime after 1848 and before 1862 until 1874. William Ward Lee succeeded him.

In 1851 William Beck designed a high density housing development in Stoke Newington (?? really ??).

By 1855, William Beck's business address (possibly sometimes home) was 33 Finsbury Circus

1857 William Beck and others became trustees of some London Quaker property including burial grounds. He remained so until his death, when only one of the other trustees remained.

1858 William Beck was architect for the British and Foreign School Society's Training College for Masters in Borough Road. [Borough Road teacher training college for teachers of both sexes was established by Joseph Lancaster in 1804. It was repeatedly enlarged. Beck's building appears to be related to its replacement by a training college for men, whilst a training college for women was opened at Stockell]

1862.

1865: Bedford Institute.

1869: Beck and Ball.

William Beck William Ward Lee and William Beck were associated in the architects firm of Beck and Lee of 33 Finsbury Circus from 1868 or earlier into the 1870s. They designed schools, industrial housing, associated road widening and similar public works.

1874: hospital.

William Beck's visit to Australia in 1874/1875 appears to mark the end of his professional career as a christian architect

. The work was carried on by William Ward Lee.

1877 Six lectures on George Fox and his times by William Beck. Reproduced from 'The Friends' quarterly examiner'. Published London. 137 pages? - External link to copy at Haiti Trust - Developed from monthly lectures at Stoke Newington "a few years since", delivered after the usual Sunday evening meetings. The appendix on George Fox's Death and Burial is extracted from a lecture given at Gracechurch Street in 1861 on "White Hart Court and its Recollections".. Preface dated 3 Glebe Place, Stoke Newington 5.1877.

13.5.1884 (Devonshire House) William Beck made a report on behalf of the Library and Printing Committee. Noted with feelings of affection and regret the death in January of Edward Marsh "who was engaged in the care of the Depository and the printing and forwarding of books and services for the Society for upwards of forty years."

26.4.1885 Death of William Ward Lee

1897 The Friends: Who they are - what they have done by William Beck. Published London : The Richmond Publishing Company 277 pages. 22 leaves of plates.

1897 Family fragments respecting the ancestry, acquaintance and marriage of Richard Low Beck and Rachel Lucas Gathered by William Beck. Published privately Gloucester : John Bellows [printers] x and 150 pages. A copy of this was owned by Francis Galton and then Karl Pearson, and held at the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics.

1902 "Devonshire House - An historical account of the acquisition by the Society of Friends of the Devonshire House property in Bishopsgate Street Without" by William Beck. The Friend 12.12.1902 pages 809- 811.

1903 Peter Bedford : the Spitalfields philanthropist by William Beck (40 pages) London : Published for Friends' Tract Association by Headley Brothers. Number 5 in the series Friends ancient and modern ;

9.12.1907 Death of Wiliam Beck

The mantle of evangelical leadership

Meanwhile, elsewhere: [The Braithwaite family was based in Kendal, Westmorland. Their relative, Isaac Crewdson, was based in Manchester. Their opponent, Elias Hicks, was based in New York, the rending of the society into Hicksite and orthodox began in Philadelphia. Rosemary Mingins (2003) describes Manchester as "the centre from which the controversy of the 1830s radiated" and "the market town of Kendal" as "an evangelical outpost with family links to the prime contenders in the controversy"]

1823-1824 - 1825 - 1827-1829 Travels in America of Anna Braithwaite (1788-1859), from Kendal, Quaker minister, mother of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior

1827-1828 Division of American Quakers in part precipitated by travels of English Quakers

May 1829 "In order to prevent any misapprehension as to our views, we feel ourselves called upon at this time, to avow our belief in the inspiration and divine authority of the Old and New Testament." - Yearly Meeting, London,

1830 Joseph John Gurney visited Kendal where he initiated the practice of holding bible classes for young Quakers.

1834 A gift of books from Joseph John Gurney laid the foundations of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite's library

18.12.1834 [Ardwick, near Manchester] Date on the "Address" to A Beacon to the Society of Friends, which begins "In contemplating that desolating heresy, which, in the United States of America, has lately swept thousands after thousands of our small section of the Christian Church, into the gulf of Hicksism and Deism, - a heresy, in proportion to our numbers, probably unparalleled in extent in the history of the Church of Christ, - it may be useful to bring before the view of our Society in this country, some of the errors that have led to such fatal results."

1835 Isaac Crewdson published A Beacon to the Society of Friends, precipitating division amongst British Quakers. Five of Anna Braithwaite's seven surviving children left the Quakers as part of Crewdson's secession. The division in Tottenham led to the opening of Brook Street Chapel, birthplace of the Open Brethren.

1836 epistle "the evangelical position, in a form less extreme than Crewdson's, gained ground in the statement in the 1836 Epistle on the authority of scripture and generally in the remainder of the nineteenth century" ( David J. Hall 1972 p.148)

1840 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior moved to London. A member of Westminster Meeting for the rest of his life.

26.7.1846 A long "Statement of Christian Faith" provided by Joseph John Gurney to Stephen A. Chase of Salem, Massachusetts, "respecting the Holy Scriptures, the immediate and perceptible operation of the Spirit, the doctrine of justification, and that of the Trinity (as it is called)".

1847 Joseph John Gurney died "the mantle of evangelical leadership among British Quakers fell increasingly on [Joseph Bevan] Braithwaite [senior], whose first substantial work was the editing of Gurney's Memoirs (2 volumes, 1854). A conservative biblical scholar, he was never a literalist; an evangelical, he was also a mystic; a stammerer, he was a frequent and eloquent minister." (DNB)

26.1.1854 Birth of Richard Henry Thomas in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Mother: Phebe C Thomas. Father also Richard H. Thomas. Monthly Meeting: Federal Hill Mission Meeting. Orthodox (not Hicksite). Married Anna Braithwaite (junior) 28.3.1878. Died Baltimore 3.10.1904.

1825 Daniel Sturge (24.5.1797-21.7.1881), Quaker coal and stone merchant of Bridge Wharf, City Road, first knew the Bunhill burial ground. At this time several parts had not been added. The parts added later appear to correspond to L, M, N. and O on the 1844 plan. In 1825 the wall excluded these areas. It was later removed and a new wall constructed separating the school from the burial ground and so including the rest of the new land. (Sturge 1877)

1827 Extract from Greenwoods map. Original images Mark Annand
The entrance for coaches appears to be along Coleman Street from Bunhill Row to the The House of the Society of Friends Coleman Street, which is symetrically designed.

1827 Report of attempted body-snatching at Whitechapel led to a deputation from six weeks meeting visiting Whitechapel and Bunhill. They were "of the opinion that from the depth the graves are usually dug, the bodies buried in our grounds are perfectly secure". (Quoted White 1971 p.54).

1827 Meanwhile: The Stoke Newington Quaker burial ground opened

1828 Memorial tablets to distinguished Methodists were put up in the City Road Chapel at the expense of the Wesleyan Book Committee and the a new grave stone, with a fresh inscription, replaced to original to Susanah Wesley in the Dissenters Graveyard at Bunhill Fields, opposite the Chapel. An obelisk of Sicilian marble erected to her memory has stood opposite the City Road Chapel, fronting Bunhill Fields, since December 1870.

1830 Peel Monthly Meeting minutes regarding death of John Eliot

1830-1833

1834-1837 Bunhill Fields deeds. 20 (N) BUNHILL FIELDS (3) contains 1834 to 1837 documents relating to "1 Burying Ground, Chequer Court"

20.6.1834 Mr Hume asked for a return of graveyards in the Bills of Mortality. Generally, dissenting graveyard figures were not available - But the figures for Coleman Street from 1830 to 1833 were:

1 rood (rd) = 40 perches (p) - 4 roods = 1 acre
At 3 roods and 37 perches, the Quaker Burial Ground was just short of an acre.

1833-1837 The Yorkshireman, a religious and literary journal. By a Friend [Luke Howard]. Five volumes were published.

Sheet of paper, signed by James Bull, left in the Bunhill Burial Register at 1834. The information corresponds with the register entry:

"I hereby Certify that the Body of Willam Lucas of Wandsworth in the County of Surrey aged about 64 years Who died on the Sixteenth of the Second Month 1834 Was buried in the in the Friends Burial Ground Bunhill Fields on the Twent third Day of the Second Month 1835. Burial Note signed by Thomas Brewsetr. Grave makers Name Thomas Colcock. As Witnessing Hand this 4th Day of he Second Month 1854. James Bull (Resident in Charge 7½ Coleman Street. Bunhill Row)

16.5.1836 London City Mission founded by David Nasmith and Thomas Fowell Buxton. David Nasmith "had produced a blueprint for Christian ministry in a big city, based on experience gained in Glasgow under the influence of Thomas Chalmers". The mission was to "extend the knowledge of the Gospel among the inhabitants of London and its vicinity (especially the poor)". Missionaries were to "Go to the people of the District assigned to you, for the purpose of bringing them to an acquaintance with salvation, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and of doing them good by every means in your power". website - See monument - 1884 and about 1970

1836

27.10.1836 First burial in the Bunhill Burial Register with John Clark as grave maker. Served just over six years until his death, when his wife succeded him for about eighteen months. They lived at 7½ Coleman Street.

1837 George Alfred Walker (1807-1884) published Gatherings from Graveyards: Particularly those of London: with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods ... By G. A. Walker, surgeon. Messrs. Longman and company, Paternoster Row. Nottingham: J. Hicklin, Pelham Street 1839. xvii and 258 pages. Footnote page 195

"I have not been able to procure any satisfactory accounts of the numbers interred in burying grounds unconnected with the Established Church. By some parties information was refused, by others the records of the place were stated to have been lost or neglected, and in some cases the parties most interested in suppressing, had alone the power to communicate.

There are, in various parts of the metropolis, about 450 places of worship, of which nearly 200 belong to the Establishment; there are 47 for Baptists, 6 for the Society of Friends, upwards of 100 for Independents, 32 for Wesleyan Methodists, 4 for Swedenborgians, 6 for Unitarians, 4 for Welsh Calvinists, and numerous others for different classes of Protestant Dissenters, There are, also, 9 chapels in connection with the Church of Scotland, 14 Roman Catholic chapels, 7 synagogues, and 18 foreign Protestant churches and chapels. - (Lewis' Topographical Dictionary, p. 154.)"

[Six meeting houses for Quakers may mean up to eight graveyards, including : Coleman Street - Baker's Row, Whitechapel - Long Lane, Bermondsey (closed 1854), and small grounds adjoining meeting-houses in, Deptford (closed 1850s) - Ratcliff, - Wandsworth - by the Creek, Hammersmith (closed 1866?) - and Peckham.]


1837 De La Rue printing firm "founded in Bunhill Row, London in 1837, manufactured Christmas and other social stationery, playing cards, stamps and railway tickets, and undertook security printing." (Reading University specialcolections)


28.2.1838 "the wall of her yard is very low - Friendly-place is always open, but it is not a thoroughfare." Old Bailey

1839 Land bought and added to the graveyard at the western end by Westminster meeting with money left by Richard Hawkins.

1841 Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes founded at a public meeting chaired by Rev. Henry Taylor, Rector of Spitalfields. (Christian architecture).


The graveyard was the property of six weeks meeting, but the house belonged to Devonshire House Monthly Meeting until 1872 and probably to Peel until 1860.

Study of plans of the 1881 memorial buildings (see 1908 and 1930) shows that this blocked door at Bunhill would have had no function in 1881 or later. In 1841 it could have been the back entrance the part of the building demolished in the 1870s
Sunday 6.6.1841 "The House of the Society of Friends Coleman Street" in the 1841 Census is shown with a distinctive T shape on the 1827 map. This is a simplification of the shape on surveyors plans. (See 1844 plan) The present (2015) Meeting House is the preserved part of the T. (See notes of George Edwards and Farrand Radley and Six Weeks Property Book.

John Clark is of 7½ Coleman Street when he died in 1843. From 1851 it is entered as 7½ Coleman Street in the census. The building is known, at different times, as the house, the cottage and the caretaker's house or cottage. It became 21 Roscoe Street in 1883 and is now Bunhill Fields Meeting House, Quaker Court, Banner Street.

The resident (at least from John Clark is the grave maker listed in the Bunhill Burial Register until 1872. References elsewhere to the "caretaker" before 1872 presumably refer to this resident.

From 1881 to the mid-1930s the Coffee Tavern manager and family lives in what is now officially the Caretakers House and, initially, had responsibility for the whole Memorial Buildings and garden. However, two other people who have been identified as caretakers lived on the Peabody Estate.

In the 1840s the lived in house appears to have been much as it is now. An extensive western and northern part of the building may have been meeting rooms and access for coaches and coffins, with separate public entrances at back and front.

The people in the house on
census night 1841 were John Clark aged about 50, an accountant. - Maria? Clark aged about 45 - Mary Deane aged about 75 - and Elizabeth? Barney aged about 55.
See subsequent entries: 1851 - 1861 - 1871 - 1881 - 1891 - 1901 - 1911 -

"Hope for All" - the Methodist School

Beck and Ball (1869 page 334) say an unused portion of the Bunhill Graveyard was let in 1840 on a building lease to a William Greig. A "British School" was erected which, by 1869 was "being worked by a general committee under the name of Hope Schools for All; it is doing good service to the children of the dense population around". Beck and Ball continue:

"It serves also to show how much use might be made of a large open ground such as this if thrown open, under proper regulations, as a recreation ground for the occupants of the working homes around."

1841 "Miss Macarthy", a Methodist from [Wesley's Chapel] began visiting Chequer Alley to hand out Methodist tracts. Later she was able to begin Sunday preaching in a small hired room and these services expanded to include a Sunday School, Day School, and classes for adults wishing to join the church. (Metropolitan Archives)

I think 1844-1852 applies to a Sunday school.

The British School, Bunhill Row, Chequer Alley, Finsbury was opened in 1844 It was a Board School by 1897: Accommodation for 1166 students. Average attendance 701 (30) - Boys and Girls.

1846 School enlarged by taking a house and creating one room from the two on the ground floor. (p.54 of 1866)

1851 A new and more influential management committee for the school. (p.54 of 1866)

1852 Day School. (p.60 following of 1866)

See 1864 (map) - 1866 (book) and 1870

Chequer Alley and Bunhill Row "Hope for All" Ragged School. 1872. National Archives Reference: ED 4/76

See 1876

Bunhill Row Chequer Street Council School. 1876-1915. National Archives Reference: ED 21/11408. School No: 15,154

1842

17.3.1842 to 5.5.1842 House of Commons Select Committee (W. A. Mackinnon, Chairman) "to consider the expediency of framing some legislative enactments (due respect being paid to the rights of the clergy) to remedy the evils arising from the interment of bodies within the precincts of large towns, or of places densely peopled." Quaker representatives told the committee that they still had considerable room in their (London?) burial grounds, and that they were careful not to allow less than 7 feet or 8 feet of earth above each coffin. (Holmes 1896 p.139)

(offline Howard42.pdf A Catalogue of Tin, Japanned, and Zinc Wares: Sold by Robert Howard and Co., Wholesale manufacturers of tin, iron, japanned, copper, and zinc wares snd original patentees of The Patent Raised Dish Covers. Copper, tin-plate, and zinc merchants. 115, Old Street, London. Printed by J. H. Banks, 24, London Street, Fitzroy Square. 1842.

1843

7.2.1843 Death of "John Clark, aged 56, of 7½ Coleman Street, St Lukes" buried at Bunhill 11.2.1843. Frederick Grimshaw signed the burial note which was delivered to J.S. Robinson. Grave maker Mariah Clark. Mrs Clark was grave maker until 5.10.1844, when James Bull took over. James Bull had taken over receiving notes from J.S. Robinson on 23.6.1844.

1844

5.10.1844 First burial in the Bunhill Burial Register with James Bull as grave maker. Served almost ten years as grave maker and remained as resident after the ground was closed for burials.


Plan of Bunhill Fields Burial Ground - Copied from Deeds with alterations to 1844.

Scale of feet shows 100 feet divided into segments of 10 feet.

The sketch map below shows the outline of the Coleman Street house before 1877. It is based on plans like the above dating back to 1844 or earlier.


1845 Last purchase of land extending the graveyard (widening western end)

19.1.1847 Bankruptcy of William Quincy of 115 Old-street, Saint Luke's ... Tin Plate Worker , Dealer and Chapman , trading under the firm or style of Robert Howard and Company. "... the lease soon after expiring, the once respectable mansion and the great premises behind were metamorphosed, the first into two dwelling houses with shops, the latter converted into streets of small houses, The whole neighbourhood has undergone a gradual deterioration, and is now totally different from what it was when the writer first remembers it". Elizabeth Howard 1862

1848 Artisans' Home in Deal Street, Whitechape, designed by William Beck erected for the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes. It was a lodging house for 234 men, with a U shaped plan, and four storeys high. The ground floor contained communal rooms:- kitchen, library and reading room, coffee room, and living accommodation for a superintendent and cook.

30.3.1851. In the census, 7½ Coleman Street occupied by James Bull "Housekeeper", his wife Mary Ann Bull and their nine year old daughter Emma. Emma was born in St Lukes.

Quaker sociology

In 1851 a religious census was carried out. This clearly revealed a decline in Quaker numbers. In 1858 an anonymous gentleman offered a first prize of one hundred guineas for the best essay explaining this decline. The first prize was won by an essay "Quakerism Past and Presnt" by Joseph Stephenson Rowntree. The second prize went to an essay by an Anglican cleryman, Thomas Hancock, for an essay called "The Peculium". As the judges thought both of almost equal merit, both were awarded one hundred guineas.

Rowntree offline: pdf - text
Hancock offline pdf - text

29.8.1852 Death of Samuel Capper, west country Quaker, who for eighteen summers had preached the gospel from a commodious tent. The tent was stored under e meeting house floor until re-used by London Quakers, first at Whitechapel (where William Booth preached from it) and then on Bunhill Fields.

From graveyard to memorial

During the 1850s the (largely) overcrowded churchyards and burial grounds of inner London were closed. Many burial registers for parish churches in inner London cease by 1855 or 1856. Burial grounds could be closed by order of the Privy Council under the Burial Acts 1852 and 1853

"As a consequence of the Burial Act of 1853, one after another of the London burial grounds had to be closed. When it came to the turn of Bunhill Fields, at the end of 1854, Friends appealed to Lord Palmerston, arguing that hey had recently spent much money on enlarging the ground and it would be hardship if they were not allowed to continue burying there. But they had no success, and Six Weeks Meeting had to appoint a committee to examine the possibilities outside the now-prohibited central zone. Longford Monthly Meeting had its own ground at Isleworth, and Sarah Angell had given them an addition to this in 1824; it was agreed that the new piece might be used for burials of Friends from any part of the Quarterly Meeting. Other ground was bought in Barking. When Croydon ground was reported nearly full in 1871, it was agreed that most future burials should be made in the public cemetery there". (White 1971 pp 55-56).

18.2.1854 Lord Palmerston's representation to the Queen in Council that "for the protection of the public health , burials should be discontinued in ... from and after the first of January , one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five , in the Quakers' Burial- ground, Coleman-street."

4.2.1854 As "Resident in Charge 7½ Coleman Street. Bunhill Row", James Bull signed a certificate relating to an 1834 entry in the Bunhill Burial Register.

7.6.1854 Death of baby Jonathan Robinson (age in months not recorded) at Middleton Cottage, Stoke Newington. His parents were Sarah Ann and Joseph S. Robinson. Joseph was a house agent and mason, born in Shoreditch about 1810. By 1861 they had moved to Tottenham and Joseph was a retired marble mason. Jonathan was buried at Bunhill on 14.6.1854. James Bull was the grave maker. The burial note was signed and delivered to Daniel Sturge. It was the last but one burial at Bunhill.

31.8.1854 Death of Herbert Clarke of Ebury Street, Pimlico. 44 years old. On 3.9.1854 He was the last person buried in the Quaker burial ground at Bunhill. James Bull was the grave maker. Burial note to George Neighbour (?).

1.1.1855 No longer legal to bury at Bunhill.

1857 Thomas Sterry Norton appointed with Joseph Gurney Barclay and others one of the trustees of the meeting houses, burial grounds and other freehold property of his Quarterly Meeting. Fifty years later, on the decease of Richard Smith, he was left with William Beck as his sole colleague, later still, before the converyance to new trustees was effected, he was left in sole possession, but tranferred the properties to himself and others newly appointed in the autumn of 1908. The Annual monitor... or, Obituary of the members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland.

Possible trustees are: Edward Marsh - William Beck - Robert Horne - James Vaston Baynes - Thomas Sterry Norton - Joseph Gurney Barclay - George Lynes Neighbour - Henry Neighbour and - Richard Smith (See Indenture of 31.12.1877). May have been trustees the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (See Duplicate Conveyance of 2.7.1877

FTL Archives:
16.11.1857 Conveyance Registered Manorial With Plan - Joseph J. Lister and Others - Joseph Sterry and Others [May be Joseph Sterry (father or son), oil and colourman of 156 High Street, Southwark.

1.8.1860 Peel ceased being a Monthly Meeting. It is possible that before this Peel was generally reponsible for Bunhill and owned 7½ Coleman Street. It may been at this transition that the house became the property of Devonshire House. See 1872

13.8.1860 William Sturge: "I am a coal-merchant, carrying on business at Bridge-wharf, City-road, the Great Western Railway and the Midland Railway - I have carried on business rather more than ten years- my father was a coal-merchant- the name of our firm is Edward and William Sturge". (Old Bailey)

Coprolite = fossilised dung

1861 Census. Frederick Pond, a coprolite digger in Cambridgeshire is recorded with his wife, Eliza, and children Hannah (6), Frederick (4) and Alfred (2). In 1871 the family live in the High Street of Hesslingfield, Cambridgeshire and almost every family in the street is part of the coprolite industry. Henry Pond (9) is still at school. The two Frederick's had taken up fossil digging by 1874. See Pond family tree 2
Occupations recorded for Frederick Pond: Brickmaker (journeyman) (1855), Labourer (1856), Coprolite digger (1861), Fossil digger (1869), Fossil digger (1872), Fossil digger (1874), Fossil digger (1881), Labourer (1885), Coffee house manager (1890), Coffee house keeper (1891), Coffee house keeper (1895), Coffee house keeper (1901), Coffee house keeper (1905), Dining room keeper (1911), Coffee house keeper (decesedd) (1929) (Pond family archives)

Individuals recorded as employed as fossil and coprolite workers in Haslingfield, Cambridgeshire on census returns: 1861: 6 - 1871: 105 - 1881: 49 - 1891: 17. Totals for UK: 1851: 8 - 1861: 220 - 1871: 2396 - 1881: 829 - 1891: 355. In 1871 (the peak year) the total for Bedfordshire was 347, for Buckinghamshire 14, for Cambridgeshire 2013, for Hertfordshire 10, and for Sussex 67. (O'Connor)

1861 Census. James Bull 55 at 7½ Coleman Street entered his occupation as "House Proprietor". His wife Mary was 54 and daughter Emma 19. 5 Coleman Street is on one side, with the large working class family of William and Elizabeth Chambers, and 10 Coleman Street on the other which is the home for horse keepers.

1862 Death of Wyatt George Gibson (born 28.7.1790), Quaker banker who owned Saffron Walden and North Essex Bank. His legacy funded the Saffron Walden Hospital, designed by William Beck, and the hospital in Hackney Road, designed by William Ward Lee

1862 Decided that six weeks meeting should have its own paid secretary. Edward Marsh was appointed at £80 a year. He attended meetings, but did not take part in discussions. William Beck, the surveyor, received a small remuneration for professional services. (White 1971 p. 73).

21.11.1862 Elizabeth Howard - Fragments of Family History - (offline)


Go to Bunhill Fields May 1862 John Bunyan's tomb in the Bunhill Fields Dissenters Graveyard "restored by public subscription under the presidency of the Right Honourable Earl of Shaftesbury". The 1862 monument was designed by Edgar George Papworth (1809-1866). This illustration is from an Illustrated London News in 1862.
The only part of the visible tomb to predate 1862 may be the inscription to Bunyan.

The monument to Daniel Defoe followed in 1870. Quakers set a stone to George Fox in the centre of a memorial garden later the 1870s [1877?] and the Methodists erected a statute of John Wesley outside their chapel in 1891.


1864 Stanford's Library Map of London and its Suburbs shows the Sunday School in Chequer Alley. The western end of the graveyard is behind the properties (Page and others) along Pump Alley. Foster's Buildings connects Pump Alley to Whitcross Street. See Baird Street

2.7.1865 William Booth's first tent meeting at Whitechapel. According to William Beck, the tent was moved to Bunhill by the Quakers when Booth moved indoors. This would (or could) mean it moved in 1866 and was used there during several summers in succession. According to Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior, the first tent meeting was in 1874.

1865 Maria Webb, The Fells of Swarthmoor Hall And Their Friends: With an Accountof Their Ancestor, Anne Askew, the Martyr. A Portraiture of Religious And Family Life In the Seventeenth Century, Compiled Chiefly From Original Letters And Other Documents, Never Before Published by Maria Webb. London: A.W. Bennett, 1865.

1866 Chequer Alley: A story of successful Christian work by the Rev. Frederick W. Briggs. With an introduction by the Rev. William Arthur, published London : Hamilton Adams & Co., Paternoster Row. [Wesleyan Methodist]

1867

The London Poor: A public lecture delivered at the Lecture Hall, Sudbury, on the evening of the 27th of 8th March, 1867 by Jonathan Grubb (reported for the "Suffolk and Essex Free Press"). Published Sudbury London Birmingham Norwich : James Wright ; S. W. Partridge ; C. Caswell ; Jarrold and Son [1867] 16 pages. [Available on Google Play] Jonathan Grubb (1808-1894) was a banker and Quaker minister who believed pasionately in christians of different denominations working together. "Let names, and sects, and parties fall, And Jesus Christ be all in all." [Charles Wesley wrote (1740) "There is neither bond nor free, Male nor female, Lord, in Thee. Love, like death, hath all destroyed, Rendered all distinctions void; Names and sects and parties fall; Thou, O Christ, art all in all!"

Hospital Committee 125 Hackney Road 17.8.1868: William Beck - R.N. Fowler - John D. Fry - Edmund Pace - Nathaniel Tregelles -
Ladies Committee Mrs Alsop - Miss Pace - Miss Mary Elizabeth Phillips - Miss Ellen Phillips
Treasurer John Phillips
Honorary Secretary John D. Fry
Consulting Physician Dr Morrell Mackenzie
Consulting Surgeon Johnathan Hutchinson
Medical Officers Alexander Fox - Dr W.B. Woodman

source - See 1874


From Edward Weller's map of London believed to have been updated to 1868.

Beck and Ball wrote in 1869 that

""The ancient entrance to this burial-ground was by a court from Whitecross Street; subsequently it was approached from Chequer Alley, and in more recent time by the present chief entrance in Coleman Street".

In 1869 Beck and Ball wrote:

"Bunhill Fields burying-ground has been closed for internment since the year 1855. It remains in our day a broad walled-in space, surrounded by a teeming population mostly composed of the poorer classes. It would afford an admirable site for the erection of a Mission Hall, with Schools etc, and what fitter memorial could be raised over the graves of those zealous dead... for the extension of the kingdom of Jesus?

Although closed by order of the Privy Council, the ground is far from full, and some portion has not been used at all for internment.."

The dead and the living

"... the silent population of the graveyard is within a thousand of the whole number of the Society of Friends in England and Wales. The names of persons registered as buried as buried here is very close upon 12,000. Allowing for unrecorded funerals at the commencement, and during the confusion at the time of the plague" [etc] Beck and Ball page 331


1869 The London Friends' meetings: showing the rise of the Society of Friends in London; its progress, and the development of its discipline; with accounts of the various meeting-houses and burial-grounds, their history and general associations. : Compiled from original records and other sources, by William Beck and T. Frederick Ball. Published London by F. Bowyer Kitto, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without. iii-xi and 396 pages and 2 folding plates. See 2009 2009


1869 Bunhill Fields Dissenters' Graveyard secured as a cemetery in perpetuity, planted with trees, and laid out with walks leading close to the most remarkable graves. Susanah Wesley's grave was "where the numbers 17 and 42 intersect on the outer wall, and a few yards west-by-south from the tomb of John Bunyan".


1870 First of the Education Acts which brought in a national system of compulsory elementary education.

The Terrible Sights of London and Labours of Love in the Midst of Them by Thomas Archer. London, S. Rivers. 1870 [Thomas Archer, author and journalist, lived from 1830 to 1893 in Hackney].

Chequer-alley

"Chequer-alley means a whole zigzag neighbourhood, an agglomeration of alleys and courts, intersecting as wretched and poverty- stricken a district as can be found in all London-a puzzle-map of poverty, a maze of misery, in which the unaccustomed visitor might grow heart-sick and dizzy in the effort to find his way amidst the tangle of hovels and close yards; of which a key is not to be found in any map that I know of; the names of which are probably unsettled by any board of works, local or metropolitan; a vast sty in the midst of this Great City where 20,000 human beings herd together in a condition so wretched, that had a traveller to some distant land sent back a description of a native colony disclosing such destitution, vice, and ignorance, we should at once have asked why no missionaries had been despatched to remedy a state of things more repulsive than many narratives of heathen life which have claimed and found immediate response from Christian effort.... never, in any single unbroken area of such extent, have I seen so much suggestive of utter poverty, so much privation of the ordinary means of health and decency, as in a journey up and down the Chequers" "

Online edition (provided by Lee Jackson)

Ordnance Survey


16.9.1870 Monument to Daniel Defoe in Bunhill Fields Dissenters Graveyard "the result of an appeal in the Christian World newspaper, to the boys and girls of England". Designed by C.C. Creeke and carved by Samuel Horner (1758?-1786) of Bournemouth

"A brief account of the interesting ceremony of unveiling the monument erected by The Boys and Girls of England to the memory of Daniel Defoe, author of "Robinson Crusoe" in Bunhill Fields Cemetery, September 16th 1870" by Samuel Horner was published in the Hampshire Independent in 1871 and republished (28 pages) with the cover title: Monument to Daniel Defoe


20.1.1871 A meeting at the house [The Willows, built 1870] of George William Alexander (1802-1890) at Stoke Newington was attended by more than one hundred workers from Bedford Institute and its branches. "It is proposed to raise a building for Chritianising influence amongst the poor at the disused burial ground at Bunhill Fields (the burial place of George Fox) and also at Whitechapel. 'there being a dense population around each'" Friends' Review: A Religious, Literary and Miscellaneous Journal, Volume 24 Philadelphia 3.3.1871


The site of Braithwaite House

31.3.1871 from "Sibthorpe's Trustees", Warren de La Rue of the Observatory, Cranford bought 27 tenements or div? houses which were pulled down to erect a new factory called "The Star Works". The properties were in Salmon and Ball Court , Grand Court and Tomlinson Building. A thirty four page Abstract was made of the all the purchases giving Messrs De La Rue and Company freehold title to "land adjoining the Friends Burial Ground in Bunhill Row" in 1877. A copy of this is in the Friends House Library. It includes Friendly Place and houses along Coleman Street, Smiths Buildings and the Georges Row and Chequer Alley Houses east of the Chequer Alley entrance to the burial ground. It includes maps showing each property.

The main block of land, on which the factory was built, was bought in 1871. Land to the north and west was added by 1877. By agreement with the Metropolitan Board of Works two blocks of land (see plan 7) were excluded from the Whitecross Street Scheme: the square block of property at the corner of Coleman Street and Bunhill Bow, and the block comprising George's Court on condition that De La Rue acquired them and "sufficient land was given up by them for the widening of Coleman Street to 40 ft., and the widening of Chequer Alley to its existing width at its eastern end". (Newman 1901)


A large scale survey of 1870-1872 recorded the warren of alleys, courts, tenements and divided houses that occupied the land that became De La Rue's in 1874 and Braithwaite House in 1966. The outline of the land on which Braithwaite House is built was established by De La Rue's purchase.

The warren is a tight, claustrophobic area. The most open access being Friendly Place (running south from Coleman Street at the top of the map), which is 11 feet 7inches wide ad gives access to ten houses.

Coleman Street starts at 84 Bunhill Row and has four houses before Friendly Place and one before the burial ground. The three entrances to the warren from Bunhill Row (Smith's - Salmon - Chequer) are all passages under the first floors of houses or shops. Smiths Buildings, to the north, is an oblong court surrounded by six buildings numbered, irregularly, from 2 to 7. Moving south, there is a longish stretch of Bunhill Row (about numbers 88 to 92) without an entrance to the warren. Between the backs of these and Gravel Court is what appear to be two communal drying and toilet areas (grey). Gravel Court is called Great Court in the title deeds. Salmon and Ball Court is accessed by a long passage and itself gives access to Gravel Court at the back, along the boundary with the burial ground. It is not clear if Gravel Court can be accessed from Friendly Place. The maps with the title deeds suggests that these were distinct and separate properties. To the south of Salmon and Ball Court are eight back-to-back buildings, a construction notorious for its lack of air. The court to the south of these is called Tomlinsons Buildings and is connected to Salmon and Ball Court by a narrow alley. It is not clear if there is access from Chequer Alley. The land bought by De La Rue includes the strip of buildings between Chequer Alley and the burial ground that contains about 14 houses and a workshop (the long narrow building) separated from one another by Georges Row. Chequer Alley is accessed from Bunhill Row through a covered passage. The entrance to the burial ground from Chequer Alley is through an open, but narrow, passage between the houses and the school playground. The end of the passage has a gate protecting the burial ground. De La Rue later installed a security gate here a key to which is preserved in the Friends House Library.


Inhabitants of the house on the site of the present Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting House 1871-1939

1871 Census. James Bull 65 at 7½ Coleman Street now lives alone. He is entered as "no occupation/has house property". 5 Coleman Street is now occupied by the family of a mattress maker [?] and 10 Coleman Street by that of a gas fitter. James Bull died (apparently at home) on 23.12.1871.

7.2.1872 "Devonshire House Mo Meeting, by Minute 7th of 2 Mo 1872 transferred to the Six Weeks Meeting, the House in Coleman St Bunhill Fields attached to the Burial Ground." (Six Weeks Property Book page 58)

1872 "The House in Coleman Street (late in the occupation of James Bull) let to George Simmonds at £20 yearly [another word] free of Rates and Taxes sunject to [?????] notice of removal] (Six Weeks Property Book facing page 58)

I had wondered if Eli Radley moved into 7½ Coleman Street after James Bull.

James and Catherine Hain were at this location in 1891, with a large family. Shortly afterwards they were replaced by the much smaller family of Henry and Rosa Pond, who remained until 1930. The Hains and Ponds were in charge of the Coffee Tavern. After the Ponds retired, electoral registers (1931, 1933, 1934) show Elsie Lily Rose Reeve and Frederick Kingsford Reeve at 21 Roscoe Street plus Joseph Bevan Braithwaite and about 18 single men, declining to 9 in 1934. No one is registered there in 1935. Horace Swithenbank and Annie May Swithenbank (and no one else) are registered there in 1937, 1938 [and 1939?].


12.4.1872 The Engineer started an article about Huntley and Palmer's Biscuit Factory at Reading. "Civilisation and biscuits go together. It is only in very highly civilised countries that biscuits are made although we are unable to call to mind the name of any nation, civilised or savage, by which they are not more or less highly appreciated".
William Isaac Palmer bought Hoxton Hall in 1879. Baker and sons created biscuit making machinery for Huntley and Palmer.


1873 William Frederic Wells appointed Clerk of six weeks meeting. He had been appointed to six weeks by Devonshire House in 1871. He was succeeded by Charles Morland and Henry Fowler. In 1880 William Wells was Clerk again. He served ex officio as Treasurer when his term expired and was asked to as Clerk. He continued until his death in 1921. (White 1971 p. 72).

1873 Report of the Chequer Alley Wesleyan Home-Mission for 1872 : with list of subscribers and expenditure for 1871 and 1872 Published London : Printed by Hayman Brothers and Lilly, 19, Cross Street, Hatton Garden. 22 pages

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior - Founder of the Bunhill Mission (1874)

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior was the son of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite (senior) [Right] 1818-1905 and Martha Braithwaite [born Gillett].

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite (senior) was a theologically conservative and evangelical Quaker who did not leave the Society in 1841 (See Book of Discipline). He was sometimes known as the Quaker Bishop because of the way he dressed.

Braithwaite senior: Bishop Braithwaite.
See Gilkin's Geegaws

5.10.1855 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite born in St Pancras, Middlesex to Martha Gillett, age 32, and Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, age 37. Martha died 27.3.1895 in Islington, aged 72. His father died 15.11.1905, aged 87.

Joseph Bevan's sisters and brothers were Anna Lloyd (6.8.1854 -1941) who married Richard Henry Thomas on 28.3.1878 - Mary Caroline (June 1857 - 1935) - Elizabeth (September 1858 - 1946) - Rachel Barclay (December 1859 - 1946) - George (5.3.1861 - 1931) - William Charles born in Islington (23.12.1862 - 1922) - Catherine Lydia (September 1864 - 1957).

1861 After ten years at 65 Mornington Road, Regent's Park, London, the family moved to 312 Camden Road, Islington. Martha's banker brother George Gillett and his family moved to 314 Camden Road.

23.8.1865 Ship Persia arrived in New York with Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior on board and also J.C. Grubb and possibly other Quakers. "He ... visited America ... just after the close of the war, having for his companion Joseph Crosfield. They were in North Carolina, and gave some aid and advice to Friends, F. T. King consulting especially with Joseph Crosfield about how he found things down there."

"We ... were especially impressed by the presence of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite ; not that we were able to understand much of his ministry, which was directed to more mature minds than ours, but by his reputation, and the high esteem in which he was held, and his very impressive manner and peculiar impediment in his speech, which seemed to us to give increased weight to his utterance." (Richard Henry Thomas then aged 11)

Joseph Bevan senior visited America five times: in 1865 - 1876 - 1878 - 1884 and 1887. "In return there was a constant stream of American and other visitors to the Braithwaite home" (DNB)

Joseph Bevan junior was 19 when he started the Bunhill mission in 1874 (Lisa and Paul Bowers Isaacson, 1991 leaflet).

Joseph Bevan junior's brother William Charles Braithwaite [left] "was associated with the work at Bunhill Fields, until his removal to Banbury in 1896" (50th anniversary history 1924).

William Charles was a lawyer who entered the family bank of Gillett and Co of Banbury and Oxford (now part of Barclays). Banking gave him more time for Quaker studies than legal work and he wrote a history of early Quakers. See Gilkin's Geegaws

1875

May 1875 Allen Jay (1831-1910) arrived in London for Yearly Meeting and was met at the station by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior. He came from America via Ireland where he started young people's meetings. "Our friends, Deborah Thomas, of Baltimore, and Mary R. Haines her companion from Philadelphia, were also in attendance at London Yearly Meeting in 1875. They boarded where I did, at Joseph Bevan Braithwaite's".

"It was a very instructive lesson to visit the work at Bedford Institute and the adult school work at Bunhill Field, where George Fox and many of our early Friends were buried. Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, Jr., was especially interested in the Bunhill Field work. It was helpful to visit several of these mission stations and mingle socially with them at their tea-meetings and other public gatherings. The adult school work is a great work, and has grown wonderfully. It was started some fifty years ago by Joseph Sturge, and has proven a blessing to those who have come under its influence, and also to those who have given of their time and means in carrying it forward. Through its workers, also, it has had a reflex influence for good on the Church at large" (Allen Jay)

Autumn 1875 Richard Henry Thomas arrived in London from the United States to continue his medical studies. He visited Joseph Bevan Braitwaite.

"Joseph Bevan Braitwaite took a special delight in young men, and he at once recognised a congenial spirit in the young American ... Most of the family were then at the seashore, the only other member at home being his eldest son, and he too, quickly formed an ardent friendship with the stranger. They persuaded Dr. Thomas to leave his hotel and take up his abode with them, and greatly enjoyed introducing him to some of the wonders of London."

Richard Henry Thomas accompanied the Braithwaites on a trip to Switzerland. He returned to the USA in 1876 and then returned to England in 1878 to marry Anna Braithwaite.

1876

May 1876 At Yearly Meeting at Devonshire House, Allen Jay and Richard Henry Thomas helped form the Young Friends Christian Fellowship Union, which later became Christian Endeavour.

6.8.1876 "Dr. Thomas sailed for America in company with my father, who was just starting on a religious visit to the States. Later in the same autumn he was his companion in a flying trip through Eastern Tennessee, winding up with attending North Carolina Yearly Meeting." (Anna Braithwaite)

1878

28.3.1878 Anna Lloyd Braithwaite married Richard Henry Thomas. "The wedding took place at the old Westminster Meeting House at Peter's Court, St. Martin's Lane ... It was the first break in the band of nine brothers and sisters at Camden Road, and the parting was keenly felt, yet the welcome given to the new brother was sincere..." (Anna Braithwaite Thomas).

In a speech at the Braithwaite home, after the wedding, Richard Henry Thomas spoke "of the real unity of purpose and aim of the two nations, England and America ; of their work in the civilisation and evangelisation of the world, and ended up with the hope that both of us (representatives of these nations) would be found unitedly working for Christ..."

14.8.1878 Ship Abyssinia arrived in New York from Liverpool, via Queenstown, Ireland, carrying Joseph Braithwaite senior.

In 1880 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior was arranging the finance for the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation

In Spring 1881 the family lived at 312 Camden Road, London. Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior was a barrister. Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior (25 years old) was a broker. William Charles Braithwaite was a law student.

On 27.7.1881 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior married Anna Sophia Gillett in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Anna Sophia was born 27.7.1881 in Banbury. She died 10.10.1899, in Barnet, Hertfordshire, at the age of 43. They had been married 18 years. Their children were

Jonathan Frederick [Fred Braithwaite] born 9.8.1883 - died 29.12.1962

John Bevan born 22.11.1884 (died 1973) -

Alfred Lloyd born 5.10.1886 (died 1967) -

Dorothy Anna born 17.4.1889 (died 1974) -

Harold Wilson born on 11.8.1890 (died 1990) -

Joseph Gurney born on 24.5.1895, in Somerset (died 1958)

1882 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior opened an Adult School on Burnham on Sea, Somerset, where he had a holiday home.

1884

16.6.1884 Ship Oregon arrived in New York, from Liverpool, carrying Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior. He was on his way to Canada as one of a deputation from London Yearly Meeting. Near Picton, Ontario, he was "flung from a carriage upon a heap of stones in a deep ditch, and severely bruised about the head and face, and had also suffered a bad compound fracture of the wrist". Eventually Joseph, Richard (who was also ill) and a sick aunt became a "hospital" in Anna Braithwaite Thomas's house in Baltimore. William Braithwaite came from England to help. Joseph worked on the narrative poem "The Apostle Paul" that he had begun during a journey in the East the preceding year, reading it to the others and receiving criticism in the evenings. Late in December Joseph and William returned to england "hastened at the end by news that my mother had had another haemorrhage".

12.9.1887 Ship Etruria arrived in New York, from Liverpool, carryng Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior.

September 1887 Richmond Declaration (Indiana, USA) largely drafted by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior. William Beck (1897, p.258) says of this

"An important act of the Conference was the preparation of a "Declaration of some of the Fundamental Principles of Christian Truth as held by the religious Society of Friends," drawn (as expressed by J. B. Braitiiwaite, Chairman of the Committee appointed for the purpose) from documents that had passed the various Yearly Meetings. Thus accredited, it may be taken, not only as the latest but most comprehensive statement of the kind, amounting almost to a Treatise."

Jay says

After the organization of the conference the first question proposed for discussion was: "Is it desirable that all the yearly meetings of Friends in the world should adopt one declaration of Christian doctrine?"

One entire session was devoted to the discussion of the question, more than twenty delegates from nine yearly meetings taking part, and all but one in the affirmative. A committee of twelve was appointed to draft the said declaration of faith, which was, after free discussion, approved by the conference and subsequently adopted or approved by all the American yearly meetings except Ohio. The committee met, and different ones were appointed to prepare certain sections of the declaration, but the greater portion of it was prepared by our late dear friend, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, of London Yearly Meeting. It was written at the desk where I am now sitting. When he left home, thinking that something of the kind might claim the attention of the conference, he put in with his baggage several books and manuscripts that were prepared by the earlier writers among Friends and had not been changed by Friends of more recent date in this country or anywhere else. His remark was: "We want the original Quakerism free from the influence and thought of some of our Friends who have imbibed some of the spirit and practice of other denominations or have been influenced by their environments". Our dear friend worked early and late when not in the conference. I remember lying on the lounge until he quit writing near midnight, and then taking him to the dining room and getting him something to eat before he retired. Then in the morning he was up before anyone else. This was the case for two nights. Before it was presented to the conference it was gone over carefully, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite sitting at the desk reading carefully what had been written, Dr. James E. Rhoads, of Philadelphia, looking over the quotations from Friends writings to see that they were correct quoted, and Dr. James Carey Thomas, of Baltimore, watching the Scripture quotations to see that there were no mistakes made there. They have all three passed away, but their work remains. Next morning, after it was adopted by the conference, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite handed me the pen he wrote it with and said: "Thee may have that to keep." I have it yet."

May 1888 London Yearly Meeting decided not to formally endorse the Richmond Declaration.

1893 A paper by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior read at the World Congress of Religions in Chicago by a Quaker from Indiana.

1895 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior opened Life Boat Coffee Tavern and Restaurant on the site of the Masons Arms in Burnham. (Capture Burnha)

1897 The Friends: Who they are - what they have done by William Beck concludes with the Richmond Declaration.

March 1901 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite [junior], Dorothy, Harold, Joseph, a governess, a cook, two housemaids, a kitchen maid, a nurse, a nursery maid and a charwoman lived in Barnet, Hertfordshire in . He was a stock and share broker and an employer. He married his second wife, Margaret Grace Moscrip (1866-1947) in June 1901 in Islington, Middlesex, when he was 45 years old.

1905 Richard Henry Thomas MD - Life and Letters - by his wife [Anna Braithwaite Thomas]

1914 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite [junior] suported the first world war

7.2.1926 Olive Jenkins born. Sitting in meeting as a child she would compare the picture of Joseph Bevan junior on the meeting house wall with the real man who sat at the front. It was one way to while away the silent tedium.

In 1926 Joseph and Margaret lived at Leawood in Woodside Avenue, N5. In 1933 Joseph and Margaret still lived at Leawood, which was now next to Woodside Hospital, but they now lived with Janet Cranston Moscrip, Hazel Audrey Honor Amelia Yeo, and Violet Weeks.

30.11.1934 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite died at his seaside home, Belncathra, Burnham on Sea, Somerset. He was 79 years old.


The tree Mystery and romance surround the age of the large London Plane tree that stands in the middle of Quaker Gardens. Some stories take it back (almost?) before such trees existed, others claim it is the oldest in London. The tree is one of four that appear to have been arranged around where George Fox is believed to have been buried. The oral tradition (via Olive Yarrow) that I think most likely to be true is that all these plane trees were planted sometime after the closure of the burial ground in 1855. The neighbouring dissenters burial ground was also set out with plane trees (1867), for the benefit of the public:

4.10.1867 Bunhill (Dissenters) Burial Ground opened as a public open space by the Lord Mayor of London. This involved the landscaping of the burial ground, tree-planting, seating, gardens, and restoration of note worthy monuments. (Wikipedia). In 1913 Alfred W.Light wrote that since the opening (1867) "Trees have also been planted, especially the planes with their strange "moulting" trunks, and the ground has been re- turfed, flowers planted, and seats provided."

Wikipedia: "The nearby Quaker Burial ground was similarly landscaped. It became maintained at private expense by the Quakers"

According to some accounts, the Quaker burial ground lay unused until 1874.


In this picture, Eli Radley sits on a new garden bench admiring the new stone for George Fox, fixed in the ground in front of the site of the present tree. Where is the tree? Is that it, posed for its photograph on the bench before it is planted?

See 1908

The picture does not have a date. It was collected from a branch of the Radley family in Canada by Eli's grandson H.A. Farrand Radley. Farrand Radley assumes it was taken in 1881. However, he says the authorities differ about the date of the stone. He has seen a statement in Robert Avery's files saying it was 1876 (not 1881). 1876 would fit with the fact that Eli was a patient in te Retreat in York from 7.8.1877 to his death. However, the timing is tight because in May 1877 Wiiliam Beck just writes about the possibility of a memorial.

The stone is believed to have stood just north of the present large plane tree until the second world war


See also the murder of the trees in Euston Road: 1922


Sketch by George W. Edwards 1981 shows School Board for London site compulsory purchased for £4,077. Date of portion of ground for playground 1874 [White says 1875]


1874 A new hospital built at the corner of Hackney Road and Goldsmith's Row (formerly Goldsmith's Place), architect William Ward Lee of Finsbury Circus. Beck and Lee were architects to the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company in the 1870s. "The building was in a very stripped-down version of the Queen Anne style, faced with white Colchester brick, relieved by red brick banding and window heads and strips of terra-cotta ornament and with an ornamental crested roof over the stair tower. The basement area to Goldsmith's Row was enclosed by substantial cast-iron railings". (Neil Burton)

19.9.1874 William Beck left to go to Australia with a deputation of London Quakers. Six weeks meeting decided that the work he had been doing as surveyor and assistant to the Clerk, must be done in future by a surveyor and and assistant clerk regularly appointed. (White 1971 p. 65).


1873 Publication of the five feet to the mile Ordnance Survey map of London. Sheet 7.45 includes Bunhill. The survey was made between 1870 and about 1872, and so it depicts Bunhill before the Star Works oveshadowed it on the east and before the Board School replaced Hope School. The second edition, based on a revision of 1894, was published in 1896.


1874 Behind the large new "Star Works" factory of De La Rue in Bunhill Row lay the disused Quaker burial ground.
The drawing is from The Architect October? 3rd 1874. Sources
The Scrap Album and fotolibra
In the fancy? drawing above from The Architect there seems to be an ornate entrance on Coleman Street and a view of the school behind. In the much later photograph from De La Rue's history website the open space of the ornate entrance has been filled in with another building.

See also Grace's Guide

De La Rue appear to have been at 210 Bunhill Row for some time. Possibly from when the firm was founded in Bunhill Row in 1837. At the Paris exhibition of 1867 the address is given as 210 Bunhill Row and they are associated with stationary and technical instruments.

Bunhill Fields (Quaker) Mission, Social Centre, Meeting

In 1874 the Bedford Institute used the ground for a Gospel Tent, seating 300 people, to hold mission meetings. Later the tent was acquired by William Booth, who used it for his own meetings held on another Quaker burial ground in Whitechapel.

May 1874 At one of the devotional meetings held during Yearly Meeting, Jonathan Grubb of Sudbury raised his concern that some use be made of the disused burial grounds at Bunhill Fields and Whitechapel, closed for internments for many years and of which no use was being made.

"The concern, so far as it referred to Bunhill Fields burial ground, took hold of J.B. Braithwaite, Junr., who had recently been converted and was eager to find some opportunity of working for Christ"

J.B. Braithwaite, Junior was authorised to attempt to raise the necessary funds for the erection of a tent. He succeeded and the first meeting was held on 11.7.1874. Meetings were continued every night during the summer and the Loyal United Friends Hall in Banner Street was engaged for the winter and the meetings carried on there. The tent was used again in the summer of 1875. (Bunhill 1924 p.7)

"The work at Bunhill was affiliated to the Bedford Institute Association shortly after its commencement" (Bunhill 1924 p.9)

The building on the disused graveyard would have been illegal under the Disused Burial Grounds Act of 1884. I do not know how the building of the 1888 extension was permitted, although the fact that it was an extension of an existing building used for the same purpose may have been relevant in law. It might also have been argued that this was the enlargement of a "meeting house or other place of worship". However, the building was not accepted as a place of worship for rating purposes because of its commercial coffee tavern.

Winter 1875 An "Iron Room" with seating for about 400 people was erected at Bunhill. The work continued here until the memorial Buildings were opened.

1876 "About my Father's Business": Work amidst the sick, the sad, and the sorrowing by Thomas Archer, published [London] : Henry S. King. vi and 286 pages. Chapter: "With the poor and needy" (pages 227-247) centres on Chequer-alley and Hope Schools for All and is critical of the effects of Board Schools and Model Dwellings.

Minutes in FRA: Photocopies from minutes of six weeks meeting, and from its "Property book 1844-1979", in the Farrand Radley archive for 15.5.1876 - 26.6.1876 - 25.7.1876 - 23.4.1877 - 27.8.1877 - 8.3.1880 - 5.9.1881 - 17.10.1881

Before May 1876 Part of land [may have been] sold to De La Rue [East and south side]. Part of the land sold to the School Board [south-west corner].

Does anyone know when the "Bunhill Row Chequer Street Council School 1876-1915" . actually opened? [See Hope for All]

Now Chequer Court, 3 Chequer Street, EC1Y (shown) it has the shadow of where the old memorial buildings butted on on to it.

13.5.1876 Offer from National Dwellings Society Limited. See 26.6.1876 - 23.4.1877 - 1887 - 1894 - 1896

26.6.1876 Committee "persuaded that improved dwellings for the working classes and the missionary work that would be carried on in the .... new building for which they suggest a piece of ground should be set apart, will tend greatly to improve the moral and religious condition of the inhabitants... ". "The Committee recommends that a portion of the funds to be realized by this sale should be devoted by the Six Weeks Meeting to the erection of a substantial and commodious mission hall with some for re- internment of remains, and a Tablet placed in some conspicuous part stating that near this building are interred the remains of George Fox and other worthies"

May 1876 Canadian Quakers Joseph Baker (1823-1892) and his son Joseph Allen Baker (10.4.1852 - 3.7.1918) stayed in Finsbury and attended Yearly Meeting at Devonshire Hall. By August they had decided Britain offered a good market for their "sifters and mixers" (food machinery) and Joseph Allen was left to start the branch. it prospered and enabled him to marry Elizabeth Balmer Moscrip in a United Presbyterian Church in the Scottish Borders on 27.2.1878.

25.7. 1876

A young woman watches her future

31.12.1876 Henry Peter Hart, a baker, married Emily Margaret Clemenson (20 years old) in St John, the parish church of Hoxton. His father was a leather cutter and Emily's father was a bootmaker. However, Emily's family was headed by her mother (same name) who was a brace maker. Emily herself was a boot binder. From 1881 (or before) to 1891 (or later) Henry Peter and Emily Margaret lived at 3 Beckford Square, off Old Street, and Emily watched the developments on the Quaker site.

Metropolitan Board of Works

27.10.1876 The Metropolitan Board of Works decided that a scheme should be prepared for improving areas in and about Whitecross Street, Golden Lane, and Bunhill Row about which F. W. Pavy, the Medical Officer of Health of St. Luke, had made representations on 26.11.1875. More areas were added.

The plan below shows the eastern section of the Whitecross Street Scheme, around Bunhill. Land outlined north of De La Rue's works, below Coleman Street, and around George Court was excluded from the scheme (to be used by De La Rue) subject to provision for widening Coleman Street and Chequer Alley. See De La Rue title and Whitecross Street Scheme Enquiry and 1878

1877

Burial-Ground greatly reduced in size for buildings. Bones from parts for building moved near to Fox's grave

12.2.1877 Declaration of Daniel Sturge with attached plan A of the ownership of land.

Whitecross Street Scheme Enquiry

14.4.1877 - 19.4.1877 - 23.4.1877 D. Cubitt Nichols conducted a local enquiry on behalf of the Home Office which led to a provisional order confirming the scheme on 17.5.1877. This included an agreement with De la Rue. The provisional order was confirmed by Act of Parliament on 23.7.1877. (Newman 1901)

23.4.1877

The Committee on Bunhill Fields and Whitechapel Burial Grounds report that the portion of Bunhill Fields ground to the sale of which this meeting has assented, has now been sold to the National Dwellings Society for about £6000 [figure not completely clear]

However, the Property Book says relating to this sale of land for housing:

"Ultimately terms could not be agreed upon so the Six Weeks Meeting decided to devote a part of the money received from the Metropolitan Board of Works to the erection of a Mission Hall, Coffee Tavern etc and, previously to the building, carefully removed the remains and reinterred them in the part reserved as a garden, at the cost of £556.7.9" (page 60)

May 1877 Note by William Beck "the discovery of an old map drawn on vellum, preserved in the archives of Devonshire House, has enabled the spot" [of George Fox's grave] "to be ascertained with tolerable precision, and now, in 1877, we may possibly have some suitable memorial erected over the place of the internment of one so well known both to the Society and the world. As the spot is now nearly re-ascertained... " (Beck 1877 p.123)

2.7.1877 "Duplicate Conveyance" Edward Marsh and others (Trustees of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground) (1) [and] The School Board for London (2). [Mentioned in 1957 deed].

FTL Archives:
2.7.1877 Duplicate Conveyance of Land at Chequers Alley With Plan - Edward Marsh - The School Board for London

27.8.1877 Richard Smith reports that he has received th purchase money of the portion of Bunhill Fields sold to the London School Board and paid it to Barclays and Co as per following statement...

1877 "Abstract of the Title of Messrs De La Rue and Comp. to the Freehold Premises adjoining the Friends Burial Grounds in Bunhill Row in the County of Middlesex. Wilson Bristows and Carpmael , 1 Copthall Buildings, EC. (6WM/PD/BF/01). The first (?) entry is a large block where the main buildings of the factory weer built headed "As to Freehold purchased of Sibthorpe's Trustees 31 March 1871". Later entries have dates including 1875 and 1876.

31.12.1877 A deed made between (1) Edward Marsh - William Beck - Robert Horne - James Vaston Baynes - Thomas Sterry Norton - Joseph Gurney Barclay - George Lynes Neighbour - Henry Neighbour and Richard Smith and (2) Warren de la Rue and (3) Warren de la Rue and Warren William de la Rue and Thomas Andros de la Rue and (4) Edwin Williams. [No copy yet traced. See above and below]

James Vaston Baynes died Reigate, Surrey, 30.12.1883 aged 70.

The children of Warren de la Rue were Herbert, Ernest, Thomas Andros, Warren William and Alice Georgiana.

31.12.1877 Indenture of this date referred to in Indenture of January 1881

FTL Archives:
31.12.1877 Deed of Mutual Grant and Covenants with Plan - De La Rue And Co. - Trustees of Six Weeks Meeting

This sketch map attempts to relate information in the Land Registry and elsewhere to the present (2015) position. The line from the present Roscoe Street (shown) to Bunhill Row indicates where Roscoe Street (then Coleman Street) was in 1877. The brown circle indicates the cottage. A 20 foot strip of on the south side of Coleman Street was compulsory purchased (1877-1880?) to widen the street. Much of the area coloured pink was owned by De La Rue, but some agreements were necessitated between De La Rue and the Quakers at this time.
Islington Council now claims ownership of the pink land on which Braithwaite House is now built. The relevant documentation for this would seem to need a transfer of land from De La Rue sometime after 1940. This does not appear to be listed at the Land Registry. The blue square indicates the part of the grounds used by the Memorial Buildings that was bought for part of Quaker Court in 1957. The graveyard had stretched west from this, but the western part was bought for building in 1877.

1.5.1878 An anonymous writer in The Friend, quoted Cadbury 1972:

"The stone recently placed near the grave of George Fox was incorrect as regards the date of his birth, so there is less reason to regret its present state of obscuration."

Saturday, 12.10.1878 The Cincinnati Enquirer Cincinnati, Ohio, Page 11, from an article in which the author reports on recent visits to burial-places, "in the open, common air, amid 'the rush - and roar of London, but where lie men and women who are kings and queens for all time, crowned by genius and immortal fame".

"Behind Bunhill Fields lies the burial ground of the Friends, where, underneath a homely, little meeting-house, sleeps brave old George Fox. He, alone has any thing like a monument or memorial stone. His sturdy followers lie under the long, rank grass, without even mounds to mark their graves. It is the utter annihilation of mortal individuality a dreary democracy of death"

1878 Joseph Baker and Ann ?? Baker came to London from Canada to join Joseph Allen Baker Three more of their seven sons at some time became partners in the business: William King Baker, George Samuel Baker and Philip Barton Baker (5.1.1865-17.4.1916) Joseph Allen Baker took over the running of the firm after the death of their father, William King Baker looked after the accounts, George Samuel Baker was inventive and took care of the technical side of the business and Philip Barton Baker travelled and won custom world-wide. (source)

In visiting bakehouses, Joseph Allen BAker was "was horrified at the conditions which he found. Night-baking with intolerably long hours, the workers sleeping in their kneading-troughs, the kneading done with bare feet, no proper ventilation or sanitary arrangements, cockroaches, mice, and sometimes even rats in untold numbers - these were things that seemed to him as wrong and dangerous to the public as they plainly were to the workers themselves." (p.48)

Philip Barton Baker "was associated with the Bunhill Adult School from his boyhood and gave much time to night school work in the days when the younger members of the school had fewer educational advantages than they have now" [1917] Another son ?? was Philip (later Noel) Baker.

1878 Baker and sons factory opened in Taberbacle Walk, Finsbury.

1878 Night school classes started in the Iron Room by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior and Joseph Allen Baker, twice a week, "teaching the three Rs to anyone who cared to come".


Metropolitan Board of Works References in 1883 key to Minutes of 17.6.1878 p.474 - 24.2.1879 pp 507- 508 - 31.5.1880 p.575

8,518 feet super or rather less than a fifth part of an acre taken under compulsory purchase powers by the Metropolitan Board of Works to widen Coleman Street.

17.6.1878 Notice received of compulsory purchase.


1879

24.2.1879 Pages 507-508. Page 509: Six weeks meeting's surveyor: William Ward Lee

Visit by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior and J. Osborn, junior to the Mason Street Adult School in Hull.

Sunday 11.5.1879 A men's adult school was started by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior and Joseph Allen Baker in the Iron Room. Baker wrote:

"I was wakened by E.B.B at 6.30 am, and after hasty dressing got away to the Iron Room at 7.15... The attendance was twenty-one, and they all seemed to have the cause so earnestly at heart. Some spent the first hour writing (texts of Scripture); others came to my class for reading... We divided into two classes, J.B.B. taking one class and I the other... We sang "Rock of Ages", and then W.K. closed the meeting with prayer for blessing on the work".

1880 Report of the St. Luke's Gospel Medical Mission, for the benefit of the sick poor of Olde Street, Banner Street, Bunhill Row, Chequer Alley, Whitecross Street, Golden Lane, etc., at the Friends' Mission Hall, Coleman Street, near Bunhill Row, St. Luke's London, E.C. London : Abraham Kingdon & Co. [printers] 11 pages. Held in the Society of Friends Library.

about 1880. In her early twenties and expecting her first child, Emily Margaret Hart watched men with wheelbarrows move bones from the hole that was to become the Mission Hall and tip them into another hole close to the Chequer Street school wall. The bone pit was eventually capped with concrete a sand and surrounded by a wall. Later, she told her son George Frederick Hart about this.


8.3.1880 [Photocopy] Joseph H. Dell and Robert Kemp had examined the property Book and found "alterations in the property at Bunhill Fields Burial Ground still remain un-entered, but your Committee think it advisable to let the matter stand over till the property is definitely settled"

8.3.1880 [Microfilm] pages 563-565. Compulsory purchase strip cleared [of bodies?] except under the caretaker's house. Permission obtained by paying outgoing tenant £5. Completion expected by 25.3.1880

8.3.1880 Deadline for clearing Metropolitan Board of Works purchase [See pages 550-551]

1.4.1880 The area of the Metropolitan Board of Works purchase had been cleared.

"The remaining part of the Caretakers house, consisiting of two rooms, has been let to Thomas James Appleby as weekly tenant at one shilling per week, he to act as temporary caretaker of the grounds"

Mission Hall: Bunhill Fields

Somewhat distinct lines of work will be provided for by 1) the large Hall and mission room connected - 2) A coffe tavern - 3) Club rooms...

"It is proposed to abut [onto?] the building of the London School Board recently erected".

Planned Caretakers Rooms at the North East Corner of buildings: of independent construction but connected with the Coffee Tavern.

Estimated cost £5,400 exclusive of boundary walls. (Page 568)

Bunhill 19.4.1880 Plans approved after "free excahnge of sentiments". (page 570). £11,500 received from Board of Works (page 573)

31.5.1880

H.G. Chalkley to be paid £417.8.3 for clearing ground and erecting a fence. There is a summary (page 570) of what the costs were. This is the same as the list reproduced by George Edwards in his sketch below.

Sketch by George Edwards 1981

Removing internments £304
Area dug over 5,600 feet. 84 boxes interred
Hoarding £77.12.0
Removing Caretakers Cottage and Wall 29.5.0
Credit for old lead 12.14.0
Adapting remaining portion of house 12.17.0

This is in George Edwards' hand.


The note that The Gravemaker Caretaker cottage was 7½ Coleman Street and later 21 Roscoe Street was made by Farrand Radley.

[Part of Coleman Street became Roscoe Street in 1883. The other part became Baird Street in 1884 (Bruce Hunt's London street change list 2003)


12.7.1880 Costs agreed. These include substantial costs for the caretakers cottage:

Mission Hall etc: £6,631 or £6,799 [two options]

Concrete digging and area wall rendered necessary for obtaining a good foundation and character of ground £575

"For the caretakers House. Kitchen, Living Room and Two Chambers" £605

For boundary wall to Coleman Street and west end of ground railings and piers (not noted)

August 1880 Work started on the Memorial Buildings.

1881 Baker factory moved to larger premises at 58 City Road. The works main entrance was in Bell Yard, of Featherstone Street. Growth led to additional premises on the opposite side of City Road in Craven Street. It moved to Willesdan in 1890.

Indenture of January 1881: Refers back to indenture of 31.12.1877. This one has signature/s dated January 1881. Offline pdf (very difficult to read) -

3.4.1881 The Census has a No 12 District in Finsbury which "covers from 1 to and from 12 to 1 Coleman Street - 83 to 81 Bunhill Row, 73 to 57 and from 21 to 1 Banner Street, North Place, 80 to 73 Bunhill Row, St Lukes Place, something Yard, Wakefield Place, 166 to and ending at 126 Old Street including Tilney Court. The Asylum for the destitute at no 213 Banner Street." However, this starts with a large lodging house at 1 Banner Street run by John W. Ford (37) and Elizabeth Ford (34) and has no entries for Coleman Street.

3.4.1881 Frederick Pond is now a "fossil digger" and his wife Eliza a "fossil digger's wife". (source). Frederick Pond junior was a fossil diggger when he died (aged 18) of typhoid or influenza on 28.11.1874. See account of Stoney Hill. The Cambridgeshire coprolite industry declined in 1878 and then recovered until 1885 when a final decline started. By 1900 there were virtually no mines left. By 1891 the whole Pond family had moved to London. Some members of the family, including Henry Pond, maintained a keen interest in science.

May 1881 Baker and sons had a considerable exhibit of flour sifters and mixers and of biscuit making machinery of various kinds at the firt International Exhibition of Flour Mill Machinery

According to the 1881 Memorial Tablet, in 1880 a compulsory purchase of land for road-widening enabled the Bunhill Memorial Buildings to be built with a coffee tavern, school rooms, a medical mission, and the first meeting house on the site.

"Some notes on the housing question in Finsbury" by George Newman in 1901 shows that the road widening schemes and the construction of Peabody Buildings were inter-related.

5.9.1881

17.10.1881: Delay in removing Iron Room due to some delay in providing [alternative?] arrangements. - £200 paid to St Lukes Vestry on 28.9.1881 and the work to the new drain in Coleman Street started 6.10.1881 - Committee "hope to produce to our next meeting a suitable scheme for he management of the new Buildings at Bunhill Fields.

MEMORIAL BUILDINGS 1881

The Six Weeks Property Book pages 60-61 says work on the building started in August 1880 and took about a year (page 61). It has a has a "general description of the Building thus erected" (page 60 - description page 61) and of the "Caretakers House" described (page 61) as of "independent construction"

The part constructed 1880-1881 had four floors: A basement - a ground floor - a first floor - and a second floor. The ground floor consisted of a Mission Hall - a Coffee Tavern - and a Small Hall. The second floor had six "rooms suitable for lettings". (page 61)

The Caretakers House had three floor: A basement - a ground floor - and a first floor. The basement consisted of a kitchen and a scullery. The ground floor had a living room and entrance lobby. The first floor had two chambers. (page 61)

The architect of the Memorial Building was William Ward Lee and the builder William Brass and son of 47 Old Street, EC. The house or cottage by the gate, incorporated into the overall building, is of "independent construction" (much earlier) and the architect and builder of this are not known.

August 1881 Work on the Memorial Buildings, started in August 1881, took about a year.

MEMORIAL BUILDINGS STONE October 1881

This marble stone was originally fixed in an inside room of the memorial building. After the second world war it stood outside the cottage before 1990/1991 when it was moved inside to prevent further damage. It may, in fact, have suffered some more damage in the restoration of 2006. After that, it was fixed in its present position.

These buildings stand on part of the OLD BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND: The First FREEHOLD possessed by LONDON FRIENDS used by them for BURIALS during nearly TWO HUNDRED YEARS it was closed to such purposes in 1855.

In 1880 The Metropolitan Board of Works purchased parts of the PROPERTY for widening STREETS from which and also from the Site of these Premises all remains of Internments being first carefully removed were re-interred in the GROUND adjoining And out of the PROCEEDS of such compulsory Sales these BUILDING with their HALLS COFFEE-TAVERN CLUB and COMMITTEE ROOMS HAVE BEEN BUILT.

Near this spot GEORGE FOX was interred in 1690 previously EDWARD BURROUGH and some NINETY other MARTYR FRIENDS Who died in LONDON PRISONS HAD BEEN BURIED HERE.

To the Memory of these Ancient Worthies and for the furtherance of RELIGIOUS MORAL and PHILANTHROPIC OBJECTS are these BUILDINGS now DEDICATED by the SOCIETY of FRIENDS in LONDON, in the hope thereby to promote the best welfare and happiness of the surrounding population

LONDON 10 Mo 1881

18.1.1882 Agreement between the Six Weeks Meeting of the Society of Friends and the Bunhill fields Coffee Tavern Committee for renting premises in Bunhill fields. Rent £100 increasing to £150.

Premises let were those "in Coleman Street near Bunhill fields, London, recently erected there by the said Six Weeks Meeting for the purposes of a Coffee Tavern, together with the house adjoining (intended for the residence of a Manager to have the general care and oversight of the whole of the said Six Weeks Meeting's premises there)"

The Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd

Two views of a broken cup dug up in the cottage garden

The tavern and inn were a commercial venture. Their managers were the Hain family and the Pond family

Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd, 21 Roscoe Street
Other premises

1912: (Trade Directory) Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd (Arthur J. Lush Manager), East Barnet Road, New Barnet

1914 (Trade Directory): Burnham, Somerset. Life Boat Coffee Tavern and Restaurant. (Bunhill Coffee Taverns Limited, proprietors) High St and Victoria St.

1917 (Land Tax Records) and later: 86 Old Street. Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd. Shop.

1882 Provision was made (by six weeks meeting) for "a good and sufficient supply of annual and perennial roots each spring for the borders at Bunhill" from 1862. (White 1971 p. 57).

January to March 1882 Mowlem and Co. carried out paving and street widening works to Coleman Street at a cost of £2,497 8s. 9d. The street was widened to 40 feet and extended at the same width into Whitecross Street. They laid about 700 feet of granite carriage-way with York stone footways, and 200 feet of sewer. (Newman 1901) [A portion of the granite carriage way and York stone footway still exists in front of the Meeting House]

30.11.1882 "Deed of Release". The School Board for London (1) [and] Edward Marsh and others (Trustees of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground) (2). [Mentioned in 1957 deed].

FTL Archives:
30.11.1882 Deed of Release and Covenants with Plan - The School Board of London - Trustees of Bunhill Fields Burial Ground

1883 A Quaker meeting for worship established at Bunhill. (Bunhill 1924 p.15). This is described in 1886. The preparative meeting was not recognised by Devonshire House until 1896.


Six Weeks Property Book.

The key plan is Plan of Bunhill Fields Ancient Burial Ground which is one of the plans between pages 58E and 59

Key to Plan 9th Month 1883

Blue School Board. page 59

Yellow [now green] strips by property belonging to De la Rue and Co.

Light Pink strip street widening strip

Red area of building

Brown and yellow strips abutting a part coloured blue: Mutual rights of light and way with school board 30.11.1882

Uncoloured plus yellow and brown strips: garden and recreation ground


1883 Peabody Estate (East) replaced the maze of crowded streets and alleyways to the south of the new Bunhill Quaker recreation ground and mission. The plan is undated but before 1940. Members of the Bunhill people who lived on this estate included William James Gibson (T Block) and George Frederick Hart (S Block)

"To walk through EC1 is to take a journey through more than a hundred years of social housing. That journey starts with the Peabody Estate in Whitecross Street and Roscoe Street which was opened in 1883." David Green and Eoin Dunne "Public Housing Pioneers".

The long part of Coleman Street became Roscoe Street in 1883. The short part, connecting the western end to Banner Street, became Baird Street in 1884. Before the Peabody Buildings, walking down the end of Coleman Street that became Baird Street led one to Pump Alley at the western end of the burial ground.


1884 Walks in London by Augustus Hare

" Behind Bunhill Fields (west), in Coleman Street, is the entrance to the dismal Friends' Burial-Ground, which was for building purposes greatly reduced in its dimensions in 1877, the bones in the appropriated portion of the cemetery being removed to the neighbourhood of the grave of George Fox (1624-1690), founder of the Society of Friends, whose strong religious opinions were formed whilst as a shepherd he tended his sheep in Leicestershire. He became an itinerant preacher in 1647, and his whole after-life was devoted, amid many persecutions, to the spiritual well-being of his fellow men. George Fox was the only 'Friend' buried with a monument, but his gravestone is now concealed by a Mission Chapel."

In 1884, American Quaker, Charles F. Coffin, a friend of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior, lost his whole fortune. Three or more years later, he and his wife came to London and spent about two years evangelising.


January 1884 Article by Thomas Prichard Newman (1846-1915) on "The Housing of the London Poor" in The Friend's Quarterly Examiner pages 48-65

The Friend's Quarterly Examiner 1884 (pdf offline) - (txt offline)

pages 56-57:

"The writer is told by a City missionary who spends his life amongst the very poor in Clerkenwell, that few of the men spend less on their own beer than one shilling a day, and that at least one shilling a week goes in tobacco. If a man spends one-third of his earnings in unnecessary luxuries, it is not surprising that he and his family are found pigging together in a single foul room. Want of thrift in one respect is accompanied by want of thrift in many others. The same missionary says that Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday are spent in drinking ; on Tuesday the clothes and whatever can be spared go to the pawn- shop, to be taken out again on the succeeding Saturday if times are good enough. Sunday closing of public- houses, he says, would be an inestimable boon.

Want of education in spending money to advantage, rather than want of money, is the great cause of poverty. Many of the poorest are the least complaining and the cleanest ; often scrupulously clean. It is those able to earn fair wages, but who are wasteful, and have not learned to respect themselves, who live in the greatest degradation ; and these form the large majority. That there should be waste in drink is not matter for surprise when we consider the surroundings [page 57] of these poor people. On the one hand wretched homes, if homes they can be called; on the other, warm, brilliantly lighted public-houses to be found at the entrance or exit of court and alley, and principally supported by the earnings of the inhabitants. The temptation is strong, and even partial removal by legislation would be an almost incalculable benefit to the poor. But this remedy alone will not be sufficient, for it is undoubted that great poverty does exist, although much of it arises from grossly improvident habits. It is a sad fact that the earnings of some of the poor, - we may note the match-box makers, and those who work for the ready-made tailors, - are woefully small even with such long hours of labour as shock one to contemplate. The great and rapidly increasing population of London has over- stocked the labour market, and competition for the work that is to be had is of the keenest; there is no co-operation and no combination for keeping up the rate of wage, but, on the contrary, a gradual under-bidding which has been taken advantage of by the employer until prices are now at a starvation rate.

1885 Bunhill Adult School library enlarged. By 1889 the library "reported 943 books issued to 178 members, and 794 books in the library." (Bunhill 1924 pages 12 and 14). See Bunhill collection 1949.

29.6.1885 Letter of Richard Henry Thomas from the Braithwaite senior house at 312, Camden Road, London. "My Dear Mary, ... Yesterday (First day) morning, we went to Westminster Meeting. It was the first time I had seen the new Meeting-house ... Allen and his family came up to dinner and spent the afternoon. In the evening we went again to Bunhill and Rebecca and her sister went with us. On the way we stopped to see the graves of Susannah Wesley, John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, and Defoe. We had a favoured meeting, and in the after meeting there seemed to be some definite results. A young Friend of wide influence who has been opposed to mission work, testified to great blessing received in the meeting last week. At the meeting last week a man had said that he had been delivered from drink but could not overcome his temper. After meeting I said to h|m, " Have you ever looked upon your temper in the same light that you looked upon the drink, that you had no right to yield to it, and having thus given it up have you trusted the Lord to deliver you?" He said "No." Then I told him that was the reason he had not been delivered. Last night he said to me, " I found out what you said last week was true. I had not been willing to knuckle down. When I was in the right, I thought I had a right to get angry- but I have given it up and been trusting the Lord, and He has delivered me, and I have had a blessed week. A young Friend who some few weeks ago was converted was, I think, enabled to give herself up to the Lord in dedication - and after a deep struggle opened her mouth in the meeting."

25.12.1885 George Frederick Hart born in Finsbury. His family were living at 3 Beckford Square in 1891, but ha moved to 17 Guest Street by 1901. 17 Guest Street became 17 R Block, Peabody Buildings R Block Peabody Buildings, Guest Street, Roscoe Street, London E C by 19111. In 1911 his family had three rooms there but George was living alone in one room at 23 R Block. He was at 23 Block S. Peabody Buildings in 1938. He started voluntary work at Bunhill when he was 17 (1903) and continued there until he was 70 (1956). He married Bessie E Chamberlain in the spring of 1956 and moved to Hertfordshire. He died in the autumn of 1974 in Hertfordshire.

George wrote that "Up to the first war Bunhill was a real live Quaker Centre in Finsbury but the war came J.B.B. went over to the Military and that split the work up, and when it was over Bunhill never recovered it. In what I saw and know was happening there is too bad to write about and it is best that a curtain be drawn over the years between 1920 and the passing of J.B. Braithwaite and W.R. Harvey".


1886

Extracts from the Minutes and Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Friends... 1886 London 19.5.1886-27.5.1886

At Bunhill Fields the work is mainly carried on by members of Holloway Meeting. Here the Adult Men's School, with an average attendance of 293 on First-day mornings, forms a leading feature of the work. In connection with this school a Meeting has been established, which for the last two years has been held regularly every First-day morning as a Meeting for worship, entirely after the usual manner of Friends.

The attendance varies from forty to seventy, several members of our Society being usually present, though the vocal service is by no means confined to these. The question of the recognition of this Meeting as one of our regular Meetings for worship is now under consideration by Devonshire House Monthly Meeting.

Night Schools, a Provident Society, and other efforts of the same kind, are carried on in connection with the work at this centre.

There are also a Women's First-day School, attended by about fifty, and a Children's School with an attendance of about 450; also an evening Gospel Meeting with some 200 attenders.

A Medical Mission cares for the physical as well as the spiritual needs of a large and suffering class.

1887 Philanthropy and five per cent: the National Dwellings Society, Limited, founded by A. T. Hawkins, for the purpose of providing improved dwellings for the working classes. National Dwellings Society


20.1.1888 "Agreement" An Agreement relating to a wall on the Western boundary of the land made between (1) The Governors of the Peabody Donation Fund (2) The Trustees of the Six Weeks Meeting of The Society of Friends and (3) The Trustees of the Bedford Institute. [Mentioned in 1957 deed].

17.5.1888 Arriving in England from Canada, John T. Dorland went to stay with Joseph Baker and his family at Brondesbury.

May 1888 "Visited Bunhill Fields, and the grave of George Fox. Breakfast and a most stirring address by H.S. Newman. I was invited to follow, and did so for seven or ten minutes. It was something to stand there and remember the labours of Friends here in other days. It was a splendid meeting. On our way home passed the grave of John Bumyan and Sussannah Wesley in the larger Bunhill Fields Graveyards. Both John Bunyan and Ed. Burrough know the truth better now than when they fought each other in days gone by."

3.6.1888 "at Bunhill Fields Mission and Adult School. The School most interesting. Nearly 400 men out. I had 15 minutes to address them. Then the Morning Meeting there. It is regularly organised and held as Friends' Meeting. It has requested recognition but the conservation of Mo. Meeting has refused it. It seems a pity for it is a noble work". At W. King Baker's to dine. Met some young men there and then to Bunhill Fields for a gospel meeting in the evening. A large congregation and I trust some results. Came home weary but happy. 'One more day's work for Jesus'"

The Bunhill Fields buildings of 1881 were extended in 1888. The extension, on the right of the picture, was largely to meet the needs of the Adult School. On the left is the Bunhill Coffee Tavern, and between them the meeting house. The small building at the far right (east) was the cottage, which was the Hain family home in 1891. Only the cottage remains, and is now where Bunhill Quakers meet. On 26.5.1888 sons of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite and Joseph Allan Baker laid two memorial stones for the extension.
The extension was opened on 1.12.1888. Over 1,000 members and friends "took tea on the premises".
Joshua Rowntree presided at the meeting in the evening and John T Dorland from Canada was also present. (Bunhill 1924 p. 13).

John T Dorland: "... afternoon at annual tea of the Bedford Institute. Several hundred friends out to tea. Charles F. Coffin gave a good address and I followed and think I was helped to show the need of and blessing of mission work. The meeting was very enthusiastic. Went to Braithwaite's for the night and in the morning had a pleasant conversation with J.B.B. and wife over Society matters. Then home. Howard Brooks with me to dine. Good to see him again. Then down to Bunhill Fields to the opening of the new buildings. About 1,000 sat down to tea. An audience of about 1,500, Joshua Rowntree, MP in the chair. J.A. Baker's speech was quite affecting. All the praise was given to the Lord who had given the buildings in answer to prayer. Home with W.K. Baker for the night. J. Rowntree, MP, there also. Up next morning at 6 and down to the School. Grand time in J.'s class, 157 out - 557 men were in the School - 'High-water mark'. The meeting for worship was a most restful, refreshing time. Than a Bible reading, with about 400, at 3pm, and a Gospel meeting in the evening; about 800 out. This was a full but blessed day."


According to GenDocs "In 1888 the General Post Office and London County Council conducted a renaming and renumbering scheme to eliminate duplicate road names throughout the LCC and to renumber houses consistently with the lowest number being closest to the local post office"


Charles Booth's 1889 Descriptive Map of London Poverty. Extract including Bunhill from the website developed by Sabiha Ahmad for David Wayne Thomas, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Michigan in 1999
Roscoe Street, which has replaced the main part of Coleman Street now extends all the way from Bunhill Row to Golden Lane. The new Memorial Buildings are now on a through road that is wider than Coleman Street. They are indicated by a small oblong above "Board School" in the lower part of the map.

Upper middle and Upper classes, wealthy (people) areas are shown in gold. I cannot see any on this cutting. Along main roads such as City Road, Old Street and parts of Bunhill Row, Middle Class, well-to-do (people) are shown by ribbons of red. Red goes through pink, representing fairly comfortable paeople on good ordinary earnings, to brown which represents mixed areas of poor (people) with some who are comfortable. It will be seen that the large are of new model buildings south of the Memorial Buildings are brown. The working class had been uplifted somewhat. The shades of blue, for poverty, go from the lightest, which indicates poor (people) who might be living on 18 shillings to 21 shillings a week for a moderate family, through very poor, casual (workers) living in chronic want, to the lowest class of vicious (people) who are semi-criminal. Moving along Old Street from Whitecross Stret to Bunhill Row, the turnings are a descent throgh poverty. Royley Street, on the corner of which Arthur Pond had his shop, was mixed. Beckford Square, where Emily Hart was bringing up George Frederick, was definitely poor, but Tilney Court , to the east, was possibly vicious. I think the light green areas indicate that no classification has been made.

27.1.1889 569 men were present at the Adult School. This was the "high-water mark".

16.2.1889 A Conference at the Memorial Buildings decided to form the London Adult School Union. In 1899, the London Adult School Union, the Midland Adult School Union and the Leicestershire Adult School Union, acting together, were the means of starting the National Council of Adult Schools, which became the National Adult School Union. (Bunhill 1924 p.11 and elsewhere)

23.3.1889 B.I. (Bedford Institute) lease mention 1925 file

5.5.1889 to 31.10.1889 The Exposition Universelle in Paris celebrated the French Revolution of 1789. Its entrance was the new Eiffel Tower constructed of puddled iron, a form of purified wrought iron and was designed by Gustave Eiffel. Notable British Exhibits included food machinery manufactured by Joseph Baker and sons.

9.8.1889 B.I.E. (Bedford Institute Association?) lease mention 1925 file

1.11.1889 Philip John Baker, sixth of seven children of Elizabeth Balmer and Joseph Allen Baker, born (at Donnington (house name) near Willesden?). He married married Irene Noel, a field hospital nurse in East Grinstead, in 1915 and they called themselves Noel- Baker. He died 8.10.1982,

About 1890 Arthur Pond (aged 21) bought the ironmongers shop he worked in at Old Street from the widow of his former employer. (Pond family tree)

Arthur Pond and his older brother Henry became friends of Joseph Allen Baker (Baker and Baker 1927 p.134)

25.7.1890 "Duplicate Agreement" An agreement relating to footings and foundation of part of the wall on the southern boundary of the land made between (1) The Trustees of the Six Weeks Meeting of the Society of Friends and (2) The School Board for London. [Mentioned in 1957 deed].

1890

John Bevan Braithwaite junior read an "important paper" at the Birmigham conference of the Friends' First-day School Association in which he discussed the Evolution of Adult School Aims and Methods.

Braithwaite argued that the ideal of helpfulness had been widened from that of simply teaching the scholars how to read the Bible till it covered a great number, indeed, "almost every sort of mutually helpful organisation," and these, " mainly carried on by members of the school," help to make the school "the great manufactory of workers it undoubtedly is."

Actual reading and writing had come to occupy a minor and decreasing place in the schools, in fact, the very title of the presiding officer is in many places being changed from "teacher" to "president". This suggests that the "tendency of the modern Adult School is rather to develop and bring out the capabilities of its members than merely to instruct them". Thus it fosters a wholesome spirit of universal individual responsibility; if the President is absent, the Vice-President must preside, and the dangers of spiritual parasitism are largely obviated by co-operation and consequent esprit de corps. The business of the ideal school is no longer controlled by the teacher or the Teachers' Meeting ; but every member has an equal voice and vote in its affairs, "even in the annual election of the President."

This statement by no means represents the actual position of Adult Schools, but was rather set forth as the ideal towards which the more progressive were tending, and which a few had attained. The final summary of the paper is so suggestive that we venture to quote it at length, believing that its main argument is justified by our own reading of the history of the movement,

" It appears to me that the evolution of the Adult School has proceeded on two main lines :

1. A gradual extension of scope which has now reached a point which almost justifies the saying, that the Adult School is destined to become the working man's church of the future. 2. A gradual extension of the democratic principle in the government of the school, commencing with government by a Teachers' Meeting, passing through various intermediate stages, such as government by a meeting of officers, and government by a committee elected by the school, and finally resulting in a complete system of government by class and school meetings, in which every member has a voice and vote.

Time will not admit of my giving a detailed account of the most recent type of Adult School, but the following are a few of its leading characteristics :

" (1) The Presidents of the classes and all other officers of the school are elected annually, and the school is managed by the men themselves.

" (2) It is entirely unsectarian,

"(3) All the classes meet together at the opening and close of school, thus maintaining a strong tie of brotherly love and unity between the different classes.

" (4) Within certain fundamental lines, which can only be altered by a special resolution of the whole school, each class is left free to manage its own affairs ; consequently, in the same school there may be, and often is, considerable variety of detail as between the various classes.

" (5) Every School Society is managed by a committee, on which each class is repre- sented in proportion to its size, and each such Society reports annually to the School Quarterly Meeting.

" An Adult School organised on lines such as these, appears to me to possess a three- fold advantage :

"1. Economy of teachers or presidents, two or three being sufficient for a school numbering several hundreds.

"2. Its whole plan and organisation are calculated to develop the latent gifts of its members to the highest degree, and it thus becomes a training school for Christian workers of all sorts.

"3. It is automatic. Once organised it must go on, as it is not dependent for its success on any one or more men."


Adult schools: their aims and methods, and how to establish them. 2nd edition. Published 1891 for the London Adult School Union by Edward Hicks Junior in London. The following passage reproduced by Charles Booth may be an extract:

Aims and Methods of Adult Schools.

The name " Adult School " does not quite explain itself. Some think it refers to a purely educational institution for working men, not understanding the essentially religious character of the schools. Others fancy that it is only a new kind of Bible class. Now, though adult schools are too full of life and growth to be capable of exact definition, they are much more than either simple educational or Bible classes. We shall not be far wrong in describing them as co-operative religious societies, carried on and controlled by their own members.

This is an age of co-operation. The principle underlies trades unions, co- operative stores, sick benefit clubs, benefit building societies, mutual assurance societies, and many other modern institutions. Christian co- operation is known to us under its beautiful name of Brotherhood. True brotherhood, in all that it means of love and help and of independent and yet harmonious working together for great ends, is the noblest as it is the simplest basis for practical Christian work.

In some of the thickly peopled districts of London or in the great manufacturing towns of the Midlands or the North you may learn, by a personal visit, something of the spiritual power and practical help which centres in an adult school. The men who crowd the classes spend their lives in toil and daily care. They come because they love the school ; because it gives them a lift up for the week ; because they want to help each other on. The school has been the making of them, and they feel that on them depends its success. The warm hand- shake, the heart sympathy, the willingness to visit and to help one another are the best proofs that the meaning of brotherly love is understood.

And what sort of men does the adult school turn out ? Men who have had brought home to their hearts the direct responsibility involved in our brotherhood to one another will not be idlers. The aims and methods of the school make it a manufactory of Christian workers. God's love is received as a living influence that produces the active energy of loving work for Him. Each one feels his share of responsibility, his share in the work. There is no place for spiritual paupers. The school appeals to the independent minds of our artisans because they feel that it will be what they and their mates make it. So grand an instrument for social and religious progress and for breaking down the barrier between rich and poor and between class and class needs only to be known in order to be made use of. Earnest minds in all our Churches are longing to find a means for bringing them- selves into touch with working men. They know the futility of all attempts which pauperize or patronize, and are beginning to find that an adult school is a platform upon which the principles of Christ can bind together men of all classes and circumstances into a living brother- hood.

The Essential Principles of Success.

What, then, are the essential principles of success? They may be shortly stated as follows :

1. A spirit of mutual love and sympathy.

2. The school must be an independent institution. Its basis must be unsectarian and it should not be carried on as the branch of any sect or society. Unsectarian premises are preferable but not indispensable, and provided this basis is strictly adhered to there can be little objection to the premises of some particular sect or society being made use of.

3. All sorts and conditions of men should be equally welcome to join the school, without any profession of religious belief being required.

4. The school should be based upon individual responsibility. Every member should have a voice in its management, and should thus feel that he has a part in promoting its welfare.

5. The various branches of the school work should be kept subordinate to its central point the reverent study of the Bible in a class where every member is free to take part.

6. A portion of the time should be given to writing, &c. [After the opening of the school, the classes separate for the writing period, which lasts according to circumstances, from twenty minutes to half an hour. It is an essential feature of an adult school.]

7. The school should meet on Sunday at an hour which will not interfere with the services in the neighbouring churches or chapels, opening and closing punctually.

8. The adult classes should be confined to members above a certain age. Seventeen or eighteen is a suitable limit to fix.

1891 Statue of John Wesley erected outside Wesley's Chapel one hundred years after his death. The picture is from Holmes 1896 (page 149) who says this part of the "graveyard" was well kept (page 148).

Sunday 5.6.1891 The census lists the Memorial Buildings Adult School in Roscoe Street as uninhabited and Bunhill Coffee Tavern as inhabited. There were also several warehouses (uninhabited) in Roscoe Street. [I cannot find anyone living in Roscoe Street in 1891 apart from those in the Coffee Tavern/Inn. Those present in Roscoe Street: Bunhill Coffee Tavern were
James Hain, Coffee Tavern Manager, aged 42
Catherine Hain, his wife, Coffee Inn Manager aged 34
William W. (son) 14
Ellen Mary (daughter) 12
James Frederick (son) 9
Florenca Margaret (daughter) 5, born Herefordshire
Ellen F. born 27.7.1890 in St Lukes, London.
The following were boarders:
George Taylor 46
Alfred Baldwin 21
Frederick Jones 44
Edward Melton 38
Sydney Pickard 30
William H Brand 47
William Jackson 44
Waller Carey 28
Harry E Lissett 24
O S Smith 49
George V Kellick 43
William Edwin 23
Francis Gauld 61
William Shuttleworth 28
Charles S Reverie 38.
Sydney Pickard and William Jackson were Coffee Tavern Assistants.


Sunday 5.6.1891 Rosa Ann Brewer (24) was living with her brothers Alfred W., a carman (29), Edward, an iron-moulder (27) and John H., an errand boy (17) at 6 Watts Cottages, Mill Lane, St John, Hampstead. She is not "employed", which probably means she was looking after her brothers.
As Rosa Ann Pond, Rosa took part in Finsbury politics as a Liberal and when she left Roscoe Street in 1930 she was presented with a silver teapot in appreciation of her work.

Sunday 5.6.1891 Frederick Pond and his wife Eliza now live at 9 West End, Hampstead where he was the manager of the coffee shop. With them lived some of their sons: Henry Pond (29), an insurance clerk, Alfred Pond (19) Coffee House Assistant, Walter Pond (16) Ironmonger's Assistant and Edward Pond (13) Coffee House Assistant. They had all been born in Cambridgeshire

Henry Pond applied for the post of keeper of the Bunhill Coffee Tavern, in February 1889. He had to be a married man so this hastened the marriage to Rosa Brewer at the Emmanuel Church in West Hampstead on 29.10.1891 (Peter Pond, grandson, 2007)

about 1894 Henry and Rosa A. Pond had a son Frank H Pond. In 1894 Henry Pond was the only person in Roscoe Street entitled to vote in a Parliamentary election.

See 1901 and 1911

Henry and Rosa were still on the electoral register at 21 Roscoe Street in 1930 - as was Joseph Bevan Braithwaite. Henry and Rosa stayed in Roscoe Street until they retired in 1930 to Welwyn Garden City.

George Hart says "the Cottage... was the home of Mr Pond who was the Manager of the Coffee Tavern. The cottage contained 3 rooms and a small off room. The basement was the kitchen, the ground floor room was the sitting room and the top floor was the bedroom and the small off-room their son's room. There was a passage way from the cottage that took one into the Coffee House"


1894

1894 Revision of sheet 7.45 of the five feet to the mile Ordnance Survey of London (includes Bunhill). This was published in 1896.

Monday 19.11.1894 Alfred Templeton Hawkins, J.P., remanded at the Mansion House on a charge of fraudulently applying to his own use a cheque of £1,200 belonging to the National Dwellings Company


1895


1895 Augustus Hare published The Gurneys of Earlham in two volumes. (London. G. Allen). He was persuaded (1893) to write this by Madam E. D. Bunsen and had resisted because he was "so little sympathy with their outward forms of religion, with their peculiar expression of it - with their religious talking, in fact" (The Story of my Life, volume six, 1900, page 337 following) [Augustus Hare was Catholic. He notes that the Gurneys were very liberal towards people whose views differed from theirs.]

Internet archive volume one - volume two

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (13.3.1834 - 22.1.1903)

The Bunhill model at the Manchester Conference

Monday 11.11.1895 to Friday 15.11.1895 Conference of Members of the Society of Friends, held, by direction of the Yearly Meeting, in Manchester.

The subject of the conferenace was covered by a Quaker tapestry of obfuscation, lovingly prepared. The following passage of a minute hints what it might have been:

"The absolute need of the Society making use of all legitimate modern methods for making known our distinguishing views, and bringing ourselves as a Christian Church into contact with the people-embracing in this thought not only the poorer classes of the community, but also the more cultured and educated portion of society"
Amongst other matters, the conference debated the "Bunhill model" as presented in a paper by John Bevan Braithwaite junior on the evening of 12.11.1895 on "The relations between adult schools and mission meetings and the organisation of the Society of Friends" The session was chaired by William White

Conference highlights

11.11.1895 Evening introduction

12.11.1895

Address of welcome from the free churches of Manchester. - Early Quakerism - its spirit and power. A paper by Matilda Sturge read, in her absence, by Helen M. Sturge, - Has quakerism a message to the world to-day? Papers by Frederick Sessions and William Charles Braithwaite.

Evening: The relations between adult schools and mission meetings and the organisation of the Society of Friends. Talks by William White, who chaired; Ellwood Brockbank, who provided a statistical analysis, and Joseph Bevan Braithwaite from Bunhill. Followed by contributions from the floor.

13.11.1895

THE ATTITUDE OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS TOWARDS SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

THE RELATION OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR LAWS.

Evening: The attitude of the Society of Friends towards modern thought. The was the session with the largest attendance. It opened with a paper by the chair, Thomas Hodgkin. A paper written by Joseph Bevan Braithwaite senior was read by Richard Henry Thomas. He argued for the judgement of truth and that believing in the divine inspiration of the Bible was consistent with this. James Rendel Harris (1852-1941), a Quaker lecturer on ancient manuscripts, spoke next, accusing evangelicals of often being blind to science. The next speaker, Silvanus P. Thompson, Professor of Physics at the City and Guilds Technical College in Finsbury, apologised for appearing to put a very different conception of the relationship between science and religion to that of James Rendel Harris. John William Graham of Owen College, Manchester read the final paper. There was no time for discussion.

Richard Henry Thomas expressed himself well satisfied with the session on modern thought, writing in the American Friend

"It is certainly a sign of strength when a great representative body is so untrammelled as to allow free expressions of opinion to be uttered on matters of living interest, and to leave whatever is true to find its own witness in the heart."

14.11.1895

THE MORE EFFECTIVE PRESENTATION OF SPIRITUAL TRUTH.

THE VITALIZING OF OUR MEETINGS FOR WORSHIP.

15.11.1895

THE PUBLIC MEETING.

THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE WORLD.


The Bunhill model

Bunhill was exceptional amongst the 12 Christian Societies attached to Quaker run Adult Schools reported on in 1895 in that all its meetings were conducted as Quaker meetings.

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite told the conference

"I am one of those who believe that the surest way to reach the people and bring them to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ is to invite them to join us in sitting down in reverent silence to wait upon the Lord Himself, and, with nothing to distract them from waiting upon Him"
He contrasted this with Quaker christian societies for workers that used "Sankey's hymns and organised preachng and a more or less infomal service"

Does membership requires the acceptance of the views of Friends on the Ordinances, Spiritual Worship, etc., the answer is generally "No," with various qualifications, such as, "but they absorb them,"... Bunhill speaks clearly on this point in the one word, "Fully."

Are there arrangements to encourage application for membership in the Society of Friends? Bunhill and Gloucester answer "Yes." Hart's Lane (London) says "suitable applicants are encouraged to seek full membership." The Bedford (London) says such encouragement "is given to a limited extent,"

Out of 100 members of the Bunhill meeting for worship, 64 had been admitted as members of the Society. This was by far the highest proportion of the twelve. Hart's Lane had admitted 13 out of 100. Bedford Institute had admitted 18 out of 145.

Connection between Christian Societies at Adult Schools etc and the Monthly Meeting Five out of the twelve said there was none. In London: The Bedford and Hart's Lane (London) are affiliated to Devonshire House Monthly Meeting, and two members of each attend its meetings, by invitation, for six months, when a new selection is made. At Bunhill preliminary membership is gained through its own Preparative Meeting, and full membership from Devonshire House Monthly Meeting.

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite's talk indicates that this meant the meeting at Bunhill had a self-contained organisation to which its members belonged. They had full membership of the Bunhill meeting whether or not they applied and were accepted as members of the monthly meeting,

Charles J. Rowntree: "I do not suppose for a moment that Friends who have spoken of the 'Bunhill model' mean to imply at all that there is not in large portions of the country besides much work going on in the same spirit."

Janette C. Moscrip: "We have no fixed rule for music at Bunhill Fields; we like it in the right place, but we do feel that the basis of all true worship must be silence before the Lord. But if He should give me a word for the meeting in song, I should be as culpable in repressing it as if He had given me a word of prayer. We must not narrow down the ministry, but work in every meeting under the direction of the Master Himself. We don't know what the Lord may do at the next meeting; we may have to do things that nobody else has ever done in a meeting before. Are we going to be faithful to the dictates of the Spirit of God?"

1896

The establishment of a Preparative Meeting at Bunhill Fields was approved by Monthly Meeting on "16th of 7th month 1896, Women Friends being present". The first Preparative Meeting was held on 1.9.1896 and meetings have been held without a break since that date. (1973 Report)


On the east wall of the meeting room at Bunhill (in the 1930s) it said For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son - It is the same text as on the table (right) at Brook Street Chapel For God so loved the
world

January/February 1896 Alfred Templeton Hawkins, director of the National Dwellings Society, convicted of four acts of fraudulent misappropriation of the company's money. Sentenced to five years. (The Teesdale Mercury Wednesday 2.2.1896).

London burial grounds 1896 The London Burial Grounds: Notes on their history from the earliest times to the present day by Mrs Basil Holmes Illustrated. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1896. Woking. The Gresham Press, Unwin Brothers, Woking and London. 339 pages. Author Isabella M. Holmes.

Internet Archive copy - offline - Anne M. Powers on "The Wonderful Mrs Basil Holmes

Mrs Basil Holmes said that the Quakers were the only Nonconformists to keep a careful account of ther graveyards. With the notable exception of Bunhill, she said, they also treated their grounds and the remains in them with greater respect and kept them neat and clean.

Four Quaker graveyards had entirely disappeared: Long Acre in 1757 - Wapping about 1779, Worcester Street and Ewer Street, Southwark.

"The Quakers of the Bull and Mouth and Peel Divisions used a large ground near Bunhill Fields, between Checquer Alley and Coleman (now Roscoe) Street. It was acquired in 1661, and many times added to, and was used extensively by them at the time of the Great Plague, when they had their own special dead-cart. George Fox's body was carried here (p. 142) in 1690, an orderly procession, numbering 4,000 persons, following ta the grave. In 1840 a school was built in it, and the rest of the tale it grieves me to tell.

A part of the burial-ground exists now, not half an acre in area. It is neatly laid out as a sort of private garden. Five thousand bodies were dug up in the other part and buried, with carbolic acid, in a corner of the existing piece, and the site from which they were removed is now covered with a Board School, a coffee-palace, houses, and shops, including the Bunhill Fields Memorial Buildings, erected in 1881.

The remainder of the ' Friends' burial-grounds are intact. The one in Baker's Row, Whitechapel (acquired in 1687 and used by the Devonshire House Division), is now a recreation ground ; and the one in Long Lane, Bermondsey, which was bought in 1697 for £120, has lately been laid out for the use of the public. In addition to these there are, in London itself, five little grounds adjoining meeting-houses in High Street, Deptford, in Brook Street, Ratcliff, in High Street, Wandsworth (given by Joan Stringer in 1697), by the Creek, Hammersmith, and in Hanover Street, [p. 143] Peckham Rye.

All these grounds are neatly kept ; the one in Peckham, which dates from 1821, is beautiful, and illustrates what can be done with a disused and closed graveyard, not even visible from the road, when it is treated with proper care and respect. Many of the burial-grounds just outside London have been sold with the meeting- houses.


1900 Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury created by merging the parishes of St James Clerkenwell and St Luke Old Street. Findbury merged with Islington in 1965.

George Newman (23.10.1870 - 26.5.1948), a Quaker, was appointed as its first medical officer. See Notes on Housing Question

11.4.1900 Philip Barton Baker acknowledged a minister by Devonshire House Monthly Meeting. He was a true minister of the Gospel... Perhaps the most remarkable of all was his power in prayer".


31.3.1901 Census for Memorial Building Roscoe Street - Coffee Tavern [and] Meeting House. South side:

Henry Pond 39 Coffee Tavern Manager
Rosa A Pond 34
Frank H Pond 7 - born St Luke, Old Street
Edward Brewer 27
David R Hemmings 23
William G Amgo 22
Thoophilis W Marie 47
Thomas Wyld 46
Robert Shattock 38
James Smith 41
Frederick Grainger 19
James J Heggins 54
James E Heggins 19
Frederick J H Garrott 30
William Lloyd 64
Arthur Brook 30
Herman Gsbeer 64
Frederick P Brans 24
John Jobson 35
George L Parker 43
George E Brook 33
James Gardiner 50
James Collins 39
Harry Pearson 21
Harris Goldman 52
Ernest H Park 19
Ernest V Cranton 20


2.7.1901 Some Notes on the Housing Question in Finsbury by George Newman, Medical Officer of Health of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. London: Thomas Bean

1902:
Charles Booth 1902 Life and Labour of the People in London. Third edition. 17 volumes. Volume 7 "Religious Influences: Summary" page 146

"The Society of Friends is ... a decreasing body, besides being less noticeable in the world than when their peculiarities of dress and speech were more strictly practised. In other ways, as well as dress, they have moved with the times, and in one case we find 'an old-fashioned Quaker meeting transformed into a militant Gospel mission'. Their great contribution to the religious life of the people has been the 'adult school' which is in fact not a school at all, but a social and religious organisation of the most democratic type. But no proselytising is involved, this being foreign altogether to the habits of this sect. The Friends are content 'merely to welcome' such as join them. In this and in many other ways they set a wise example, and regarding one report from them my notes contain the remark that it is the simplest, truest and least embellished account we have had of the work of any denomination.

1903: George Frederick Hart began voluntary work at Bunhill. Sometime between 1901 and 1911 his paid employment ceased being a packer and he became a store-keeper working in the motor car tyre vulcaniser industry.

1903 Woodbrooke Settlement, Bristol Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham started. For many years John C. Kydd was active here. He married Grace G Mitcheson in Atherstone in 1930. Charles Robert Simpson studied at Woodbrooke.

1906

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite junior became chairman of the City of London Electric Lighting Company which had one of its two power stations on the Regent's Canal at the City Road basin, near Bunhill. George Hart wrote about the Memorial Buildings that:

"The whole building was lit by gas until J.B.B. became the Chairman of the Electric light works in City road when he had the whole place wired by E. Leget and it was the first large place in Finsbury to have it in."

1908 plan of Bunhill Fields Meeting House

The new
De La Rue was purpose built in 1874. The recreation ground appears to fit in with it and I suspect that it was laid out between 1874 and 1876 and that this is when Eli Ridley was photographed with the bench, tree and stone.


The Bunhill Hymn and Song Books

The proper Quaker meetings for worship in Britain are songless. But not all Quaker meetings are proper meetings for worship. The Bunhill Mission had its silent meeting for worship, but around it were the Mission meetings - That needed hymn books and songbooks. Some of these survive.

  • Fellowship Hymn Book Published by The National Adult School Union and The Brotherhood Movement, Incorporated. The hymnbook was first published in 1909. There are two copies at Bunhill. One is the second edition of March 1933.

  • Fellowship Song Book (Part 1) Twelve copies survive. Stamped "J. B. Braithwaite. The Highlands, New Barnet". This contains 87 songs.. "for indoor or open-air singing" prepared "on behalf of The National Adult School Union, The Co-operative Holidays Association, The Holiday Fellowship, The Workers' Educational Association, The Home Music Study Union, and for the general use of clubs, social unions and public schools" by B H. Walford Davies, whose Preface is dated "Temple Church, E.C. June 1915"
  • 2.4.1911

    4 Rooms in 21 Roscoe Street
    Henry Pond 49
    Rosa Ann Pond 44
    Frederick Henry Pond 17
    George Whish 42 Boarder. Warehouseman Drapers. Born Lambeth

    23 Rooms in 21 Roscoe Street
    Frederick Herman Gehloen 38
    William John Carrigall 30
    George Louis Parker 54
    John Thomas Huckell 41
    George Herbert Geere 20
    George Walker 55
    Robert Arthur Hickes 40
    Reginald James Partington 42
    John Wingfield 28
    Maurice Marshall 18
    Richard Barraclough 40
    Walter Henry John Fletcher 21
    William Peters 44
    Peter Oneill 39
    William Gill 45

    1912

    William Braithwaite 1912 The Beginnings of Quakerism. Macmillan

    7.8.1912 Henry [Joel] Cadbury, from Pennsylvania, arrived in Liverpool, England aboard US ship Merion. He visited Bunhill where he took an "amateur photo of George Fox's gravestone there". He left Liverpool for New York aboard the Mauritania on 21.9.1912.
    "I have visited the Friends' burial ground at Bunhill Fields in London nearly every time I have been in England"
    (Cadbury 1972). He visited England in 1920, was at Woodbrooke 1932-1933, and visited in 1937 and 1958 as well as other times.

    1913

    The first edition of Alfred W. Light's Bunhill Fields - Written in honour and to the memory of the many saints of God whose bodies rest in this old London cemetery With chart of the ground and many illustrations. London: C. J. Farncombe & Sons, Ltd., 30 Imperial Buildings, E.C. 1913 (available online) - offline

    "Many visitors to 'Bunhill Fields' are under the impression that the grave of George Fox, the Quaker, is here. This, however, is not so, but the small head-stone on which the name of Fox is inscribed stands in the Friends' Burial Ground in Roscoe Street, and may be seen easily through the railings. It is about three minutes' walk from the entrance gate at the west end of 'Bunhill.'" Notes

    1915 edition in the Bunhill/Collection, donated by Norman Searle.

    The Straits Times 4.5.1914

    REMARKABLE QUILT. Forty Years at Work on Unique Patchwork. A patchwork quilt which has taken forty years to make is one of many remarkable exhibits which members of the London Adult School Union are showing at the Memorial Buildings in Roscoe street. The quilt was made by Mrs. F. Newman, of Greenwich, and is composed of 4,200 separate pieces of vari-coloured cloth. Each piece is octagonal in shape and less than an inch in diameter, and 2,000 yards of cotton were used in sewing them together. Another quilt, made by Mrs Larnaz, contains 2,696 separate pieces. A Wood Green postman has won a prize for a thick and luxurious heart mad of sage green wool, the fashionable Futurist spring colour. It has occupied most of his spare time for many years. A handsome black and green wool rug has been sent in by a domestic servant, who designed it and made it herself.

    Cakes and Pastry

    There is a wonderful display of cakes and pastry. An East-end machine- minder finds cooking a pleasant distraction, and he has contributed to the exhibition a sultana cake of most appetizing appearance. A man book-keeper has earned commendation from the judges for an orange cake, and a leather traders assistant has sent in for competition a set of golden buns. A pot of home-made marmalade comes from another man whose hobbies are domestic - a fancy leather worker. A recruiting sergeant exhibits a carved stool, and specimens of inlaid furniture, bookbinding, fretwork, paintings, and collections of butterflies and fossils have been sent in by office boys, clerks, house-keepers, typists, schoolboys, tailors, bootmakers, and members, old and young, of many other trades.

    Miss Bertha G. Baker, the sixteen-year old niece of Mr J.A. Baker, P.P. for East Finsbury, has been awarded a first prize for an illuminated manuscript poem, called The Fairies Year, written, illustrated, coloured, and bound by herself.

    1914 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite supported Quakers fighting in the first world war. In a letter to The Friend he called upon the Society to recognise "that the use of force against evil [i.e., the Hun] is not only permissible but necessary." The issues are discussed by Thomas Kennedy- See 1921

    According to Ted Milligan (1986) Joseph Bevan Braithwaite Junior was "A Quaker from beginning to end, although during WW1 he put up a banner at Bunhill 'The British flag is the Christian flag - Join Up'"

    Segregation of men and women in a Quaker meeting. As far as I know, this was a feature of Quakerism and did not happen in other Christian Churches

    The separation of men and women was linked to the idea of a role for each. Quakers were organised into men's meetings and women's meetings and each had its responsibilities.

    "The Presence in the Midst" was painted by J. Doyle Penrose in 1916. The first time I saw it was above the mantlepiece at Bunhill in the 1970s. I did not see the figure of Jesus - only the Quakers sitting men on one side and women on the other. It reminded me of a friend who told me that, as a young woman about this time, she sat down in meeting and became aware of a weighty Quakeress above her who said "Thou art sitting with the men", and escorted her to the women's side. This is what people called "eldering". I only saw the figure of Christ when someone used the picture to minister against him. The picture was removed from the wall in a general purge of Bunhill pictures in the 1990s. I grieved. I liked Bunhill's pictures.

    John Woolman Settlement 1916

    Charles Robert Simpson, born 1882, was a Barnsley miner. He married Agnes Annie Stimpson (1882-1966) at the Wesleyan Reform Chapel in Barnsley on 20.8.1904. harles worked as a coal miner in Yorkshire for thirteen years before gaining entrance to Ruskin College in Oxford via his Trade Union. He was at Ruskin the time of the 1911 Census. It was an all male college and Agnes Annie stayed with friends in Oxford. He was awarded a diploma in Economics and Political Science. Later, Charles studied at Woodbrooke, the Quaker settlement in Birmingham. Charles became a lecturer for the National Adult School Union and the Workers' Educational Association. In 1916 he set up the John Woolman Settlement in Islington, named after the American Quaker. In 1931 the settlement moved to Bunhill.

    1917: "Our Bunhill Fields Branch has suffered a severe loss during the year in the death of Philip B. Baker. Especially in the Men's School and the Meeting for Worship has this loss been felt" (Annual Report The Bedford Institute Association)

    1919

    William Braithwaite 1919 The Second Period of Quakerism. Macmillan

    1921: Old Street south side from Golden Lane

    See street directory

    Golden Lane
    64 and 66 Old Street: The London and North Western Railway General Receiving Office and Landau and Singer Ltd, shirt manufacturers ...
    80 Old Street: Post Office
    80 to 84 Old Street: Palmer W H and Co Ltd, varnish makers
    86 Old Street:
    Bunhill Coffee Taverns Limited
    Youngs buildings
    88 Old Street: Triumph Tea - Empire Tea
    90 Old Street: St Lukes Head, Wallace Arthur Stephens
    Whitecross Street
    92 Old Street: Cornish Tom, tobacconist ...
    104 Old Street: Webb Henry James, tobacconist
    Royley Street
    106 and 108 Old Street: Beech & Pond, ironmongers
    120 Old Street: Regents Fittings Company
    Beckford Square
    124 Old Street: Myons Harris, watch maker
    130 Old Street: Elvin Barnett, watch maker
    132 Old Street: Myons Harris, watch maker (again)
    Tilney Court
    134 Old Street: Sleigh Brothers, office fitters ...
    148 to 166 Old Street: includes Bovril Limited and Vitrol Ltd
    Bunhill Row
    168 Old Street: Robinson and Sons Ltd, lint makers ...
    176 Old Street: Howell Henry, stick makers
    Martha Buildings
    to 186, and again 196 Old Street: Howell Henry, stick makers
    188 to 194 Old Street: Lukes Parochial Schools ...
    206 and 208 Old Street: Barnes George and Co Ltd, wine merchants
    Mallow Street
    214 Old Street: Edward Stillwell and Sons, scale makers ...
    224 Old Street: London County Westminster and Parrs Bank Ltd
    City Road

    1921: Old Street north side from Red Cross Yard
    Red Cross Yard
    69 Old Street: Johnson G Brothers, shopfitters
    77 Old Street: Furriers and leather case maker [This was
    115 Old Street in 1799]
    77 and 79 Old Street: Bull and Ram, Frederick James Watson
    Central Street - [Brick Lane before 1861] - Opposite Golden Lane
    87 Old Street: Henby Mrs Lydia, dining rooms and Myers B, wholesale furrier
    Amias Place
    91 Old Street: Jacobson Julius, shopfitter
    93 and 68 Old Street: Josephs Philip & Sons Ltd, shop fitters
    Richards Place
    97 Old Street: Lloyds Bank Ltd
    Roby Street
    99 Old Street: a watch maker and a gramophone maker
    107 Old Street: Hastie Henry, newsagent
    Anchor Yard
    109A Old Street: Stormont Wm, metal polisher
    109 Old Street: Wright Henry & Co, helmet manufacturers
    111 Old Street: Julius Miss Alice, costume maker
    113 Old Street: King Gladstone Hook, dining rooms
    115 Old Street: East Finsbury Day Nursery, Mrs C M Irving, hon sec
    Helmet Row
    St Lukes Church
    Ironmonger Row
    117 Old Street: Spalding William James, hat shape maker
    117 Old Street: Kellen William, truck maker
    119 Old Street: Fenn Jacob, gold & silver refiner
    121 Old Street: Segall Nathan, hairdresser
    123 and 125 Old Street: Hill and Cozens Ltd, wholesale ironmongers

    1921 Paddling Pool on beach at Burnham on Sea built as a gift from John Bevan and Margaret Grace Braithwaite. A tablet was attached by the town that explains the gift:
    "The adjacent paddling and boat sailing pool was presented to the town of Burnham-on-Sea by Mr and Mrs J.B. Braithwaite as a thank offering for the safe return of their five sons from the great war and in proud and grateful remembrance of the local men who laid down their lives at the call of duty"


    1921Sudden death of William Frederic Wells (aged 71). Frederic J. Hunt succeeded him as Clerk of six weeks meeting.


    April-June 1922 Registration of birth of Edward H Milligan in Coventry. Mother's Maiden Surname: Rowlands. Edward Hyslop Milligan (born 1922), also known as Ted Milligan, is a Quaker historian. He was responsible for the Library at Friends House, London from 1957 to 1985. He was succeeded by Malcolm J Thomas. See 1914 - Fox's stone 1940 and 1986 notes

    July 1922 First International Conference of Settlements held at Toynbee Hall, London. Charles R. Simpson and Mrs Simpson represented th John Woolman Settlement of 28 Duncan Terrace, N.1. In the course of the conferece, Charles said:

    "working people do not any longer desire to be regarded as subjects of study. They want to be helped to understand the historical process by which things have come to be what they are, so that they may build a new order well. We ought to serve them by introducing them to constructive ideas and not simply by tabulating the wreckage of the past."


    1923

    8.3.1923 ("incorporated") Memorandum and articles of association of Friends Trusts Limited. Amended 2.2.1950 and 4.5.1950. Private company limited by guarantee without share capital. Company registered in England no 188362. Registered charity No. 237698. The Company Secretary , provided by Yearly Meeting, carries out day to day functions. Meeting for Sufferings appoints the directors. The company acts as custodian trustee for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain and various bodies associated with it. In 2014 over 500 properties were held in its name.

    Properties owned include the Bunhill Fields Burial ground and Meeting House held to "the order of Six Weeks Meeting Trustees", Friends Trusts Limited is the 'legal' owner of properties in the London and Middlesex area (as nominee / holding trustee) while the trustees of Six Weeks Meeting are the managing trustees of those properties. The basic function of a Holding Trustee is to hold the trust property in its name, and to retain custody of all the trust securities and documents of title


    1924 Fifty Years' Work at Bunhill Fields. July 11th, 1874 to July 11, 1924. George Fox tercentenary. Born July 1624, Buried at Bunhill Fields, 1690, 300th Anniversary of his birth, July 1924 Published by the Society of Friends Bookshop, 140 Bishopsgate, London, EC2. Price Sixpence)

    "Jesus Christ is the solution of the problems of 1924 just as he was of the problems of 1874 and has been all through the ages" (50th anniversary history 1924)


    Jenkins folk
    1925 Bertie Jenkins applied for Quaker membership. Some members were uneasy about accepting him because, although he was a teetotaller, he was employed by a brewery. Bertie's wife was Beatrice, who also became a member. The family lived at 14 Kent Street, Haggerston, from 1922 (or earlier) to 1940.

    Photographed about 1929? Marjorie, Muriel and Olive Jenkins and the cat. Their grandfather called them Margarine; Pegtops and Olive Oil. Beatrice had five daughters: Marjorie was born in 1921, Muriel in 1923, Olive in 1926, Kathleen in 1933, and Patricia in 1935.
    Photographed about 1939? Patricia and Kathleen Jenkins, the youngest sisters.


    1926

    9.10.1926 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite to Frederic J. Hunt: "So far as I know, Devonshire House Monthly Meeting does not own any of the property. As you state, the original Memorial Buildings and the Large Hall are the property of the Six Weeks Meeting... The Extension is I think the property of the Bedford Institute Association, who pay you Ground Rent for the land on which it stands, the whole of the money for its erection having been collected by us at Bunhill, with the exception of the grant of £1,000 from the George Sturge Building Fund." [1925 file in 6WM/PD/BF/01]


    1927 J. Allen Baker, M.P. Member of Parliament. A memoir by Elizabeth Balmer Baker and P.J. Noel Baker London. The Swarthmore Press Ltd. Museum Street.

    1927 De La Rue moved their fountain pen factory from Bunhill Row, London to Strathendry Factory, in the Leven Valley, Fife, Scotland. Some thirty skilled workers were brought from London. source


    Wednesday, 2.10.1929 Wireless World and Radio Review number 527. Volume 25 number 15.

    Lectures for Beginners. Weekly lectures specially for beginners are a feature of the syllabus at the Woolman Radio Society. Meetings are held every Friday at the John Woolman Settlement, 28, Duncan Terrace, London, N.1. Hon. Secretary, Mr. E. Dart, 86, Hampden Road, Hornsey, N.8.


    1929

    31.12.1929 "Agreement" E.W. Allen and [9] others (Trustees of the Bunhill Fields Recreation Ground) (1) [and] The London County Council. [Mentioned in 1957 deed].

    Ernest Gladstone Allen (not E.W.) is the full name. Born 29.12.1881 - died 1964, he was an architect. Born in Croydon, his father, Alfred H. Allen (flour miller) was born Stoke Newington about 1857. His mother, Maria E Baker was born about 1860, in Birmingham.


    1930 plan of the Society of Friends premises in Roscoe Street

    NOTES BY
    GEORGE W. EDWARDS c. 2 JANUARY 1981
    (sometime Clerk of Six Weeks Meeting)

    "George Hart's description of the Memorial Buildings at the time of their destruction. G. Hart grew up at Bunhill and was present at the time when the bomb fell as he lived quite near he acted as the Caretaker (unpaid) and Gardener; he has since died. For several years he was a member of Six Weeks". (Transcription by G.W.E)

    There was a large Hall. Underneath was a Basement of about the same size. Then came the Coffee Tavern (Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd it was called) which held about 50 persons. Under this was their large kitchen. Above the Coffee Shop was about 5 rooms. One of these was known as J. B. Braithwaite's Private Room and it was in that room he slept every Saturday night on one of those old fashioned Bookcase Beds. It looked like a bookcase in the day, but at night it could be turned round and then a bed let down into the room. He slept in this room and not in the cottage because there was no room there for him to do so.

    In this room was held the Oversight Committee and all Committees connected with the work. I spent many an hour in that room. There were other rooms which were used by borders who lived and slept there and they had a large reading room. There was a large Lavt [lavatory] there for their use. You got to these rooms up a round about wooden stair at the back of the Coffee Tavern but later on another entrance was made that led out on the stone staircase which I will tell you about.

    At the back of the Coffee Tavern there was a room with window facing the burial ground and it was known as the Small Hall. This could hold about 70 P. [people]. Underneath this was an open store with stone steps that went up to the burial ground. This room was reached by a passage that came from the front door of Roscoe Street. From this passage there was another stone staircase that took one into the basement under the large hall.

    On top of the small hall were about 3 rooms that could hold 70. 50. 60 people and folk who used them had to go up a stone staircase to reach them. It was on this staircase that the Fire Exit door for the boarders rooms over the Coffee Tavern came out.

    Then came the Cottage which was the home of Mr Pond who was the Manager of the Coffee Tavern. The cottage contained 3 rooms and a small off room. The basement was the kitchen, the ground floor room was the sitting room and the top floor was the bedroom and the small off-room their son's room. There was a passage way from the cottage that took one into the Coffee House.

    This is all I can say about the the make up of the Memorial Buildings. Some 4 years after the M.B. was built the Extension Building was built at the back of the large hall. This building consisted of two small rooms just inside the front door that led into Roscoe Street. Then an open space and at the end was a large room which could hod about 70 people. Under the ground floor were the men's and women's Lavt [lavotaries] and the boiler house.

    It was in this room and ground floor that one of the first Medical Missions was held. Young Quaker doctors and nurses came and gave their time to it and Fred Braithwaite [was] Sec. [secretary] and Treasurer of it.

    From the ground floor there was a wide stone staircase which went up to the first floor where there was 2 large rooms. One room held about 70 to 100 people and the other 50. The stone staircase then went up to the next floor and there was there 4 rooms that could hold 70, 60, 20 folk.

    It was in this Extension that the BIA [Bedford Institute Association] started their Bunhill work. They had received a lease from 6 W. M. [Six Weeks Meeting]

    At the side of the Large Hall is the Main Building between that wall and the wall that was round the L.C.C. School was a mound of earth. Under this were the bones that were taken up from the Burial Ground when the Memorial Buildings was built. These were covered by about 6" of cement and then about 3 feet of sand on the top of it. My mother told me how she watched the men with wheelbarrows take these bones and dump them into the pit that was dug to put them in.

    The ground was surrounded by a brick wall. I am wondering now, now that the flats have been built there, if it is still there?

    I should also have said that there was a stone staircase that came off Roscoe Street and went down to the lower hall in the main building. There was also man's Lavt and kitchen at the back of the lower hall in the main building

    The whole building was lit by gas until J.B.B. [Joseph Bevan Braithwaite] became the Chairman of the Electric light works in City road when he had the whole place wired by E. Leget and it was the first large place in Finsbury to have it in.

    Now I come to [the end of?] my story of the Memorial Building its contents. I hope I have been able to help you but please excuse bad spelling etc as I am now a Reg Blind Person and my hearing is very bad.

    My wife is keeping fairly well but I am up and down but have been able to get into the garden at times when the find days and sunshine are about to do a little there. I hope you and yours are all keeping well and will continue so.

    I could tell you a lot more about Bunhill but I will not bore you. Up to the first war Bunhill was a real live Quaker Centre in Finsbury but the war came J.B.B. went over to the Military and that split the work up, and when it was over Bunhill never recovered it. In what I saw and know was happening there is too bad to write about and it is best that a curtain be drawn over the years between 1920 and the passing of J.B. Braithwaite and W.R. Harvey.

    I know that the Germans done a good service to the Quaker Church by destroying it. The cottage was saved by the efforts of Violet Alice Oliver and myself and I have often wondered whether we did the right thing or should have let it go up in flames with the other part of the building. I did my best to revive the Quaker work in the Cottage (with the help of some Friends)

    [George Hart then indicates tha the had problems with the "Jenkins folk"]


    John Woolman Settlement at Bunhill

    Charles Simpson, founder of the John Woolman Settlement, was active in the Labour Party. He was also a member of the Socialist Quaker Society. He unsuccessfully stood as a candidate for Finsbury in the county council elections of 1922 and 1925.

    Picture shared by Gill Green on Ancestry 7.9.2012
    He was elected to London County Council for Finsbury in 8.3.1928 and 5.3.1931.

    A councillor for City Road East ward of Finsbury Borough Council in 1928, he served as Mayor of Finsbury 1930-1931.

    As an ex-miner and a Quaker, Charles was nicknamed "The Miner Friend" In 1930 he and Agnes lived at 28 Duncan Terrace, St Peter's Ward. He was the author of "Finsbury Borough Council Election ... Three years of Labour rule, 1928-1931" London : Harold Riley 1931 (28 pages), a copy of which is in the British Library.

    Charles Robert Simpson died in Harrow, aged 79, on 16.6.1960. Agnes Annie Simpson (Agnes A. Simpson aged 84) died Hammesmith in the Spring of 1966.

    In 1931 the John Woolman 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.

    Electoral registers for 1931, 1933 and 1934 show Elsie Lily Rose Reeve and Frederick Kingsford Reeve at 21 Roscoe Street. Frederick K Reeve was born 1.1.1890 in Hastings, Sussex. In 1911 he had a brief career as a police constable for nine months. He died in Chelsea in 1954.


    30.11.1934 Joseph Bevan Braithwaite Junior died. The size of Bunhill meeting declined after his death.


    1935

    Hubert Lidbetter apointed surveyor to six weeks meeting. Martin Lidbetter, his son, succeded hin in 1957.


    1936 Bunhill Coffee Taverns Ltd, late of 21 Roscoe Street and 86 Old Street, London, EC1 went into voluntary liquidation (London Gazette 27.10.1936 pages 6852 and 6857


    1937 William Kent's An Encyclopedia of London (1937/1951) has an entry on the "Quaker Burial Ground in Bunhill Fields"

    1937 No one was on the electoral register at 21 Roscoe Street in 1935. In 1937, 1938 and 1939? Horace Swithenbank and Annie May Swithenbank were registered there. Annie Swithenbank was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, about 1864. Her husband, Charles Swithenbank, had been a Woollen Card Cleaner in the mills of Armley Leeds, where they and their five children were living in a four room house in 1911. The oldest son, Horace Swithenbank, born about 1889, was then a postman. Annie died in Leeds in 1953, aged 89. Horace died in Leeds in 1956, aged 67.


    1938 Pamphlet Community education, being a description of the work of residential and non-residential colleges for adult education published by the Educational Settlements Association. Introduced by Arnold S. Rowntree, President of the Educational Settlements Association. January 1938.

    "What would you find on entering a Settlement? Inside on the notice board there would be the schedule of the day's, or more generally the evening's, activities. These might include an economics class, folk dancing, a rehearsal for a Shaw play, German literature and practical wireless construction. The number of activities is necessarily determined by the size and adequacy of the premises. From the entrance hall it is usually not far to the common room. This should be, and in most Settlements is, truly a common room. It ceases to be one when rehearsals or committee meetings are allowed to encroach. After classes are over the embryo philosophers and folk dancers, economists and German scholars, together with others not bent on any special activity, meet and talk there. A canteen is provided, and tongues can wag, gently lubricated by tea, coffee or lemonade, until 11 p.m., or whatever is the official closing time. A library is housed either in the common room or elsewhere. For the rest, the enquirer will find class rooms, a lecture hall and workshops, together with, in many Settlements, the private rooms of the resident wardens."

    The Educational Settlements in London were:

    Balham Educational Settlement, Ramsden Road, Balham, S.W.12. Wardens. E. J. Fullwood; Mrs. Fullwood.

    John Woolman Settlement, Memorial Buildings, Roscoe Street, E.C.1. Warden: Charles R. Simpson.

    Mary Ward Settlement, 36 Tavistock Place, W.C.1. Hon. Warden.: C. C. Walkinshaw, J.P.

    Toynbee Hall, Commercial Street, E.1. Warden: Dr. J. J. Mallon.

    Walthamstow Educational Settlement, Greenleaf Road, E.17. Warden: J. Owen Clover.


    1939 Frederick J. Hunt, clerk of six weeks meeting, died suddenly. [William?] Knight Dix [1873-1950?] and George William Edwards were the next clerks. (to 1951?).

    "Life In Finsbury Barracks, 1939 - 51" by Margaret Worley (born Margaret Winks) is based on a diiner address on 8.5.2009. It was first published in the Honourable Artillery Company Journal Spring 2012, Volume 89, No 482 and has now been made available online by the yellowsnail.com ?

    October 1939 Bunhill Fields meeting was protesting that the military had been making use, without authority, of the burial ground for drilling, including bayonet drill and machine gun drill, and had done considerable damage. Six weeks meeting asked its secretary to attend to this and by the next meeting he reported that the military had left and the grounds were being put back into order again. (White 1971 p. 86).

    The London Rifle Brigade had its headquarters and drill hall at 130 Bunhill Row, until it was destroyed by German bombing (1940/1941)

    The Infantry Battalion marching out of the Artillery Garden and down City Road on 5.9.1939. The band is in the lead, followed by men with bayonets fixed. Picture from Margaret Worley's article


    1940 Take a last look at Bunhill before the bombs fall and the world changes for ever.
    Fox's stone 1940-1986. The painted years

    Ted Milligan told Farrand Radley that "about 1940" he first saw the Fox stone against the wall in the back garden of the cottage. He said "it was painted green". In 1980, Douglas Wollan from Wesley's Chapel told Farrand Radley that the state of the stone caused criticism from visitors when he showed it to them. Farrand Radley wrote to George W. Bush, Secretary to Six Weeks Meeting, on 6.7.1980 "I had a look at it myself, and the bottom part of the inscription is quite illegible through tarnishing, the obvious result of neglect". On 18.8.1986 Six Weeks Meeting were "concerned to hear that the condition of the headstone is deteriorating". The Six Weeks Meeting surveyor, John Marsh, found it still suffering from a coat of paint and had it restored by a specialist surveyor. (Farrand Radley memo to Robert, G. Avery 29.9.1986).

    Henry Cadbury (1972) speaks of the stone being "in place" for three-quarters of a century (1877 to 1940) and in "retirement" for over a decade. It "was, I think, moved and finally taken away to the back shed of the only building left after the air raid damage of 1940-41, where it was painted green. There it may still be seen".

    I (Andrew Roberts) suspect that the green paint was applied as camouflage at the start of the war, when the stone was still in place near Fox's grave. Someone feared a white stone in the centre of a bare field might be a target for enemy aircraft. Moving it to the wall might have been a sensible precaution when the bomb-site became the playground for local children.

    Bunhill becomes the rimless bowl

    Autumn 1939 Olive Jenkins evacuated to Hertfordshire. She returned in March 1940

    30.11.1940 Clerks of General and Monthly Meetings should have sent information to the Recording Clerk at Friends House for the Friends' Book of Meetings 1941

    Bunhill Fields had 82 members. Sunday meetings at Roscoe Street, EC1 11am and 7pm. Clerk: George F. Hart , 235 Guest Street, Roscoe Street, EC1. A quarter mile from Old Street on the Northern Line. Half a mile from Moorgate on the Metropolitan and Northern lines. Buses to Old Street station.

    The two other meetings for worship in Devonshire House Monthly Meeting were Barnet Grove and Stoke Newington. Monthly Meetings were held at Stoke Newington from April to September and at Barnet Grove from October to March [Not at Bunhill Fields]

    In September 1940 and again in December 1940 the Bunhill Row, London, works of the printers De La Rue & Co. received direct hits from bombs and the premises, which had been purpose built for the printing company in 1874, were destroyed.

    Photograph from the De La Rue's history website. The text says "On 11 September 1940 the company's Bunhill Row factories were destroyed in the Blitz. De La Rue quickly made arrangements to resume printing elsewhere and was able to honour all commitments".

    The Bunhill Memorial Buildings were bombed twice. Probably the same bombs that destroyed De La Rue and Company - but some people say in 1941. All that remains is the caretaker's cottage, still used today as the meeting house.

    "I know that the Germans done a good service to the Quaker Church by destroying it. The cottage was saved by the efforts of Violet Alice Oliver and myself and I have often wondered whether we did the right thing or should have let it go up in flames with the other part of the building. I did my best to revive the Quaker work in the Cottage" (George Frederick Hart)

    "In 1940 the large meeting house and school rooms were destroyed by bombing, as were many of the homes of Friend living nearby and the meeting became small in numbers" (Bertie Jenkins memorial 1971)

    May 1941 250th anniversary of George Fox's death. Henry Joel Cadbury suggested a celebration at Pendle Hill.

    May 1941 The sustained bombing of London known as the blitz came to an end. Ernest Richard Wethersett (about 1962) described how Bunhill stood at the north end of a "vast area" of devastation .

    "Nearly the entire quarter of the city bounded by ... Moorfields and the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company on the east side and by Aldergate Street and Goswell Road on the west side, by Gresham Street on the south and extending almost to Old Street on the north side, has been destroyed in the blitz. Almost every building has been razed to the ground."

    September 1941 Possibly here that the Jenkins family returned from stay with an Aunt in Westbury, Wiltshire, "My father found us 82 Lenthall Road when we returned".

    One floor of 82 Lenthall Road, E8 (pictured left in June 2008) was the Jenkins family home from 1941. 52 Greenwood Road, where Olive and Ernie lived when they married, was a similar flat, within walking distance.

    "When we returned there were only a few Friends and attenders able to remain. These had made it possible to clear the cottage enough to hold morning and evening Meetings. The cottage was frameless, so they had to put up plastic at the windows, the roof being covered by tarpaulin. A few forms had been restored for use from the old Meeting. Many of the other users had salvaged and saved what they could and left the area. Most local people had left the area, as the war was in progress. We still kept Meetings and women Adult School going between air raids." (Olive 2011)


    George Davies 1942 Joseph Rowntree Gillett, A Memoir. George Allen and Unwin.


    Bunhill compensation funds Quaker meeting houses

    Six weeks meeting had paid for "War Damage Insurance" on Bunhill because a income-bearing (commercial) it was not registered as a place of religious worship. Compensation was received for both the premises and the site. In December 1969 George William Edwards wrote:

    "This money has ben used to make grants towards building new meeting houses and improving old meeting houses in districts where Friends" [Quakers} "now live. It has all been used".

    1944

    19.6.1946 "The hereinbefore mentioned Conveyance" [Mentioned in 1957 deed]. Appears to have been a conveyence from the "Trustees of the Bunhill Fields Recreation Ground" to "Friends Trusts Limited".

    30.9.1947 Aerial photograph (from Britain from above) shows Bunhill caretakers cottage almost at the centre. The block of trees at the top is the Dissenters Burial Ground, below it can be seen the tops of two trees in the Quaker gardens, the cottage and (to the right) the school and Peabody Estate. Most of the buildings on Banner Street and Roscoe Street have been destroyed. The rubble has been cleared and Bunhill's little building and gardens stands at the edge of a flat plain. The full picture, below it, shows how the rubble had been cleared and consolidated on other bomb sites.

    Buildings were slow to fill the spaces. It was almost twenty years (1966) before the tower block Braithwaite House and the two storey Quaker Court joined the Meeting House to make the square around the gardens.


    The Bunhill collection of books and archives

    Bookcase in the basement room has a brass plate "Presented by Bunhill Womens Adult School 1949"

    Upstairs, a women's adult school met under tarpaulins. They bought a bookcase for the books that had survived and this formed the library in the cottage that had now become a meeting house. It is said that the only books from the previous library (or libraries) that escaped the fire were the ones that people had borrowed.

    The collection was catalogued by Molly Porter in 1976

    See Braithwaite 1912 - Braithwaite 1919 - Baker and Baker 1927 - 1942 -


    1950 At Bunhill: "In view of the growing danger to him by stone- throwing, by catapult and hand by the young life of the district who object to being told to refrain from damaging etc our property" the caretaker had said he could no longer give oversight to more than the cottage and the garden. Monthly meeting premises committee were "unable to find another Friends to undertake this service under the present dangerous conditions". (White 1971 p. 112).


    1951

    London County Council: Architects Department - Town Planning Division. Two plans. 1951. No.6.

    Comprehensive Development Area Plan
    Programme Map

    Comprehensive Development Area Plan

    Along Old Street and Aldersgate: offices and commerce

    New open space planned opposite St Lukes Church, Old Street to Banner Street. Otherwise only existing open space 700 [Quaker Gardens] and Bunhill Fields.

    1 - 2 - 3: Residential between Aldersgate offices and Golden Lane [1] - then to shops [200] in Whitecross Street [2] - Then Whitecross Street - Banner Street - Bunhill Row - Dufferin Street [2]

    Exceptions:

  • Shops and public buildings on the corner of Banner Street and Whitecross Street
  • Quite a large area from "school" to Dufferin Street. South of Quakers [700]

    Industry:

    Area bounded by Bunhill Row, Featherstone Street, City Road - and Old Street.

    South of Dufferin Street. Mostly Whitbreads Brewery, but the area had included some Peabody Building.

    Programme Map

    1 to 5 year period includes the housing areas that had been destroyed. These include what is now Quaker Court and Braithwaite House and also all of 1 and 2.

    16 to 20 year period includes the surviving Peabody Buildings in 3.


    Table in memory of "William James Gibson 1859-1952"

    1.1.1952 Death of William James Gibson

    In 1911 William James Gibson was "caretaker of a Mission Hall (non-residential)". I think it is reasonable to assume that this was Bunhill - He and his family lived at 11 T Block Peabody Buildings Guest-street London EC1. This was his address when he died on 1.1.1952. Probate London 26.1.1952 to George Frederick Hart retired shopkeeper. Effects £398 16s 3d.

    In July 1931 the family of Joseph Allen Baker gave William Gibson a copy of J. Allen Baker, M.P.

    William James Gibson 9.3.1859, baptised 27.3.1859 at St Giles Cripplegate, London. Parents John and Hester Gibson. -

    Wednesday 6.2.1952 Death of George 6th - birth of the new Elizabethan age


    FTL Archives:
    31.3.1952: Mayor Aldermen and Councillors of The Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury - Photocopy Lease In FTL/PROP/1992/116
    5.6.1952 Declaration from Above Re. Occupation Of Additional Land (Photocopy) (missing)


    1952 Repairs to the cottage - a stone - a garden

    £869 spent on repairs

    1945 - 1957 - 1963 - 1965 - 1967 - 1968 - 1969 -


    16.7.1952 The Quaker Garden opened as a public garden by the Mayor of Finsbury, Alderman E.F. Johnson, J.P.. Present were J. Frederick Braithwaite (who spoke), Joseph Gurney Braithwaite and John Bevan Braithwaite. "Another speaker was George W. Edwards, Clerk of the Six Weeks Meeting, which has leased the ground to the Council at a peppercorn rent for 21 years. Later in the evening an exhibition game was played on the renovated tennis court by the Wimbledon players, P.J. Brophy (Australia) and S. Stockenberg (Sweden). The ground is now known as "The Quaker Garden". Its memorial slab of Westmorland slate [was] designed by Hubert Lidbetter" [The Friend 25.7.1952]

    Henry and Lydia Cadbury arrived at Liverpool on a vist to Friends House on 25.7.1952

    In 1952 a new memorial stone of Westmorland slate was placed near where George Fox is thought to be buried. 1952 was the 300th anniversary of George Fox's meeting with the Seekers in the north west of England on 13.6.1652 which is sometimes taken as the start of organised Quakerism.

    "This garden is on the site of Bunhill Fields burial ground which was acquired by the Society of Friends Quakers in 1661. The remains of many thousands of Friends lie buried here including George Fox the founder of the Society of Friends who died 13th January 1691"

    Notes in Farrand Radley archive) says cost of stone put at £1,000 by George William Edwards in May 1981.

    The 1881 memorial stone to George Fox was moved and now stands along the brick wall in the meeting house garden.

    Olive Yarrow wrote "In 1952 the Burial Ground was handed over to the Finsbury Council as an open space. A granite stone was placed where it was thought George Fox was reinterred giving some of the history of Quakers. As Six Weeks Meeting were guardians of Meeting Houses, etc, they arranged the change. The our Elder died and at the same time the Friend who had become Elder left us so he could get married." ["Then" apparently includes 1952 to 1956]


    This
    1952 Ordnance Survey - published 1953 - (above) shows the disused burial ground (Quaker Garden) surrounded by a great deal of open space. [TQ3282]. From the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company, to the south east, it was possible after the war to see through to St Pauls.

    The larger view of the same map, below, shows how Roscoe Street ran through from Bunhill Row to Golden Lane. The construction of Braithwaite House and Quaker Court in the mid-1960s built over Roscoe Street. Banner Street became the through road. From that point, Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting House and Quaker Gardens were approached from the north by an archway through Quaker Court from Banner Street.


    George William Edwards, sometime Clerk of Six Weeks Meeting, was born on 23.8.1892 and died 27.12.1983. In 1941 he lived at 20 Colyton Road, East Dulwich and was Registering Officer for Croydon and Southwark Monthly Meeting. His first wife, Irene Louise Lloyd born 1897, died 12.1.1957 in Bermondsey. In 1964 he married Marjorie [known as Marjorie] Simmons in Bromley, Kent. Their address on 2.1.1981, when he wrote to Farrand Radley, was 15 Westland Drive, Hayes, Bromley, Kent, BRZ, 7HE. His papers are in the library at Friends House. His nephew, Chris Webb, wrote Tuesday 30.1.2018: ""In his spare time GWE was a model-maker and historian - he became an official London Guide on retirement and was part of the steering team for the establishment of the Museum of London - a typical outlet for his subtle behind-the-scenes non-partisan small "p" political networking with local councils and MPs he could bring "on-side" for good causes. A lovely man, whom I was just old enough to know and be guided by."

    The Quaker Burial Ground, Bunhill Fields, London by George W. Edwards. Four pages printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, 109 Kingsway, London WC2 and Ashford Kent. No date. Open Library reference OL21840218M. Open Library gives date as 1950, but this is inconsistent with mention of [1952?] memorial stone:

    "As Friends had not allowed memorial stones to be placed on individual graves it is not possible to identify any particular grave, but tradition has always said that George Fox was buried about where the memorial stone has recently been placed. The stone of greenish colour comes from a quarry near to Swarthmore Hall, the home of George and Margaret Fox, often called "The Cradle of Quakerism". It commemorates all who are buried here."

    George William Edwards told Farrand Radley on 2.1.1981 that "I wrote the pamphlet in response to a request by Bunhill friends when we were handing over to local council" and "the flat green edged Memorial Stone near entrance gate was put there by Six Weeks when we leased the ground to Local Council."

    By 1940 the character of the district had changed so that when the premises were destroyed during the 1939-1945 war, the Bedford Institute asked to be relieved of their liability.

    The local Borough Council had given notice of their intention of zoning the area for residential purposes and refused to allow any other re-building. As the caretakers house had survived it was fitted out for use of the Meeting for worship, and the remaining land leased to Finsbury Council as a Garden of Rest for elderly folk, and a part laid out again as a tennis court for younger people.

    The Six Weeks Meeting, which was the Finance and Property Committee of London and Middlesex Quarterly Meeting, who have always been the owners of the burial ground, still retain the freehold.


    24.1.1953 Marriage of Ernie Yarrow and Olive Jenkins on the top floor at Bunhill - which was then used for meetings. They then lived at Greenwood Road until 1966 when they moved to South Woodford.

    "In January 1953 I myself got married to Ernest Yarrow in the upper floor of Bunhill. There were about a hundred family and friends at the service. I was told later the floor of the building could have caved in as the beams of the cottage were damaged in the fire. So as the women of the Adult School who used this floor for their meetings were shaken they left the Meeting House." (Olive 2011)

    "Kathleen Derbyshire came to Bunhill sometime in the 1950s. I am not sure of the date of her arrival, but she arrived and was very friendly and fitted in with us. She was teaching somewhere near Buckingham Palace" (Olive)

    1956 Olive became Clerk to Bunhill Fields Meeting. "It was a small meeting, so I had to wear many hats."

    "our Elder died and at the same time the Friend who had become Elder left us so he could get married. We held a meeting to see if we could keep going, so my father, Bertie Jenkins, became Elder, Mother became Overseer, I became Clerk to Meeting, and Kathleen, my sister, was the Treasurer. My other sisters helped where they could, and Kathleen Wigham began to get help from other Meetings."


    1956 to 1959 Reginald Yates clerk to six weeks meeting. He was thanked for having organised social gatherings to mark the retirements oh Hubert Lidbetter and Stanley J. Forward, and gatherings to welcome George William Edwards home from a trip to America in 1958. (White 1971 p. 88).


    1957 £393 spent on renewal of external brickwork, plaster and redecorations.

    19.4.1957 Order by the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales authorising the sale of property [Site of Memorial Hall and Friends Meeting House, No. 21, Roscoe Street, Finsbury, London, EC1] effected by deed of 6.5.1957 below. Despite this description on the deed, the transfer did not include the cottage which was then (as now) the meeting house and had shared the address 21 Roscoe Street with the memorial buildings. This is made clear by the accompanying plan.
    FTL Archives:
    16.4.1957 Charity Commission Order No. 2440/57 - Friends Meeting House and Memorial Hall, 21 Roscoe Street, Finsbury - Authority To Sell Real Estate In FTL/PROP/1992/116


    See also 1877
    6.5.1957 A Transfer of land made between Friends Trust Limited and The Mayor Aldermen and Councillors of The Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. This land, shaded blue on a Land Registry map. This is an oblong, west to the meeting house, south of the old Roscoe Street that ran immediately north of the meeting house, east of the present Roscoe Street and north of the present Chequer Court. Shown roughly by the blue oblong on this map - the brown circle being the meeting house. This land was used (by the Greater London Council) to build the western end of Quaker Court.

    Offline transfer of land deed 6.5.1957. Transferred "in consideration of" £10,120 paid to six weeks meeting by Finsbury. Deed refers back to 2.7.1877 Duplicate Conveyance - 30.11.1882 Deed of Release - 20.1.1888 Agreement - 25.7.1890 Duplicate Agreement - 31.12.1929 Agreement - 19.6.1946 hereinbefore mentioned Conveyance - 19.4.1957 hereinbefore mentioned Order

    The following map shows the outlines of Braithwaite House and Quaker Court drawn on the base of a late 1950s Ordnance Survey map.


    1960 Christine Chester holds a cake at the first birthday party of the first Good News Club. Christine had started the Child Evangelism Fellowship in North East London and one of the clubs she ran was at Bunhill Quaker Meeting House. The Bunhill (Roscoe Street) club was "successor of a girls' work carried on for many years on the same site".

    The Child Evangelism Fellowship, who run Good News Clubs, started working in East London in the early 1960s.

    1964 - 1970s


    17.3.1962 In her 40s, Kathleen Derbyshire married Wilfrid Southall Wigham, a Quaker and a member of the Independent Labour Party. He died fifteen years later


    1963 Considerable correspondence, discussion and exchange of minutes. £795 spent on repairs to counteract dampness in the walls and basement, and improvements to the lavatories and kitchen

    Henry Cadbury says "I never noticed until 1963 what appears to be" a "striking error in one of George Fox's gravestones"


    1964: The Good News Club, Roscoe Street, EC1

    A newsletter:

    "Club ofthe Month - Roscoe Street, E.C.1 The little cottage type Friends Meeting House stands alone amid bomb devastation - in recent weeks the scene of much noise and activity as foundations are laid for huge buildings - homes of future G.N.C." [Good News Club] "members? - Sponsored by the Welcome Institute, this Club is the successor of a girls' work carried on for many years on the same site.

    In the spring there were many weeks of discouragement when just 2 or 3 children attended. It was difficult to find a team of 3 to enter into the Rally contest. Of recent weeks it has been a joy to welcome 20 or more children, noisy and restless though they are."

    In 2015, Christine Chester wrote:

    "an ancient Friends Meeting House together with a small cemetery in the Clerkenwell area, does ring bells with me. We did start a Good News Club in my very early days ... taught at first by me with help from Clerkenwell Medical Mission. I think I was asked to do it by a Christian organisation who worked from the meeting house.... At the time I think it was in the middle of a lot of bomb damage"

    Christine remembers that she had to go to a member of the Meeting House to hand over the cash for the rent.


    1965 Repairs: £265 spent on removing the wooden floor in the basement and replacing it with a concrete floor. [But this seems to need doing in 1968!]"


    The flats arise around the garden

    Finsbury becomes Islington
    From 1900 to 1965 Finsbury was a separate borough but after the reorganisation of London local government it was amalgamated with Islington, although as a place name Finsbury is still currently used and recognised by older local residents and remains much in evidence on the street signs present in the district. source

    1.4.1965: The 1963 London Government Act came into force. Kenneth Campbell was housing architect the London County Council and its successor, the Greater London Council, from 1960 to 1974. Building.co.uk speaks of his department using "bold combinations of high-and low-rise blocks". The design background to London County Council/Greater London Council's housing schemes around Bunhill can be read about in "London County Council architects" (active between about.1940 to 1965) by Elain Harwood.

    1966 Ernie and Olive Yarrow moved from 52 Greenwood Road to 62 Carnarvon Road, South Woodford.

    1966 First tenants move into Quaker Court and Braithwaite House. Quaker Court is a two storey range of flats, some constructed on the actual site of the 1881 Memorial Building and Braithwaite House is an almost twenty-storey tower block. [See picture 1971].

    "The Quaker burial grond with its trees forms a green oasis in the centre of the site". (1973 Report 1.1]

    Different figures exist for Braithwaite House. It may be 55 metres high with 19 floors and 108 dwellings

    "Quaker Court 2, Finsbury, London, GLC Architects, 1967" has been tagged by Simon Phipps (who photgraphed it from the Podium) as "Quaker Court Finsbury GLC Architects GLC post war public housing modernist modernism modernist architecture brutalist brutalism brutalist architecture architecture" in a blog posted 15.6.2015

    1966 Jackie's family moved into a flat in Quaker Court. Jackie (about six months old), has spent her life in Quaker Court and Bannister House. She, her borther, and friends provide childhood memories.

    1967 Charles and Violet Kray moved from 178 Vallance Road Hackney to 43 Braithwaite House, a flat on the ninth floor. This was also the home of their twin sons Reginald and Ronnie Kray. It remained Charles and Violet's home until their deaths in 1982 and 1983. Jackie's brother delivered morning papers to the Kray family, and got a tip at Christmas.

    8.5.1968 Reginald and Ronnie Kray arrested in a dawn raid on 43 Braithwaite House. (BBC)

    30.12.1968: Tony Back wrote to the borough architect, who replied

    "The adjoining Burial Ground is in fact leased to the Council as a public open space, and is zoned as such in the Initial Development Plan for Islington. This zoning also covers the existing meeting house and garden and, although the Council has at present no plans to implement the zoning, I am of the opinion that it is unlikely that planning permission for the rebuilding of the meeting house would be forthcoming"


    Let us be reasonable. We cannot afford to maintain Bunhill for the benefit of a handful of eccentric Quakers who do not even live in the district!

    16.12.1968 Minute of Six Weeks Meeting:

    "The matter of Bunhill premises has been discussed many times in the past and it is now the view of this meeting that the number of Friends residing in the neighbourhood does not warrant the provision of a new Meeting House, nor the heavy expenditure on the maintenance of the upkeep of the old cottage, which is at present used for Meeting for Worship."

    Dear God...

    Bunhill: Memorandum from Bunhill Fields Preparative Meeting June 1969. To all interested Friends. Signed Kathleen Wigham.

    Bunhill Concern June 8th 1969 New Barnet. K. Wigham spoke.

    Memorandum in Olive Yarrow's handwriting:

    "The last few months have brought some anxious moments to us at Bunhill. But in our Meetings for Worship and at other times away from our Meeting we have become more aware of a growing power of prayer that has surrounded us through our difficulties. We have become increasingly aware that there is in our Society, as a whole, a fervent feeling that Bunhill is cherished not just because of its historical position (on the first freehold land to be bought by Friends in this country) but because it is held reverently in the hearts and minds of so many people as we have come to learn by the letters in The Friend and from the influx of visitors over the past few weeks. Some comments have been expressed thus 'An oasis of peace' 'A rimless bowl'. Appeals to carry on have been numerous. We have been greatly moved by the increasing interest in our beloved Meeting House and we would appeal to Friends present here to join with us to increase this rimless bowl of prayer, for it is in this power that we feel we can maintain our Meeting House and we have faith that the means to do so will be forthcoming. We are deeply thankful especially for the loving devotion of two people of our Meeting known to us as Mother and Father and known to others as Beatrice and Bertie Jenkins. Their long service to Bunhill Meeting is immeasurable. Some Friends at Yearly Meeting thought that Bunhill should at least be maintained as an historical monument. We believe that it would be the faith of all the thousands of Friends and others buried there to carry on. How this will be done we hope to discuss further. Whether to repair the present building or to rebuild on the garden and later remove the present cottage and lay the garden on that spot. The strength of Quakers in prayer has led Friends for many years to do great things. We believe as Friends of Bunhill we are being led in the right direction not for ourselves but in maintaining a Quaker stronghold in the City of London."

    28.6.1969 London and Middlesex General Meeting allowed time to discuss Bunhill at their meeting at Wandsworth Meeting House.

    Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
    Note the recourse to traditional Quaker dating practice.

    First Day 29.6.1969 Minute of Bunhill respecting above.

    Minutes of Special Preparative Meeting held 1st Day, the 6th of Seventh Month 1969: Bunhill Field's Friends are not prepared to continue the discussion with our Monthly Meeting and Six Weeks Meeting concerning the matter of our Meeting House... It would appear clear from the deliberations that have so far taken place... that they... have their own clear and strongly held views and we have our own. Any further discussion we feel therefore would only lead to more ill feeling and disunity.

    6.7.1969 Letter from Kathleen Wigham to Clifford Haigh, The Editor of The Friend, enclosing copy of Monthly Meeting Newsletter. Kathleen Wigham's Papers

    6.7.1969 Circular letter from Tony Back to members of Bunhill asking that he and Kathleen Wigham could visit in their homes for worship and discussion.

    FTL Archives:
    6.8.1969 Licence for Ventilation Grilles - GLC In FTL/PROP/1992/116

    15.12.1969 Bunhill Fields Premise Report signed by Francis M. Waywell. Manuscript notes of George William Edwards say the other six weeks meeting representatives were Arnold Burnell - George William Edwards - Frank Edmunds and Harold Hassel and make the following points from 14.11.1969 inspection: joists 8" x 2.5" - stairs: damp rot - walls damp - roof: charred beams - no fire escape - woodworm.


    Bunhill memories of George Frederick Hart written for George William Edwards probably about 1969/1970 as he says that he has heard the Bunhill Preparative Meeting has sent a minute to Meeting for Sufferings. George Frederick Hart lived at 23 Block S. Peabody Buildings, Guest Street, EC1 in 1938. No one else registered there. His memories give the most detailed description we have of the buildings known collectively as the Memorial Buildings and have largely been reproduced on this website under the 1930 plan of the buildings. As well as descriptions of the buildings, the memories include brief but contentious notes on the phases of Bunhill's history.

    " the Germans done a good service to the Quaker Church by destroying it." [in 1940] "The cottage was saved ... I have often wondered whether we did the right thing or should have let it go up in flames"


    In 1970 the Peter Bedford project was established under the sponsorship of BIA. Arose from the concern of Michael Sorensen for some of the many men who drift aimlessly beteen prison, psychiatric hospitals and common lodging houses. By 1970 the Bedford Institute had begun to restore its connection with Bunhill.


    May 1970 "Memorandum for consideration by Friends concerned with the future of BUNHILL FIELDS MEETING HOUSE at a meeting to be held at Friends House on Tuesday 5th May 1970 at 6pm"


    FTL Archives:
    7.10.1970 Copy of Transfer, FTL to GLC of land now comprised in Title No: NGL145553 [below]
    7.10.1970 Deed Of Grant - GLC Mutual Rights at Banner Street (Car Parking Space) In FTL/PROP/1992/116 (photocopy)

    26.10.1970 Land Registry entry NGL145553. Freehold land owned by Islington "being part of the site of Roscoe Street, Finsbury, and a strip of land on the south east side thereof" - (offline land registry entry) - Land is in front of the Meeting House.

    FTL Archives:
    27.5.1993 Copy of Title No: NGL145553 being land to the north of Friends' land.


    April 1971 Bertie Jenkins had a stroke from which he never fully recovered. On 17.9.1971 he died in a Westminster Hospital. It was after this that proposals to develop Bunhill were developed by Michael Sorenson. The meeting before this time (and for a while after) was on the top floor: the one that had been used for Olive and Ernie's wedding

    November 1971. Getting to Know Our Meeting. A Lesson Scheme for a Wide Age Range published by Friends Education Council. The picture on the front is taken from the balcony of Quaker Court, looking across Bunhill Meeting House and the trees to Braithwaite House.


    The Good News Club

    A Mr Short and his banjo ran a Tuesday evening children's group in the Bunhill premises for local children in the early 1970s. Pam played piano. It was called The Good News Club. Jackie, the Quaker Court caretaker, remembers attending this with her brother in the early 1970s when they were children on the estate.

    Christine Chester thinks that Mr Short may have been a London City Missionary and that the London City Mission took over running the Bunhill Good News Club.

    They sang, prayed, heard bible stories and passed round a globe of the world money box to put pennies in. The song Jackie and her brother remember best is:

    Somewhere in outer-space
    God has prepared a place
    For those who trust him and obey
    Jesus will come again
    And though we don't know when
    The countdown's getting lower every day.
    10 and 9, 8 and 7, 6 and 5 and 4
    Call upon the Saviour while you may
    3 and 2 coming through the clouds in bright array
    The countdown's getting lower every day

    "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." John 14:3


    1971 Six Weeks Meeting, 1671-1971: Three hundred years of Quaker responsibility by Winifred M. White ; illustrated by David M. Butler. Published London : Society of Friends. Six Weeks Meeting. vi and 119 pages, illustrated with maps.

    "Bunhill References have already been made to the demolition of the Bunhill Memorial Buildings during the war and the compulsory purchase of some of the land. The caretaker's cottage, which remained, presented many difficulties: it seemed unsafe for the numbers who occasionally used it, yet adequate repairs and upkeep would be very expensive to London Friends as a whole - and the faithful at bunhill were very few. The solution of that problem seems likely to await the fourth century of Six Weeks Meeting" (White 1971 p. 90).


    1972

    Publication of Henry Joel Cadbury's Friendly Heritage: Letters from the Quaker past by Silvermine Publishers in Norwalk, Connecticut. Short articles originally published in the Friends Intelligencer and the Friends Journal from 1941-1969. Each article is one or two pages long. Letter 206 (pages 280-281?), "A 'Grave' Mistake" is about George Fox's stone at Bunhill Fields.


    August 1973 "BUNHILL FIELDS MEETING - A report by Friends appointed in response to a minute of Meeting for Sufferings held on 1st November 1969, and asked to consider the future of the Meeting premises at Bunhill Fields and to seek 'a solution acceptable to all Friends concerned'"

    "We were frequently reminded that an interest in the history of the site is shared by Friends in all parts of the world, and that each year many visitors come to the spot. All would be sad if it were necessary to abandon the premises".


    Bunhill Fields Meeting House London four page history and development proposal sponsored by F. Arthur B. Braithwaite, Elfrida Vipont Foulds and Eustace S. Gillett

    I (Andrew Roberts) photocopied this in January 1993 and wrote on the back of the copy that it was about 1974 and may have been written by Michael Sorenson. "The plan fell through because the plague pit at the back means a regulation that foundations can not be dug very deep".

    In 1945 the Bedford Institute withdrew from Bunhill and the only active connection of Friends with the site for the next 25 years was through Bunhill Preparative Meeting, which carried on in the surviving building. The devastation around was gradually cleared and housing block were put up by the local authority on three sides (the Peabody Trust buildings on the southern side had survived the bombing), their names recalling the area's Quaker connections - Quaker Court, George Gillett House, Braithwaite House and so on.
    But although the district revived, and although Friends began to move into the district as the Barbican was rebuilt, the Friends' building deteriorated, and as the Meeting was a small one an opinion grew which favoured clearing the building away and leaving the area for good.

    In general, the Friends contribution to Bunhill Fields will be to bring into useful life a building which is at present scarcely used - scarcely usable, and to make the whole site - gardens and buildings alike - something beautiful and friendly, doing justice to its lovely associations instead of leaving it as a desolate and little known London backwater.

    1975

    FTL Archives:
    1.7.1975 Tree Preservation Order relating to the Land at Bunhill. In FTL/PROP/1992/116


    About 1976 Molly Porter began attending Bunhill (from Blackfriars settlement). In 1976 she typed a list of Bunhill Fields Friends Meeting Library Books 1976. In 1976, Bunhill finished some kind of renovation and Leo and Marguerite became Wardens. Succeeded (1979) by Martin and Judith Ward, Tim and Jenny, Paul and Lisa.

    FTL Archives:
    1976 Draft Lease with Bedford Institute Association. 9.3.1978 "Lease of Land and Premises known as Bunhill Fields" to Bedford Institute Association to
    1985.

    1977 Michael Sorensen, Director of the Bedford Institute Association moved its head office from Hoxton Hall to Bunhill.

    1978 Michael Sorenson died [Born 1919. Wife Jenny]

    1979 Martin and Judith Ward became wardens at Bunhill, occupying the top floor flat. Followed by Tim and Jenny, then (1987) Paul and Lisa.

    October 1982 Article about meeting houses in The Junior Friend illustrated by a picture and short history of Bunhill.

    1983

    13.7.1983 Counterpart Lease "of Former Burial Ground at Roscoe Street N1 to Mayor and Burgesses of London Borough of Islington (Till 2001) In FTL/PROP/1992/116

    1986

    FTL Archives: 28.8.1986 Timothy Haughton and Jenny Mcdonnell Licence to Occupy First Floor Flat Bunhill.

    28.9.1986 Elsa Dicks, chair of the Bedford Institute Association opened the Quaker Garden. This is the fenced of area at the back of the meeting house. Farrand Radley (22.2.1990) suggested calling this "The George Fox Garden". Paul Bowers-Isaacson (27.2.1990) suggested calling the whole are "Quaker Gardens". Farrand Radley, chair of the Bedford Institute trustees "set the historical scene". "Michael Sorensen ... sent his widow Jenny, with thanks to the retired wardens Judith and Michael [Martin?] Ward for having implemented his plan for a railed-in garden as a place of rest and enjoyment for all". The day concluded with "A Punch and Judy show followed by an ample tea and distribution of balloons to the children."

    Bunhill Fields: Notes by Ted Milligan, sometime FH [Friends House] Librarian, 27 Sep 86 These are typed notes by FarrandRadley of a conversation he had with Ted either on 27.9.1986 or on 28.9.1986. The handwritten notes are also in the archive.

    October 1987 Paul and Lisa Bowers-Isaacson employed as wardens at Bunhill by the Bedford Institute.
    FTL Archives: 8.6.1988 "Licence To Occupy First Floor Flat As A Service Occupancy"

    NEIGHBOURHOOD WORK

    Recent developments, connected with the Bunhill Fields Meeting House suggest the possibility of a closer involvement with the community.

    Braithwaite House This is the GLC [Greater London Council] tower block, 16 storeys high, which stands opposite the windows of the Meeting House. The GLC named the block after Joseph Bevan Braithwaite Jnr who had undertaken much community in this immediate area over half a century up to the 1930s. Recently the B.I.A. [Bedford Institute Association] development worker and a local community worker carried out a survey among the residents. They found an overall majority of tenants would like a Tenants Association and that they would also like improved facilities for their children in Quaker Gardens. Help in producing a community newsletter would be welcome. Certainly, they could be better linked with the larger world of the London Borough of Islington, particularly regarding public transport.

    Briefly the recommendations of the report are for the community workers to go ahead with forming a tenants association, and with refurbishing the 'community room' - near the entrance to the block - and the B.I.A. has asked its new wardens to support this work.

    The better use of Quaker Gardens is also to be taken up with residents, local Friends [Quakers] and the Recreation Department of Islington who lease the Garden from Six Weeks Meeting.

    (Bedford Institute Association Annual Report 1987 Extract in Farrand Radley archive)

    September 1989 Olive Yarrow ceased being Clerk, owing to ill-health. She had been Clerk for nearly 33 years. Lewis Edwards took over and then, when he left, Paul Bowers-Issacson.

    One of a group of photographs taken in 1990 by Paul Bowers-Issacson to record the position of buildings and monuments.

    This one shows the meeting house over the general memorial stone.

    The following three show the position and condition of the Fox stone.

    The last one here shows the Chequer Street school through the branches of the central tree and the holly trees that then stood at the end of the cottage garden.

    1991 Quakers in the City by Lisa Bowers-Issacson. A pamphlet/guided walk to commemorate the 300th Anniversary of the Death of George Fox. Commissioned and published by the Bedford Institute Association. (Revised, expanded and illustrated edition published 2001)


    FRA: Farrand Radley archive Farrand Radley's Bunhill Fields archive about 1980 to about 1991. Bunhill Fields Meeting House archive.

    Herbert Arthur Farrand Radley was born 16.6.1916 in Lancashire to Helen Louise Howell and John Charles Radley. His address at the time of the archive was 157 Holland Park Avenue, London, W11 4UX. He married Laura Richards in January 1997 in Brentford, Middlesex. He died 16.10.2010 aged 94.


    1993

    'Friends in Christ separated from Britain Yearly Meeting in (or about) 1993 in response to the call to worship explicitly as followers of Jesus. They write: "that of God in everyone" is not just "a little bit of niceness in everyone", but "the revelation of Christ in all of us þ which can be nurtured or denied". Meeting for worship is not, for them, a sharing of concerns, but "the apocalyptic event of waiting upon the Lord". Their separation need not be seen as factious. They quote Jesus "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you" (John 15: 14) and say that although they are separate from Britain Yearly Meeting as a body, they are not separate from any of its members. For all of us they feel only warm Christian love. We are in their thoughts and prayers, and they in ours. Friends in Christ have just started a small Quarterly Journal: The Call. Tony Back-Adams is their Yearly Recording Clerk, for the time, and his address is 1 Castleford House, Castle Road, Okehampton, EX20 1HZ. (Bunhill newsreport: Spring 1997)


    1996 Paul and Lisa Bowers-Isaacson ceased being wardens at Bunhill and "B.I.A. Quaker Social Action" decided not to replace them. Both remained as active members of the meeting.

    Lisa was Assistant Clerk of Devonshire House and Tottenham Monthly Meeting from 1992 to 1996. She was then Clerk from 1997 to 2001. She was Newsletter Editor from 1991 to 1996. In 1999 she was an Elder of Bunhill Meeting

    1997

    On Thursday May 22nd [1997] we laid to rest in Greenwich Cemetery the earthly remains of our faithful friend, Marjorie Hall. Marjorie, the eldest daughter of Beatrice and Bertie Jenkins, was born in 1921. Bertie Jenkins had joined the Quakers after military service in the First World War had convinced him that God's calling to him was a ministry to peace. He and his wife were both members of our meeting, which at that time was several hundred strong. To attend meeting for worship, at 11am, one had first to attend the adult school that met at 8am under the supervision of Joseph Bevan Braithwaite (junior). Marjorie and her younger sisters, Muriel, Olive, Kathleen, often worshipped at Bunhill in the morning and went to Hoxton Hall for afternoon Sunday School and evening meetings. The youngest sister, Patricia, was too young for Sunday School. Marjorie worked as a secretary and, when a second world war broke out, she was sent, as a conscientious objector, to work as a nurse in Hackney Hospital. Her health prevented her from continuing. After the war she married Roy Hall, a soldier who she had met through a friend in The Quest Club at Hoxton Hall. This was a club for over 16s which had a programme of sports, dances, swimming, music and discussion. Marjorie kept in touch, by post, with many of the people she met in the Quest Club and Olive Yarrow will write to them to tell them of her death. Roy and Marjorie have lived in Blackheath since the 1950s. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in September 1995. Their daughter, Lesley Ann, is a member of our meeting, as are nine of the family mourners at Marjorie's funeral.

    In worship, Molly Porter was moved to speak of the warm welcome that she had received from Margaret and her family when she came to Bunhill in the 1970s. Our meeting, once hundreds strong, was just the Jenkins family and a few others when Molly first came. The sisters and their families travelled from Blackheath, Southgate and Woodford to keep meeting for worship. Molly was going through a very bad patch at that time, and Beatrice Jenkins gathered her into her family like a lost chicken. When Margaret was not able to travel as far as Bunhill, she went to Blackheath meeting.

    John West and Paul Bowers Isaacson were the elders at the funeral and Peter Daniels and Wangari Waweru attended with Molly. Marjorie's sisters: Olive Yarrow, Kathleen Hooker and Patricia Veale, all members of our meeting, attended with their husbands, children and grandchildren. Patricia and Harry Veale, who live in Plymouth, stayed overnight with Olive and Earnest Yarrow in Woodford. Bunhill meeting would like to express our special condolences to Roy and Lesley Hall. Our thoughts are with you. Greenwich and Bexley Cottage Hospice cared for Marjorie Hall in her last days and the family would like any donations that people wish to make to be made to the Hospice. Paul Bowers Isaacson has reminded us that the light that God kept alive through the Jenkins family is the light that we take into the future.


    1998

    Exhibition "Quakers in Shoreditch" presented in Shoreditch Library, Hoxton. This web page (Quakers around Shoreditch) began as the text for the exhibition. The orginal text is preseved as Quakers in Shoreditch.


    5.12.1998 Marriage of Wangari Waweru and Andreas Wellmer. Marriages are infrequent events at Bunhill. The previous one was of Olive Jenkins and Earnest Yarrow on 24.1.1953. But, within a short space of time we were again blessed. Karl and Helen Gibbs' wedding took place at Bunhill on Sunday 10.2.2002

    1999 EC1 New Deal for Communities started. See National Archive

    1999 The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain: An account of the some 1,300 meeting houses and 900 burial grounds in England, Wales and Scotland, from the start of the movement in 1652 to the present time; and research guide to sources Text and drawings by David M. Butler. Published London: Friends Historical Society: Distributed by The Quaker Bookshop 1999. Illustrated with maps and plans. "An appendix is added, with essays... on various aspects of the subject such as facing benches and burial grounds, with transcripts of itemised building costs, a list of architects, and an index of places and alternative place-names..."-(Introduction). 2 volumes, Volume 1. Bedfordshire-Northumberland. Volume 2. Nottinghamshire-Scotland. Includes bibliographical references (volume 1: p. ix-xiii) and index (volume 2)

    FTL Archives:
    23.4.1999 Copy of Title to the adjoining block of flats owned by London County Council under Title No:
    NGL693106. [This title surrounds Friends' title and register includes provision that no right of access of light or air is acquired which would restrict or interfere with use of land belonging to Friends]
    9.6.1999 Copy of Title No: NGL742586 (Chequer Street Centre)
    [I do not know what this is]

    November 1999 James Grant created the Bunhill website. The earliest archive is dated 22.1.2000. It was well received and continued to serve until January 2015. [See 2012]

    Email from Harvey Gillman, Outreach Secretary, Quaker Home Service:-
    Dear James,
    I am very very impressed. The page is colourful and accessible, almost, dare I say it?, fun. I have not read all the details. The one question I would put is whether Faith & Practice is a statement of orthodoxy. I cannot see how an anthology can be described in that way. To me it is better described as a statement of modern mainstream Quaker thinking and practice. That is an important quibble, but I remain impressed with the site.
    Harvey

    Email 3.11.1999 from Maxwell Steer, Salisbury Meeting
    The site is sexy and direct. And full of life.

    Email 4.11.1999 from Peter Eccles, Cheshire Monthly Meeting
    Thank you for the information about your new website which is attractive and loads quickly.

    Email 7.11.1999 from Peter Devine, Walthamstow Meeting
    I think it (the website) is excellent - very much in keeping with Quaker philosophy - simple but effective. I particularly like the larger print text on a white background which is so much easier to read than the typical web page using oversmall coloured text on a coloured background.

    Email 7.11.1999 from Judith Roads, Barking and Ratcliff Monthly Meeting
    It looks all the things that were recommended at the Woodbrooke conference in July...We are some way behind you. but will copy your ideas shamelessly!

    Summer 1999? An assortment of Quakers pose on the steps of the old cottage garden.

    The photograph may have been taken by James Grant, who used it on the Bunhill website (1999, but first archived 21.10.2000). Elizabeth Duke is standing at the front. Olive Yarrow is centre front and on either side of her a family whose names I do not recall. Viv Lawrence is the gentleman in the white shirt immediately behind Olive. The three ladies behind him are Molly, Lisa and Bridget. Peter Daniels is behind Molly. Paul Bowers-Isaacson is behind Peter. I do not recall the names of the other gentlemen at the back.

    Elizabeth Duke was General Secretary of the Friends World Committee for Consultation from 1998 to 2004.

    The cottage garden was cut in half by a fence for a few years. These pictures possibly the same date as the one with Elizabeth Duke.

    2001

    Thomas Cummins Kennedy (born 1937) British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The transformation of a religious community Oxford : Oxford University Press 2001 xv and 477 pages.

    2003

    FTL Archives:
    7.8.2003 Declaration of Trust In FTL/PROP/1992/116 (photocopy)
    [I do not know what this is]

    Bunhill Quaker Gardens

    2005 EC1 New Deal for Communites recycling pilot schemes on Quaker Court and Braithwaite House.

  • Quaker Court - bring banks with provision of reusable bags for recyclable materials and door to door collection of food waste with on-site composting;

  • Braithwaite House - collection points on each storey for recyclable materials and door to door collection of food waste with on-site composting.

    February 2005 Beginning of the destruction of Bunhill Park (otherwise known as Quaker Garden) and the little cottage garden of the Bunhill Meeting House. Carnage recorded by David Jennings in his blog (beginning Wednesday 16.2.2005 - Continued Saturday, 19.2.2005)

    "The good news is that when the work is over - in June or July - we'll have an even better public space, including a 'quiet garden' under the beautiful old plane tree (some branches of which are visible on the left of the picture)" (David Jennings)

    David Jennings captures a moment of beauty looking at Braithwaite House through the branches of the central Plane Tree.

    Later in the year he photographs children in the new playground

    A new garden

    The autumn flowers were taken by Nigel Edward Kielczewski of Tottenham Meeting in September 2005, soon after the present garden was established. The white flowers are, I think, Feverfew, otherwise known as Tanacetum or Chrysanthemum parthenium . Can anyone identify the various leaves?

    18.5.2005 Land Registry entry NGL848240. Freehold land ... being Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting House, Quaker Court, Banner Street ... - (offline register - offline plan) -
    FTL Archives:
    14.09.2005 Land Registry Official Copy of Register Entries for Title Number: NGL848240
    26.06.2006 Land Registry Official Copy of Register Entries for Title Number: NGL848240

    Sunday 19.2.2006 Bunhill Quakers met, for the last time for several months, in the Bunhill Meeting House. We had been moved out (two weeks notice) whilst the building was re-furbished. Our friends, the Methodists, gave us a home in the Foundry Chapel, in Wesley's Chapel, on the other side of the dissenters' graveyard. For several glorious months we listened to them singing on the other side of the wall, and joined the Methodists afterwards for refreshments. On Sunday 30.4.2006 we were even allowed to provide the refreshments. We came back to the refurbished Meeting House on Sunday 4.6.2006. On Sunday 22.10.2006 Methodists and Quakers met in the meeting house for a joint meeting of quiet and hymn singing.

    September 2006 The Final Report of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground Conservation Management Plan envisages Quaker Gardens, Bunhill Dissenters Burial Ground and Wesley's Chapel on a historic green pathway, with improved signs, improved street scapes, signage, educational initiatives and joint marketing.

    2006 Islington Council's New Build and Regeneration team set up to tackle the shortage of affordable housing in the borough. It is responsible for delivering the council's new build programme, which aimed to deliver 500 new affordable homes by 2015. In 2014 the team consisted of 13 council officers. See 2015


    Image: Racial Justice
Sunday
    Racial Justice Sunday

    Racial Justice Sunday is held on the second Sunday of September in every year. Click on the picture to find out more about this event which involves many Christian churches and, sometimes, other faiths. Bunhill Quakers held a meeting for learning to prepare our minds for Racial Justice Sunday after Meeting for Worship on Sunday 3.10.2006. These are the notes in preparation for the meeting. Beneath them will be found links to other local churches and faiths.
    Questions and issues for discussion are based on reading the Racial Justice Sunday Pack Each of three topics has been prepared by a different person. As you can see, we do not agree with one another on some points.

    What can Bunhill do? - Immigration and Asylum - Education and Employment

    Questions based on a sheet that quotes James 2:26: "Faith without actions is dead" by Andrew Roberts

    As Quakers do not have a church calendar, how can we make Racial Justice Sunday part of our routine? How can we make racial justice a living issue throughout the year?

    Why do our Bunhill Quaker Meetings not appeal to people from a diversity of backgrounds? Do other Quaker Meetings have a broader appeal? If so, why? If we fail to respond to that of God in everyone, is it because we lack imagination?

    Should we renew our imagination by linking with some other faith groups in our area with a different kind of membership and different forms of worship? What forms could such links take?

    Bunhill borders London's most culturally and ethnically diverse areas. Could we use our premises for meetings of people of different cultures and faiths to learn about one another and work together on practical issues in Islington, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and the City?

    In 1991, British Quakers received an epistle (open letter) from "Black, white, Asian and mixed-heritage Friends". Two extracts from this epistle are now included in Quaker Faith and Practice. The first is in chapter ten on Belonging to a Quaker meeting - Our community [item 10.13]. The second is in chapter 29 on Leadings [Item 29.15]

    Summary and reflections on Racial Justice Sunday Information Sheet 2 on Immigration and Asylum by Christopher Vincenzi

    Immigration Myths and their Consequence

    Immigration is a subject that has generated myths over many years, some based on genuine fears, others on supposed illogical and contradictory 'facts', such as that immigrants come here to take our jobs, and to work long hours for low wages, while at the same time, failing to work and drawing large amounts of social benefits. Such attitudes often seem to be most strongly held in areas where there is no contact with people who have come from abroad. However, it would be wrong not to recognise that the arrival of foreign workers and their families can change an area in a way that causes disorientation to some people, particularly the elderly.

    These fears can be exploited by political groups, and sections of the tabloid press, and this can result in hostility, aggression and violence. The response of even mainstream political parties in power has been to tighten immigration controls and impose unjust laws which can harm very vulnerable people - people fleeing rape, torture war and environmental catastroph.

    Some facts

    Only about 8% of the poulation of the UK was born outside the country or to parents who were. People who move to the UK, according to Home Office research, provide 10 % more in tax revenues than they take out using public services. More than 53 % of the people who come here have academic qualifications, and many do jobs where it is difficult to recruit British nationals with similar skills. The 280,000 refugees living here constitute only 0.4 % of the population.

    About a third of those claiming asylum are granted it. Some times it takes a very long time to process their claims. While they are waiting, they are not allowed to work until they have been here for more than a year. They cannot claim mainstream benefits, and are liable, with their families, to be detained at any time. Having sometimes been through terrible experiences before getting here, many have to rely on churches and other voluntary agencies for food and accommodation. On top of it all, they have to live in a climate nourished by sections of the press in which the term 'asylum-seeker' has become a term of abuse.

    The role of the Churches

    As the atmosphere of hostility to asylum-seekers has grown over the years, churches and religious groups have worked hard to provide practical support and friendship to destitute people and those in need of advice, informing the public about the realities of immigration and asylum and campaigning to make the law more compassionate. Groups involved in this work include : Immigrant Women Advisory Service, London, Merton Churches Asylum Seekers Support Group, London, Bridging the Gap, Glasgow, Challenging Unjust Procedures in Immigration Law, Birmingham and Winchester Visitors Group for Refugees.

    Some Conclusions

    Immigration has always aroused some fear and hostility, but this country has shown a remarkable flexibility in adapting to, and adopting foreign cultures and making them our own. We have an obligation towards refugees and are bound in international law and humanity to welcome and help them settle here. Racism is a denial of our testimony of justice and equality, and we should oppose it with all our strength. However, there should come a time when we should question whether or not immigration is an unqualified good, and whether it is right for us to attempt to attract some of the brightest, best qualified and most highly motivated people to this country. Many come to develop their careers, but others come because our economic policies and the effects of global capitalism have driven them here, and they have left their own economies in decline. stagnation or worse.

    Summary and reflections on Racial Justice Sunday Information Sheet 3 on Education and Employment by Ruth Vincenzi

    What are the challenges?

    There is strong statistical evidence to suggest that people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not doing as well as they should in the labour market. For young people, although they are likely to remain in full time education and to get good results, graduate unemployment is higher than the average. A Cabinet Office report (2003) suggests that many factors were involved, including the fact that many live in deprived areas with poor public transport and few available jobs, but that discrimination also plays a part.

    A graphic example of this was shown in a survey for BBC Radio Five Live published in July 2004. Applications for a variety of jobs based upon similar qualifications and experience were made using fictitious traditional 'white' names, Muslim names and black African names. Almost a quarter of the applications received from 'Jenny Hughes' and 'John Andrews' resulted in interview offers but only 9% for 'Fatima Khan' and 'Nasser Hanif' and 13% for 'Abu Olasemi' and 'Yinka Olatunda'

    What are the Churches doing about them?

  • Set up the Race Equality in Employment Programme to encourage good practice among employers.

  • Supported the Commission for Racial Equality in campaigning for and enforcing anti discrimination law.

  • At national and regional levels have worked to develop their own codes of practice on racism in schools and work places.

  • The Scottish Council for Minorities Edinburgh runs a drop-in resource and development centre.

  • The Methodist Centre, Liverpool offers facilities for young people all aimed at breaking the cycle of deprivation and unemployment.

  • Mentoring for All, Cardiff, provides mentors who work to provide academic and social support.

  • Mupe Fasi (second chance) Project, London, aims at rehabilitation for young women who have been in prison.

    One Race, the Human Race. Where do Quakers stand?

    "Do we strive, as individuals and as a Society, to overcome the narrowness of our cultural inheritance? Do we seek God's forgiveness for the pain we have caused others in the past, in order to go on and change?"
    Quakers and Race Newsletter no 19. 1996

    Is the challenge for Quakers today not so much about trying to attract minority members - although being strong in the belief that we do have something to offer everyone - but about being actively aware of the causes of inequality? Should a good education be seen as the means by which an individual can succeed in a labour market which depends upon world wide social injustice? Should we not be standing firmly, shoulder to shoulder, with others seeking to control capital, cancel debt, invest ethically, transform the World Trade Organisation and protect the earth?

  • Friends in the truth - some of Bunhill's links

    City churches - St Giles's Cripplegate: Our anglican parish - Wesley's Chapel and Leysian Mission - St Joseph's Church: Our Roman Catholic Parish - Friends House, Euston Road - Some Quaker meeting internet links - Devonshire House and Tottenham Monthly Meeting - Quakers in North-West London - some Friends in Christ - Nida Trust: Calling Communities Together - Landmark London Mosques - St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace - 78 Bishopsgate - FACT: Faith and Citizenship Training - The Inter Faith Network for the UK - Board of Deputies of British Jews - Hindu Council - Hindu Forum - Sanaton Association - Thursday's Child - St Casimir, Lithuanian Church, Hackney Road - St John on Bethnal Green - St Thomas the Apostle, Oldhill Street, off Clapton Common - Dialogue for cultural literacy

    28.6.2007 Top floor of Bunhill Meeting House became the offices of the newly established charity Solar Aid. Solar Aid grew and moved to larger offices in White Lion Street, Angel in the autumn of 2008.

    16.8.2007 Draft 2 of Leases A and B between Friends Trusts Limited and The London Borough of Islington. Lease A relating to "Garden adjoining The Meeting House, Quaker Gardens, London EC1. Lease B relating to "land consisting of the Main Garden Site, Quaker Gardens, London, EC1.

    28.9.2007 Quaker Court tenants concern about vandals. Islington Tribune. Pat Freeman, a tenant of Quaker Court for 41 years, said: "I've seen the estate go down the pan since all the security funds went to the other estates. All their problems have been shifted here." EC1 New Deal said it believed anti-social behaviour is better tackled with environmental improvements.

    25.1.2008 Islington Council put a Tree Preservation Order on the five mature trees in Quaker Gardens. This is to prevent anyone, including Quakers, from cutting branches off the trees or in any other way mutilating them. The trees now have preservation numbers and are described in relation to the memorial (monument) to the Quakers buried underneath:

      T1: South of monument. This is the big, imposing, Plane Tree in the middle.
      T2: South east of the monument. The Plane tree furthest from the meeting house.
      T3: North of the monument. This is the Plane tree by the Gardens gate.
      T4: North east of the monument. This is the young (1920s?) Plane tree in the corner.
      T5: Lime Tree south of T2.
    FTL Archives:
    25.01.2008 Documentation relating to Tree Preservation Order
    28.07.2010 Confirmation of Tree Preservation Order (No. 365) 2007

    2009 Completion of the One History: EC1 in the making project

    About 2009 The internet sediment of graveyard geology by Wendy Kirk and David Cook laid down.

    15.1.2009 First internet archive of David Orme's The London Burial Grounds

    Saturday 12.9.2009 - 3pm Launch at Bunhill of the Pronoun Press edition of The London Friends' Meetings by William Beck and T. Frederick Ball. A reprint of the 1869 classic history of Quakers in London, with a new introduction by Simon Dixon and Peter Daniels, illustrations and index.

    2010 Islington Council: Two Islington's Understanding the Problem

    "Despite the pockets of affluence for which it is known, the London Borough of Islington is the eighth most deprived local authority in England"

    12.9.2010 Norman Percy Walter Searle died aged 80. His funeral was on Thursday 23.9.201 at St John at Hackney. Norman was an attender at Bunhill and a generous donor of valuable books to the Bunhill Collection. He lived at 103 Crescent House, Golden Lane.

    17.10.2010 Top floor of Bunhill Meeting House became the School of Sufi Teaching.

    8.6.2011 TQ3282: Bunhill Fields Meeting House (Society of Friends), off Banner Street, EC1, near to Shoreditch, Islington, Great Britain. Photo's author Mike Quinn
    8.6.2011 Plaque on the Bunhill Fields Meeting House photographed by by Mike Quinn

    See the Memorial Buildings 1881.

    The white tablet inscribed in black appears to be plaster. The cut-brick surround is part of the original building.

    In 1844 the plaque would have been at the head of the drive into the burial ground

    Presumably new plaster was inscribed in 1881.

    The egg and dart terracotta bricks used in the plaque are also used in the cornice under the gutters.

    14.9.2011

    Photographs front and back of the Meeting House taken for the Quinquennial Survey

    November 2011 Glyn Robbins succeded Tony Fernandes as Estate Manager at Quaker Court.

    Saturday 5.11.2011 Creating a Vision of our Future: Patterns of Quaker Life in London at Friends House. This conference had depressing consequences for Bunhill. Its purpose seemed to be to persuade some Quaker Meeting Houses to close in order to benefit others from the resources that might be released. I find it difficult to see how resources could be released by closing Bunhill, but some Bunhill members asked us to consider closing. Some who did not want to close seemed to think all problems would go away as long as we did not discuss or examine the issues. To my mind the solution was not to close the meeting, or ignore the problems, but to share the meeting house and its costs with others.

    Roland Carn wrote "A business facing an income expenditure imbalance has various options. The knee-jerk response is to cut expenditure. This has only a short term and limited effect before long term damage is done to the operation. Selling assets is also short term and will soon damage the organisations ability to work properly. Borrowing and spending ones way out of the crisis works only for a basically viable business with only a local difficulty. The constructive long term solution is to increase income to cover the shortfall. In the case of SWM, this means that LQPT has to find ways for meeting houses to generate more income while promoting Quakerism locally and nationally and serving the communities in which they are located. Creative, out-of-the-box, and tough decisions will need to be made. It may be that we need to abandon our church-hall model of a Quaker meeting house or adopt a more corporate model for managing them."

    Sunday 8.7.2012 Bunhill local meeting agreed to move its website to studymore (as the host) subject to the consent of James Grant to use the material he designed. Arrangements were set up for editing the material.

    18.7.2012 Memorandum of Understanding between North London Quaker Meeting ('Area Meeting') and Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting ('Bunhill') approved by Bunhill Fields Quaker Meeting and signed by Ruth Vincenzi as Clerk.

    6.4.2012 The Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation)(England) Regulations 2012 introduced a single set of procedures for all trees covered by tree preservation orders.

    Sunday 7.7.2013 11am-12 Bunhill meeting for worship followed by our meeting for friendly worshipful business and Bunhill's gardening Sunday
    Brigid will open the meeting house.

    The gardening session will be from 12.30pm to 3pm with a bring and share lunch as usual.

    Brigid's seasonal message: At present the garden is looking lush and the accompanying bird song is a delight as we garden. Honey bees are foraging amongst the flowers. More and more people come to talk to us about the garden and their enjoyment of it. We always ask for ideas and views. A large group learning about food foraging came by our garden one June Sunday!

    Plants are getting established and self sowing where they find it congenial. There is now a great variety of wild geraniums which means that their overall flowering period is longer. Gradually we are seeing what plants will thrive where in our dry shade. Plants originally sown from seed like St John's Wort, feverfew, wormwood, sweet rocket and honesty are now making a significant contribution. This year I have sown seeds of pansy, wallflowers, and dwarf curly kale at home which will be planted out in the garden in the autumn. The biodiversity does help to reduce insect and slug and snail damage to our fruit and veg.

    The work to be done on July 7th could include tidying the beds and the compost heaps, and watering. It would be good to give attention to the scythe bed in the wild woodland garden so that the more invasive plants are taken back and the original planting can thrive. From where we were five years ago with dry compacted soil and never a worm to be seen in the whole garden all the beds have come on wonderfully.

    The soft fruit is ripening and some may be ready for harvesting.

    For your diaries - we have invited my fellow Garden Organic Master Gardener Elsa Dicks to come on the September 1st gardening and give a short practical talk on on the benefits of herbs and weeds based on her course at the Mary Ward Centre, which she has found so fascinating. If David Jennings and family and friends come we could also include a mini beasties hunt at the same time.

    8.10.2014 Quaker Court described as "a rapidly changing council estate in Islington". Glyn Robbins told the Big Issue reporter that tiny one-bedroom flats, originally sold to tenants under the Right to Buy policy, are being rented out privately for £300 a week. "With remaining council tenants, the narrative is now, 'How dare these people live here, in the middle of London on a discount?'. Glyn said "It's social displacement by stealth. And the city will be a lot less interesting if it becomes a playground for the privileged."


    Friday 13.3.2015 Independent Bunhill and beyond blog created by Andrew Roberts (archive)

    12.5.2015 To Local Meeting Volunteers. Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project: London and South East area from Ingrid Greenhow, Clerk to the Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project - (survey letter offline) - (survey notes offline)

    10.9.2015 Form completed for "Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Survey 2014-2016" (offline)

    October 2015 "How old is the Quaker building at Bunhill Fields?" North London Quakers Newsletter

    6.11.2015 Draft reports from The Architectural History Practice. Offline: North London Area - Bunhill - New Barnet - Tottenham - Winchmore Hill

    "The small meeting house building is in the Queen Anne manner which was current in the 1880s. It is two storeys high over a semi-basement and is rectangular on plan with a canted bay at the eastern end. The walls are of yellow brick, with bands and ornaments of red brick and a pitched roof covered in Welsh slate. The main entrance is on the north side and has a tall doorway with a rectangular fanlight in a red brick surround with a heavy projecting canopy on shaped brick brackets. To the right of the door are two small windows. To the left is a square tablet in an elaborate cut- brick surround. The tablet carries the inscription: 'Society of Friends: Bunhill Fields Memorial Buildings: 1881'. The eastern bay has rectangular sash windows on all three sides at lower level, with a single central sash in the upper storey. The rear (south) elevation is largely blind, with a door at lower level onto a modern verandah and a semi-dormer window to the upper floor."

    15.11.2015 Response from Andrew Roberts on the age and nature of the building at Bunhill (offline) - 28.11.2015 Point by point response from Andrew Roberts (offline)

    20.11.2015 "Quaker Meeting Houses Survey Project: The Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project and creative ways of using a place of worship other than for its prime purpose" by Ingrid Greenhow, Clerk to the Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project. Talk at Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings 's   Maintenance Co- operatives Project conference in Birmingham.

    2.12.2015 Ingrid Greenhow, talking about the 'Taking Stock' programme for Quaker Meeting Houses - a survey of these buildings to obtain a strategic overview of their importance and future opportunities. Historic Religious Buildings Alliance


    September 2015 Members of Islington's New Build and Regeneration team visited the estate. 29.9.2015 email about planned topographical and services survey to secure correct measurements of the site and adjacent areas and also to see what services there are below ground. (offline survey plan)

    30.9.2015 email "Braithwaite House and Quaker Court proposals: Relevant legal documentation, Convenants and agreements". See Offline plan showing proposed new build - 26.10.1970 - Indenture of January 1881

    25.10.2015 Land Registry entry NGL693106. Freehold land ... being Quaker Court, Banner Street and Braithwaite House, Bunhill Row - (offline register - offline plan) -

    Bunhill Quaker Gardens Community Heritage Year

    2016 is the 120th anniversary of Bunhill local meeting, the 50th anniversary of the first tenants moving into Quaker Court and Braithwaite House, the tenth anniversary of Bunhill Quakers meeting in Wesley's Chapel, and the tenth anniversary of the new meeting house and official opening of the new garden.

    See previous maps, plans, pictures: 1740s - 1868 - 1883 - 1908 - 1930 - 1971 - 1974 - 1989 - 2005 -

    Sunday 10.1.2016 Bunhill local meeting for business agreed that the British Yearly Meeting website for Bunhill Fields should be its official website. Copies of the previous official website (created in 1999) are preserved in the international web archive and United Kingdom web archive.

    Monday 25.1.2016 Redundant web page recycled as an unofficial web page.

    Thursday 3.3.2016 Andrew Roberts "requested" to "put some distance between himself" and the "Quaker Meeting for Worship, Meeting for Business and the building itself at Bunhill Fields" by officers of North London Quaker Area Meeting. This ban being still in place, and officers at Bunhill having cut of all communication with me, my knowledge of what happens at Bunhill is exceptionally limited! No clear statement of the reasons for the ban has been made, However, unspecified and anonymous accusations of aggression and unwillingness to listen to advice have been reported. It has been said that these will not be investigated. I regard this as a one sided dispute in that some people at Bunhill have a problem with me. I do not share their animosity. My understanding of being a Quaker is that we should seek to be friends.

    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 and 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.

    William Isaac Palmer left the Hall to the Bedford Institute and, in 1895 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: 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.

    holloway The Plough Court Pharmacy

    In 1715 an elite pharmacy was established at 2 Plough Court, near Lombard Street, in the City of London by Silvanus Bevan, a young Quaker who had just completed his apprenticeship as an apothecary. Silvanus was a man of means whose marriage to Elizabeth Quire at Gracechurch Street on 10.11.1715 was attended by nobility and foreign dignitaries as well as by their fellow Quakers

    The picture was probably engraved about 1868, a few years before the building was replaced.

    The building was constructed of brick in the 1670s, after the 1668 fire. The basic plan, with goods being delivered at the front to a cellar beneath the retail shop may have remained the same from 1715.

    The Plough Court Pharmacy is the business origin of the pharmaceutical firm Allen and Hanbury.


    1725 Timothy Bevan (1704-1786) joined his brother Silvanus Bevan in the Plough Court pharmacy. He continued it after his brother's retirement and was succeeded by his son, Joseph Gurney Bevan (1753- 1814).

    Timothy's first wife (8.9.1735) was Elizabeth Barclay, daughter of David Barclay (banker). Her three children, a Timothy, a Sylvanus (the banker) and a Priscilla, were born at Plough Court, but Elizabeth died in Hackney on 30.8.1745. Timothy senior then married Hannah Springhall, widow of Nathaniel Springhall, who was the daughter of Joseph and Hannah Gurney of Norwich. Joseph Gurney Bevan, born in London 18.2.1753, was their only son. Silvanus Bevan became a banker as a partner with the Barclays in 1767.

    William Allen (1770-1843)

    William Allen (the Allen of Allen and Hanbury) was born in Spitalfields on 29.8.1770. He was the eldest son of Job Allen (1734-1800), a prosperous Quaker silk manufacturer, and Margaret Stafford (died 1830), previously of Cork. Peter Bedford was Job Allen's assistant, and, on his retirement, took over the business. William Allen had chosen to go into chemistry, having been fascinated by science since his schooldays.

    In 1792, William was employed as a clerk by Joseph Gurney Bevan in Plough Court. Business hours were long, and Quaker meetings demanding, but William found time to attend lectures at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals and the meetings of scientific societies.

    "I have attended some of Higgins's lectures - learnt something of shorthand and the new system of chemistry and instituted a plan for my future studies"

    he wrote in his review of 1773

    On 2.4.1794 he became a member of the Chemical Society of Guys Hospital.

    Joseph Gurney Bevan retired (aged 40) in July 1794 and the business was run by Samuel Mildred. In January 1795 the firm became Mildred and Allen

    On 3.7.1795 he became the student of a Physician at St Thomas's Hospital, and in October 1796 a member of the Physical Society at Guys Hospital. In addition to his chemical business he was now lecturing and experimenting at Guys.

    A "little philosophical society" met for the second time at Plough Court on 28.3.1796. The Askesian Society continued for twenty years. It was a group of young chemists who met at Allen's home and used his chemical factory for scientific experiments. The society's purpose being to elucidate by experiment facts already known or newly discovered. The first members were Samuel Woods (a senior who was President), William Allen, Richard Phillips, Luke Howard, Joseph Fox Henry Lawson, Arthur Arch and W.H. Pepys.

    Luke Howard (1772-1864), described it in a letter to the German poet Goethe

    "My friend Allen and myself belonged to a select Philosophical Society which met every fortnight during the winter, each member being required by the rules to bring in an essay, in turn, for discussion, or pay a fine. It was the obligation thus contracted, which occasioned me to present to that society the Essay on Clouds. The papers deemed worth of publication by this Society were inserted in Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine, the editor being one of our members".

    On 13.11.1796, William married Mary Hamilton, the daughter of J and E Hamilton of Redruth. Mary died ten months later, two days after the birth of a daughter, who was also named Mary. Mary Allen married Cornelius Hanbury, but died herself after the birth of a son in 1823.

    After August 1797, Mildred and Allen became Allen and Howard. Luke Howard, William's friend and partner established a laboratory at Plaistow where the manufacture of new chemicals by Joseph Jewell could be carried on with greater safety than at Plough Court. Joseph Jewell (born 1763) was the porter at Plough Court under James Gurney Bevan. He became head of the laboratory.

    "He appears to have improved the existing methods of making salts of mercury, and to have commenced the manufacture of chemicals formerly purchased from outside sources. On two occasions, fires, caused by his experiments, which might well have destroyed the Old Plough Court Pharmacy, were averted through the promptitude of Luke Howard and William Allen. It was soon realised that more space and better conditions were essential in manufacturing such preparations as Nitric and Sulphuric Acid, Liquid Ammonia and Mercurial Salts"

    In a 1797 famine, William Allen was instrumental in establishing a Soup Society in Spitalfields, "the first thing of the kind in England".

    In December? 1802 Luke Howard established the classification of cloud formations in a paper he read to the The Askesian Society "On the Modifications of Clouds". - external link 1   external link 2: Within the complexity of changing skies, we can identify simple forms or categories - Cumulus (Latin for heap) - Stratus (Latin for layer) - Nimbus (Latin for rain) - Cirrus (Latin for curl) - and intermediate forms - Cirro- cumulus - Cirro-stratus - Cumulo-stratus.

    William Allen became an intimate friend of Humphrey Davy, who on 24.1.1804 gave the introductory lecture to a course on natural philosophy at the Royal Institution.

    On 6.5.1805, William was elected to the Committee of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

    Allen and Howard became two firms in 1806. Luke Howard's firm, which had moved to Stratford, became Howard, Jewell and Gibson in 1813 and Howards of Ilford and Stratford in the 20th century.

    After his second marriage (to Charlotte Hanbury) in 1806 he divided his time between Plough Court and the pleasant village of Stoke Newington.

    On 13.11.1807 Davy, Dr Babington and William Allen establish a geological society and on 20.11.1807 Allen became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

    On 24.6.1808 Allen had an interview with Joseph Lancaster, who had established an economic system of educating children using a factory style organisation. Allen and Joseph Fox and others rescued the system financially. In 1810 the Royal Lancastrian Society was founded, with Allen as Treasurer, and this became The British and Foreign School Society in 1814, again with Allen as Treasurer. This body was the main non-conformist organisation for school education during the 19th century. In the early days, teachers were sent to France, Denmark, Germany, Russia, America and the free island of Haiti.

    Allen became acquainted with James Mill, not later than 1810, and secured his active co-operation in a literary enterprise - a quarterly journal, called the Philanthropist, published for seven years at Allen's own risk. The first volume of the Philanthropist was published in 1811. The magazine published, amongst much else, articles by James Mill and by Jeremy Bentham

    In 1810 William Allen and Tregelles Price were among the first ten members of the Peace Society

    On 25.12.1812 Allen made a list in his diary of his activities:

    "Overseer Gracechurch Street Monthly Meeting, Lancastrian Schools, Spitalfields Local Association for the Poor, Spitalfields School, superintending the Philanthropist, lectures, General association for the poor, the Bible society."

    January 1813 Confessions of a Drunkard printed in The Philanthropist

    On 31.12.1813, William Allen, Joseph Fox, Joseph Foster, Michael Gibbs and John Walker "men of marked piety, and members of different Christian denominations" became Robert Owen's partners in the purchase of New Lanark. Another who invested in New Lanark was Jeremy Bentham (I think on the advice of James Mill).

    "Tired at last of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished to conduct the business on the ordinary principles, Owen formed a new firm, who, content with 5% of return for their capital, were ready to give freer scope to his philanthropy (1813). In this firm Jeremy Bentham and the well- known Quaker, William Allen, were partners. In the same year Owen first appeared as an author of essays, in which he expounded the principles on which his system of educational philanthropy was based." (1911 Encyclopedia)

    In 1815, Allen established both a scheme for rescuing "young Bedouins of the city" who lived from theft, and one for establishing a savings bank for the people. It may also have been in 1815 that he became trustee of the Duke of Kent's financial affairs.

    In 1816 Charlotte and William visited the Continent, where Charlotte died on 28.9.1816 at Sacconet. She was buried there.

    From 1818 to 25.2.1820 Allen toured the Continent with the Quaker evangelist, Stephen Grellet, who had first taken Elizabeth Fry to Newgate.

    On 7.5.1823, Mary and Cornelius Hanbury had a son, but on 16.5.1823, Mary died. Elizabeth Fry suckled the baby.

    In 1827, William married Grizell Birkbeck, a wealthy widow who was older than him. This provoked some ridicule, and his motives were read as avaricious. A cartoon by Robert Cruikshank showed disappointed Quaker women in Stoke Newington. But William and Grizell were genuinely close, and other cartoonists defended him. Grizell died in 1835 and, for the rest of his life, Allen was looked after by a niece.

    "After a long period of friction with William Allen and some of his other partners, Owen resigned all connection with New Lanark in 1828." (1911 Encyclopedia)


    10.5.1831: Report in The Times (page 4):

    "The annual meeting of the British and Foreign School Society was held yesterday at Exeter-hall; William Allan, esq. in the chair. The report represented the society to be yearly extending its useful labours and; as a consequence, the blessings of religious instruction among the less wealthy classes of society. His majesty had been pleased to take it under his special patronage, and to set down his name as an annual subscriber of 100l [100 pounds]. The announcement of this gracious conduct on the part of the King was received with loud cheers."

    In 1838 (1828?) there was a deed of dissolution of his partnership with Owen and two sons due to long standing unhappiness about Owen's opposition to revealed religion. [And, I think, opposition to Owen's idea that dancing was an activity to be encouraged in his adult school]

    In 1840 Elizabeth Fry, Samuel Gurney and William Allen toured the continent for five months.

    William Allen died on 30.9.1843

    Peel Meeting and Clerkenwell Workhouse

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

    From 1661 to 1855 Peel Monthly Meeting may have exercised some degree of local oversight of the graveyard near Bunhill Fields.

    By 1696 Peter Briggins (1666?-1717) was heavily involved with the work of the Peel Monthly Meeting. From 1697 until l701 he also served on the Meeting of Twelve and he became a member of the Six Weeks Meeting in February 1701. See 1712 - 1717 - 1733 - Eliot Papers

    John Bellers (1654-1725) was a considerable thinker on social issues, and proposed a "College 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.

    1719 Marriage of Theophila Bellers to John Eliot

    1725 John Bellers buried at Bunhill.

    18.10.1746 Marriage of Thomas Biddle, gardener, of Old Gravel Lane, St Georges, Middlesex, son of Michael Biddle and Elizabeth his wife late of Rotherhithe in Surrey, both deceased and Elizabeth Anderson, widow of Thomas Anderson, late of St John's Street, deceased, daughter of Samuel Richardson of Wellinborough in Northamptonshire and of Ruth, his deceased wife.

    John Biddle son of James and Sarah Biddle was born in Southwark on 15.7.1747. A John Biddle of Green Place, Bethnal Green, born about 1847, was buried at Whitechapel, aged 68 years on 17.8.1815

    23.10.1746 Marriage of Zachariah Catchpole, cordwainer of Ratcliff, and Deborah Morris of St Lukes

    28.4.1761 Marriage of Isaac Catchpole, son of Zachariah (cordwainer) and Mary Catchpole (both deceased), to Martha Osbostone, daighter of Samuel and Mary Osbostone (both deceased) of White Notely, Essex

    1786-1825 Friends School Islington Road, Islington;
    1825-1879 Friends School Croydon
    1856 names instead of numbers

    1856 No recorded ministers at Peel and only one elder.

    1.8.1860 James Armfield signed the final minute of Peel as a Monthly Meeting. Holloway was assigned to Westminster and Peel to Devonshire House.

    1879: Friends School Saffron Walden

    Saturday 22.5.1885 Noted that (during Yearly Meeting) 10am Meetings for Worship were held "as usual" in both large halls at Devonshire House, at Peel and at Westminster - also Wednesday 27.5.1885 - Saturday 21.5.1886 - Saturday 20.5.1887 - Saturday 23.5.1888 - Wednesday 30.5.1888

    1886 A small number of Quakers met for worship on Sunday morning, joined by some who had been drawn in by the mission work. The evening meeting was attended by a much larger number of non-members. The Juvenile Sunday School had an average attendance of about fifty, A well-attended Adult Bible Class was held on Sunday afternoons. Mothers' Meetings and Temperance work was carried on and other work similar to that at the Bedford Institute

    1895 Eliot Papers: no 1: John Eliot of London, merchant 1735-1813. Eliot Papers: no 2 : the Eliot marriages : John Eliot (2) and Mariabella Farmborough Briggins, 1734, John Eliot (3) and Mary Weston, 1762. Compiled from family papers by his great grandson Eliot Howard. Published London : E. Hicks Junior 1895. vi and 130 pages and vi and 128 pages. Previously published privately in Gloucester by J. Bellows 1893-1894

    1895 - 1896 Peel property redeveloped. The meeting-room had its gallery extended around three sides. A mission room and coffee-house were built next door at 31 St John's Lane. Numbers 65 and 67 St John Street were rebuilt.

    1898 Peel Institute founded by Sir George Masterman Gillett and a group of friends in St. John Street. It was a branch of the Bedford Institute Association. (History pdf

    1929 Quarterly Meeting sanctioned the closing of the meeting for worship at Peel. Leting to the Bedford Institute Association continued.

    1940 Peel headquarters transferred to Lloyd Baker Street when a bomb destroyed the building in St. John Street.

    Site let after the war for commercial building.

    2006 Simon Dixon, "The Life and Times of Peter Briggins," Quaker Studies : Volume 10: Issue 2

    Holloway

    1861 Braithwaite family moved to 312 Camden Road, Islington

    1864 Laying of Holloway Meeting House foundation stone
    holloway

    1869 George Gillett settled in London and became a frequent Minister at Holloway. He lived at 314 Camden Road, Islington, next to his sister

    1870 George Masterman Gillett born (1870 - 10.8.1939)

    1874 Joseph Rowntree Gillett born (1874-1940)

    1870s following Work at Bunhill mainly carried on by members of Holloway Meeting

    1886 At three London meeting houses, Stoke Newington, Holloway, and Wanstead, there was "little or no mission work" as interested members were "for the most part engaged in the more crowded neighbourhoods of the centre of London, which so greatly need assistance".

    1923 Freehold purchased

    1938 Meeting House sold and a house in Camden Road bought instead.

    1963 Camden Rad house sold and meeting laid down in 1966. Quakers "had long preferred to live in the outer suburbs". (White 1971 p. 95).

    Islington

    In 1898 the Quaker family of Savory lived in Chapel Street, Pentonville. In the same street was Charles Lamb, a young City clerk and amateur poet, recently recovered from a mental breakdown, who had moved to Islington to be near his sister, Mary Lamb, who had been taken to an Islington madhouse after killing her mother. Charles Lamb later wrote

    "Every Quakeress is a lily; and when they come up in bands to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining Ones"

    Charles Lamb had fallen in love, at a distance, with Hester Savory

    "His tragic story was known to his neighbours, and though he and the Savorys were not 'acquainted', glances passed, looks were exchanged, of interest and pity on the one hand, of earnest and simple adoration on the other" (Janet Witney in Elizabeth Fry p.61)

    Charles Lamb had strong links with the Quakers. His essay on A Quaker's Meeting was published in the early 1820s, but his relationships with Quakers started in 1797, when one of his earliest friends and collaborators was the Quaker poet Charles Lloyd (1779-1835), who himself became a mental patient in 1811.

    Hackney - The Quaker absence

    In the 18th century, Hackney was the centre for a dissenting tradition very different from that of the Quakers. In the village of Homerton (near to where I write this web site) stood the large Hackney House with 200 acres of park and gardens. In 1786 this was bought by Calvinist dissenters who used it to set up Homerton Academy to train ministers. Its first Principle was Dr Richard Price and its second was Dr Joseph Priestley. Both were also ministers of the Gravelpit Chapel. Their influence spread far beyond the Academy, and amongst those who learnt from Richard Price, one of the most influential was Mary Wollstonecraft. William Godwin, who later married Mary, was refused admission to Homerton Academy in 1773 because of his theological views, but was admitted to Hoxton Academy later the same year.

    In 1796 the dissenters bought another old mansion in Homerton, and the old college was demolished in 1800. Amongst the Principles of the new college was Dr Pye Smith. The academy eventually became Homerton College, specialised in training teachers instead of ministers, and moved to Cambridge in 1894.

    Quakers kept themselves apart from such intellectual activity. Throughout the 18th century their yearly meetings warned against the reading of books apart from the Bible and the approved writings of Quakers.

    "To all masters and tutors of children, we affectionately address ourselves; that in a particular manner it may be your care to caution, and as much as in you lies to guard, the youth committed to your charge, against the dangers and allurements of evil communications, and the reading of profane and immoral writings, (those powerful engines of Satan), whether they be such as directly tend to defile the affections, or, with a more specious appearance, to subvert the doctrines of Christianity, by a presumptious abuse of human reason, and by vain and subtle disputations, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ" (1766. Book of Discipline 1834 page 195)

    "There having been, for many years past, a great circulation of vain, idle, and irreligious books and pamphlets, tending to lead the mind away from sober and serious duty, to infect the inexperienced and unwary with notions which promote infidelity and corruption, and to alienate their attention from the Spirit of God, under whose influence and holy keeping alone is safety; we earnestly request that parents, and all others who have youth under their tuition, will keep a constant eye over them..." (1769 Book of Discipline 1834 page 29)

    "We earnestly recommend to all, the frequent perusal of the Holy Scripture, according to repeated exhortations; and we at this time also recommend the writings of our faithful predecessors.." (1789 Book of Discipline 1834 page 29)

    At the end of the 18th century and during the 19th century, however, the industrial and philanthropic struggles of Quakers brought many into association with the rationalist tradition and some, like William Allen, played an important part in its development.

    Education could lead a young Quaker out of the Society. For an example of Quaker education and of an exit from the Society in the course of "worldly" education, see the biography of the pioneer psychiatrist, James Cowles Prichard

    It seems to me that the influence of much Quaker advice was anti-intellect, anti-art and anti-science. Nevertheless, some members of the society developed in these fields and modern Quakers tend to claim an affinity. The case for a positive Quaker contribution to science is made by Geoffrey Cantor, Leeds Professor of the History of Science.


    Shacklewell

    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".

    Peter Daniels' article Quakers in Stoke Newington. Part 1: to the mid-nineteenth century, which appeared in Hackney History, Volume 8 (2002) says:

    "When George Fox was in London he often found refuge from interruption to write in outlying places, including the home of the widow Mary Stott in Dalston, from where a number of his epistles are dated. [Penney ed. Short Journal note, p.305] Women like Mary Stott played an important part from the beginning, and spoke prominently at Quaker meetings. In 1668 Fox set up a girls' school at Shacklewell to be run by Mary Stott, "to Instruct younge lasses & maydens in whatsever thinges was civill & useful in ye creation". [Penney ed. Journal vol.2 p.119.] By 1677, and the Shacklewell school was run by Jane Bullock. A loan of fifty pounds was arranged for her to develop the school, as it appears to have been short of pupils [Six Weeks Meeting minutes vol.1 p.112 (1677) George Fox visits Jane Bullock in Shacklewell in 1683, though the school is not mentioned [Penney ed. Short Journal p.89]. Mary still lived in Dalston at the time, but by the end of 1684 had moved to Bethnal Green [Penney ed. Short Journal note, p. 305]"

    From the City to Stoke Newington

    In the early nineteenth century many prosperous city Quakers began to live in Stoke Newington. See William Allen, for example. Peter Daniels has identified Stoke Newington residents in the painting of Gracechurch Street (about 1770). "Samuel Hoare, who lived in Paradise Row: it was son Jonathan who had Clissold House built. His wife and three dughters are said to be on the opposite side benches. One of the daughters is Grizell, who married William Allen".

    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 (even though Gracechurch Street was rebuilt)

    Banks Farrand, London goldsmith "was involved in the Gracechurch Street Meeting and was on the committee that established the Stoke Newington Meeting". The other members of the committee were: Edward Harris, William Allen, James Foster, John Beck, Richard Low Beck, Frederick Janson, John Lister and John Sanderson. (Source: The London Friends' Meetings by William Beck and T. Frederick Ball, London: F. Bowyer Kitto, 1869, p.158.) (Christopher Farrand, emails 30.6.2006 and 5.7.2006)

    From 1827 to 1850, Stoke Newington was part of Gracechurch Street Monthly Meeting

    In 1827 a site was acquired in Park Street (now Yoakley Road), Stoke Newington. 1827 is treated as the start of the Stoke Newington Quaker burial ground.

    1851 Elizabeth Beck, aged 83, Proprietor of Houses and Fund Holder, living with her daughter, Deborah Beck, aged 44, at 4 Lordship Terrace, Stoke Newington. When Elizabeth died here (24.2.1857) she was not buried in Stoke Newington, but with her husband in Hitchin, Hertfordhire

    29.10.1869 Joseph Jackson Lister, aged 83, buried in Stoke Newington Society of Friends Burial Ground, Yoakley Road. [William Beck Keeper of the Register Book]

    The new meeting house opened in 1828. Its architect, William Alderson, went on to design the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum

    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.

    21.3.1872: A Quaker Marriage at Stoke Newington

    Alfred Bastin, son of Edward and Catharine Bastin of Stoke Newington and Catharine Tylor, daughter of Charles and Gulielma Maria Tylor of Stoke Newington in the county of Middlesex

    having duly made known their intention of taking each other in Marriage to the Monthly Meeting of Friends commonly called Quakers of Devonshire House in the County of Middlesex the Proceedings of the said Alfred Bastin and Catherine Tyler after due enquiry were allowed by the said Meeting, they appearing clear of all others and having consent of Parents. Now these are to certify, that for the accomplishing of their said Marriage, this twenty- first day of the Third Month in the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy Two, they, the said Alfred Bastin and Catharine Tylor appeared at a public Assembly of the aforesaid People in their Meeting House, Park Street, Stoke Newington; and the said Alfred Bastin taking the said Catharine Tylor by the hand, declared as followeth, -- Friends, I take this my friend Catharine Tylor to be my Wife, promising through Divine assistance to be unto her a loving and faithful Husband until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us. And, the said Catherine Tylor did then and there in the said Assembly, declare as followeth; -- Friends, I take this my friend Alfred Bastin to be my Husband, promising through Divine assistance to be unto her a loving and faithful Wife until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us. And the said Alfred Bastin and Catharine Tylor, as a further confirmation thereof, and in testimony thereunto, did then and here, to these Presents set their hands.

    Alfd Bastion
    Catharine Tylor

    We being present at the above said Marriage have also subscribed our Names as Witnesses thereinto, the Day and the Year above written

    Edward R. Allen
    Ellen E. Allen
    Mary Allen
    William C. Allen
    Mary Emma Allen
    Edith Mary Allen
    Francis Allen
    Rob' Alsop
    Jno. D. Appleton
    Sarah Ann ------
    Rachel Beck
    William B. Tylor
    Mary A.? Thomas
    Will? Fred Nelle?
    Mary Anne Nelle?
    Elaya? Marsh
    Stafford Allen
    Alicia Ashworth
    ---- ------
    Sarah Ann Tylor
    ---- Allen Fox
    Eliza Tylor ----
    Annie ------- -------
    Mary Jane Morgan
    Mary E. Warton?
    Emily Jermyn?
    Mary Cahrlotte Sturge
    Henrietta Aleyande?
    Mary Jane Catlin?
    E. Burgess
    E. Philip Bastin
    Jane Bastin
    John Burnett Tylor
    Rachel Tylor
    Edmund Pace
    John Mayfield
    Henry Tylor
    Eliza Tylor
    Fanny Elizabeth Pace
    Elen Fry
    Alice Mary Pace
    Emma Tylor
    Anna Mary Tylor
    A. M. T------
    Charles Tylor
    Gulielma M. Tylor
    Edward Bastin
    Catharine Bastin
    Riah Bastin
    Elizabeth Tylor
    Joseph Sparks Tylor
    Ellen Bastin
    Robert L. Impey
    Rachel Savory Tylor
    A. J. Alexander?
    Anna E. Bastin
    J. Tylor Stewart
    Gulielma Tylor
    Theodore Tylor

    Alfred Bastin was a chemist and Catharine Tylor Bastin (and her daughters) wrote a great deal of poetry, some of which was published in "fluffy" periodicals in the 1920s and 1930s.

    American Friend 4.10.1902 "Our friend, Charles Tylor, of Brighton, England, has passed away at the age of 85. He was for some years editor of the (London) Friend, and when The American Friend was first published he was a frequent contributor to it. He was joint editor with Edward Backhouse of Early Church History"

    1886 Stoke Newington and Westminter were the two largest London meetings, each being attended on Sunday morning by nearly 200 people. But Westminster meeting was a central meeting to which most regular attenders travelled some distance and many were temprary visitors, whereas Stoke Newington was a "suburban" meeting and about one- half of all its members lived within a mile of the meeting-house. "A conspicuous feature at this Meeting is the large proportion of young Friends composing it, a remark which also applies to Croydon." [The three other "suburban" meetings were Croydon, Holloway, and Peckham.

    Work at The Bedford Institute was mainly carried on by members of Stoke Newington Meeting. At three London meeting houses, Stoke Newington, Holloway, and Wanstead, there was "little or no mission work" as interested members were "for the most part engaged in the more crowded neighbourhoods of the centre of London, which so greatly need assistance".

    By 1900, when numbers were starting to go down, there were 221 Quakers living within a mile of the meeting house.

    9.12.1907 Death of William Beck of 168 Lordship Lane, Stoke Newington, Middlesex. Probate London 9.12.1907 to Gertrude Beck spinster and William Beck engineer. Effects £9,570 3s 3d. He was buried at Stoke Newington.

    1930 and 1932 Walter Henry Stone and Irene Stone on the electoral register at 111 Dynevor Road, Stoke Newington. At about this time, Irene played the music at Hoxton Hall and Walter was active in the boys' and mens' clubs

    1941 Book of Meetings: 133 members. Yoakley Road, Church street, N16. Sunday meetings 11am and 6.30pm on the third Sunday of the month. Clerk: Walter H. Stone, 39 Tudor Court, E17. To get there take the Piccadilly Line to Finsbury Park and thence by 106 bus to Lordship Road. Buses 67 and 73 to Yoakley Road.

    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. For many years they travelled to other meeting houses for worship, but can now worship together at the new Stoke Newington Meeting.

    Stamford Hill is north of Stoke Newington and south of Tottenham

    Tottenham

    1676 - 1689 - 1698 - 1712 - 1712 - Wakefield - 1772 - 1777 - 1790s - Susanna Crush - 1792 - 1794 - 1796 - 1802 - 1806 - 1807 - 1812/1813 - 1814 - 1815 - 1816 - 1825 - 1826 - Radley - 1833 - 1839 - 1840 - 1851 - 1852 - 1864 - 1869 - 1872 - 1890 - 1891 - 1879 - 1937 - 1956 - 1961 - - - - - - - 1999 -

    Keep going north from Stoke Newington, along the old Roman Road through Seven Sisters and you will come to Tottenham High Cross, carry on north and (with better directions than this) you may find the Quaker meeting sitting on the top of another building that (when I first knew it) was a supermarket. [It was not always as relevant as this.]

    Tottenham has been a centre for Quakerism since the 17th century:

    In 1676 there were 43 dissenters from the national church living in Tottenham. Many, it is thought, were, or were to become Quakers.

    1680: George Fox attended a meeting near the High Cross held in a hired house. At this time he was staying at Fords Grove House in Winchmore Hill, which was the home of his friend, Edward Mann.

    1689 "Bridget Austell moved her school from Southgate to Tottenham High Cross, where George Fox often stayed during the following fifteen months. Fox preached at large meetings and attributed the size of one to the attendance of many Londoners".

    1698: The Meeting was moved to a new hired house about half a mile north of the High Cross and near the Pound (?), rent being £3.10.0d per annum paid by the Six Weeks Cash Committee of twelve. This Meeting was held on alternate Sundays with Stoke Newington.

    "By 1712 there were two Quaker boarding schools and the number of Friends was increasing, partly, it was claimed, because of intemperate attacks by the vicar and others upon the former Anglican divine, Richard Claridge, who kept one of the schools and refused to pay tithe."

    1712: Notice to vacate the hired house being received, the Quakers decided to have their own premises. For two years, meetings were held at the home of Richard Claridge, school-master, and Alice Hayes, widow.

    "After a succession of houses had been licensed for worship, the site for a permanent meeting-house was bought, with help from the Six Weeks' Meeting, in 1714"

    20.11.1714: Purchase of a piece of land on Tottenham Street. [The site of the present meeting house] A meeting house was built for £200

    "Quakers continued to flourish during the 18th century, when Tottenham gradually replaced Enfield as the centre for the monthly meeting. Their meeting-house was apparently the only fixed place of worship for nonconformists in the parish until the 1790s."

    1750: Birth of Edward Wakefield, who later married Priscilla Bell

    1751 Birth of Priscilla Bell, daughter of Daniel Bell of Stamford Hill, a coal merchant, and Catherine Barclay. Originally her family had come from Westmorland near Kendal. She was a great granddaughter of Robert Barclay who wrote Quaker Apology in 1676. Priscilla wrote many educational books for children. Her diaries show that she needed to do this to compensate for the financial misfortunes of her husband, Edward Wakefield. She was active in bringing up her grandchildren, pioneered a lying-in charity, industrial school and frugality bank - The last at the time she was having to take her own family finances in hand. She is reported to have been a patient in a madhouse for a period. After this, her son, also Edward Wakefield, visited madhouses throughout the country and promoted the idea of a London Asylum based on Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon scheme. At the time of her husband's death, two of the grandchildren she had helped to bring up were sent to prison for three years for abducting an heiress.

    1771 Marriage of Edward Wakefield and Priscilla Bell. Edward had inherited a considerable fortune from his father, which (after the marriage) he lost in industrial ventures and financial gambles.

    Expansion: changing membership

    Tottenham Meeting's membership expanded as increasing numbers of Quakers settled in Tottenham. Other meetings in the Month;y Meeting area were declining.

    1772 The Meeting House found to be too small for the numbers attending. Those involved in the negotiations for enlargement included William Forster, Edward and Thomas Phillips and Daniel Bell. About here the birth of Isabella Wakefield, who married Jeremiah Head. Isabella died 1841.

    1774 Birth of Edward Wakefield, who married Susanna Crush (born 1767) [or Susannah]

    1777 Meeting House enlarged at the cost of £484 mostly collected from local Quakers plus £8 from the sale of old material. Tottenham Quakers attended Winchmore Hill and Enfield during enlargement.

    1777 Were the young ladies who made samplers in Tottenham in 1777 and 1782 attending a Quaker school?

    1778

    Life at Tottenham Meeting was getting so busy that by early 1778 it was decided to hold an additional Meeting for Worship in the afternoon.

    1786

    By 1786 attendance for worship at Enfield was low and the Enfield Meeting House was sold in 1803. South Mimms Meeting closed in 1788 and the Meeting House and burial ground were sold in 1820. It was a similar story at Waltham Abbey. Epping and Walthamstow Meetings survived.

    1790s Independents and Wesleyan Methodists established meeting houses in Tottenham, breaking the Quaker monopoly on dissent. "Quakers remained the largest sect... although by 1810 they were said to be diminishing."

    1791 Priscilla Wakefield formed the Lying-in Charity for Women

    Edward Wakefield junior was seventeen when he married Susanna Crush, the daughter of a well to do farmer at Felstead in Essex. Susanna's interest before her children were born was hunting. Edward and Susanna Wakefield lived at Bunham Hall, Essex. his "circumstances were by no means prosperous; he was, however, an active, zealous advocate for anything likely, in his opinion, to be useful to mankind" (Francis Place). After unsuccessful farming he set up as a land agent from offices at 42 Pall Mall in 1814. At this time, Edward and a Quaker architect, James Bevans, were promoting a scheme for a model lunatic asylum, and also the Lancastrian education system. Edward contributed to William Allen's Philanthropist. Edward and Susanna's eldest child, Catherine Gurney Wakefield [Kitty], was born in 1793. Edward Gibbon Wakefield was born 20.3.1796. Daniel Bell Wakefield was born on 27.2.1798. Arthur Wakefield was born in 1799. William Wakefield and John Howard Wakefield were both born in 1803. Felix Wakefield was born in 1807. Priscilla Wakefield was born in 1809. Percy Wakefield was born in 1810. Susanna died in 1816, Edward in 1854.

    1792 School for Industry founded on a site practically opposite the present Bruce Grove station.

    1794-1797 Priscilla Wakefield's Mental Improvement, or the Beauties and Wonders of Nature and Art (2 volumes)

    1795-1798 Priscilla Wakefield's Juvenile Anecdotes, founded on facts (2 volumes) London

    1796: An Introduction to Botany in a Series of Familiar Letters, with Illustrative Engravings by Priscilla Wakefield

    illustration for a bookseller's catalogue

    See the University of Michigan's Women in Botany Exhibition

    6.8.1796: Pricilla wrote: "The consideration of money matters depresses me, as I am certain our expenses exceed the limited sum". On 21.10.1796: "Pecuniary difficulties press hard upon my mind".

    October 1796: On looking after Kitty, Pricilla wrote: "that child requires the judicious attention and time of one person". In July 1799 she wrote "very little done except attending to Kitty whose mind is so much expanded that all my time might be well bestowed on its cultivation". Eight years later she wrote lessons with "my dear Catherine's great inattention and want of docility make but slow progress".

    1797 To compensate for the state of Edward's finances, Priscilla resolved to write, in order to make some income on which she can rely.

    1798 Priscilla Wakefield founded the first frugality bank in England, at Ship Inn Yard in Tottenham. Wrote Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex

    21.1.1798: Priscilla recorded that Edward had more financial losses. It "threatens us with a view of poverty and dependence". On 16.4.1798 that while "E.W. has more favourable circumstances there remain sufficient reasons for me to continue writing".

    14.10.1799 Priscilla Wakefield wrote "Necessity obliges me to write".

    1801 The Juvenile Travellers; containing the remarks of a family during a tour through the principal states and kingdoms of Europe, etc. [With a map.] by Priscilla Wakefield. pp. iv. 357. Darton & Harvey: London, 1801. 12o.

    1803 Purchase, from Quaker Thomas Shillitoe, of the land that was to be used as a burial ground, there being no Tottenham Quaker burial ground before this date.

    1999 Exhibition text

    Burial ground

    Many early Quakers were buried in parish churchyards, often without a traditional church committal. Sometimes funerals were disturbed by unruly mobs. Most Quakers preferred not to be buried in the local churchyard and burial in a garden or orchard was common practice. This was not always possible and it became necessary to obtain land.

    The first burial at Tottenham was in 1802; that of Thomas Garman, aged seven years. Friends who died were interred in rows without distinction. Gravestones were disallowed.

    In 1816 at Tottenham, low oval-topped stones were erected. These were simply engraved with the Friend's name and dates of birth and death.

    Today, these stones are stood around the sides of the burial ground and the centre is grassed over. A plan has been kept of the spot where each Friend is buried.

    The last burial took place in 1893. In 1894 the Burial Ground was closed to burials, though scattering of ashes is still allowed.

    1804 A Family Tour through the British Empire: Containing Some Account of its Manufactures, Natural and Artifical Curiosities, History and Antiquities; Interspersed with Biographical Anecdotes; Particularly Adapted to the Amusement and Instruction of Youth by Priscilla Wakefield writing anonymously

    1805
    Ordnance survey map of Tootenham sometime after 1805.

    1806

    "Susanna's health had been detriorating, and in 1806... she became seriuosly ill; so this time, instead of only Edward and Catherine going from Burnham Wyck to their grandmother's at Tottenham, the whole family went." (Bloomfield, P. 1961 pp 23-24)

    At the beginning of 1807, four of Susanna's children, Edward Gibbon, Daniel, Arthur and William, were attending Mr Haigh's school in Tottenham. The other children were Catherine Gurney, John Howard and a new Priscilla. One child (Percy) was not yet born.

    February 1807: Priscilla was having problems with the education of her grandchildren Kitty and Edward Gibbon. On 5.2.1807 she wrote "my mind painfully engaged in the perverseness of dear little Edward - his obstinacy if he inclines to evil terrifies me". On 7.2.1807 she wrote that his "pertinacious inflexible temper makes me fear for his own happiness and of those connected with him" and on 7.2.1807, he "had a mind that requires delicate handling".

    1809 Perambulations in London, and its environs ... Designed for young persons by Priscilla Wakefield pp. xv. 503. plates: 4. Dorton & Harvey: London, 1809. 8o.

    1812 A Lancasterian school for boys was established in Tottenham. It was originally on the High Road, just south of White Hart Lane, but moved in 1813 to Church Road. Three years later a similar school for girls was opened on the corner of Reform Row and the High Road.

    Quakers were actively involved in the management of these schools and featured in the list of subscribers, including members of the Forster, Janson, Howard and Stacey families.

    In a single large room over 100 boys were taught on the basis of Joseph Lancaster's 'improved plan'. Each boy paid 1p per week.

    Joseph Lancaster had found that at his 'Lancasterian School' in Southwark one 'teacher' could teach say five boys one item of knowledge in reading, writing or arithmetic. These five boys would teach another five. These would teach five more. In this way education could be provided very economically.

    1812/1813 At about this time, Priscilla Wakefield may have been a patient in Whitmore House. A Description of the Crimes and Horrors in the interior of Warburton's Private Madhouse... says that Mrs Wakefield, a well known authoress, was, by her keeperess, "dragged by the hair and beat her head repeatedly against the wall, and then tying her legs, flogged her as children are flogged at school, in the presence of half a dozen monsters in the shape of men" [Compare this to her son's favourable account of the house in 1815]

    1813 Luke Howard and his family moved to Tottenham following the death of his father, Robert, in 1812. His mother and sister (both called Elizabeth) had moved from Stamford Hill to Bruce Grove, Tottenham when Robert died. The move related to wanting to be nearer his mother, who died at Tottenham (aged 76) on 26.10.1816 and was buried at Winchmore Hill. After the death of his father, Luke was elected a member of the British and Foreign Bible Society. They also "spent time at their country home near Ackworth, Yorkshire" (DNB). Elizabeth Howard says that in his services to the Quakers he was often associated with his brother-in-law John Eliot. Luke Howard's business had moved from Plaistow to Stratford and was both larger and lucrative. He "had active partners" and his two oldest sons, Robert (born 1801) and John Eliot (born 1807) were introduced into the business as they grew up.

    December 1813: draft of a letter from William Hone to Edward Wakefield (son of Edward and Priscilla) outlining plans for a London asylum project. Hone proposes an asylum with about 400 patients, architecturally and structurally modeled on the Retreat. It would have separate accommodations for patients of "superior rank in life" and the estimated cost to build and equip it would be about £100,000. This could be raised by a public offering of £100 shares (with no one person allowed more than 20 shares).

    28.12.1813 Edward Wakefield's reply to William Home expresses enthusiasm for the plan, but doubts about the possibility of raising £100,000 by subscription. At this time, he is not yet acquainted with Bevans. On 30.12.1813 he send Hone a brief note urging him to meet and gain the support of Mr Allen, and expressing excitement about a proposed public meeting, apparently designed to publicize the asylum project and to call for subscribers.

    1814

    The Traveller in Africa... by Priscilla Wakefield writing anonymously

    7.6.1814 Edward Wakefield (son of Edward and Priscilla) commissioned C. Arnold to make a drawing of William Norris, a dangerous lunatic confined in irons in Bethlem Hospital. Possibly the most influential picture in the history of English mental health. It was etched by George Cruickshank and sold in William Hone's shop, as well as being shown to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Madhouses in 1815.

    19.4.1814 Letter from James Bevans to William Hone pressing the urgency of getting subscriptions going before Yearly Meeting (due to start 15.5.1814) as almost all the rich individuals will be in town and William Tuke amongst them "will work wonders almost". "... no further time must be lost in waiting for E. Wakefield."

    27.12.1814 Priscilla Wakefield wrote: my "love of young persons continues but a slight defect in my hearing deprives me in some degree of the pleasures of conversation".

    1815

    The following is from Kathleen Jones' A History of the Mental Health Services (Jones, K. 1972 p.84)

    "Wakefield... explained [to the Select Committee on Madhouses in 1815] that his work as a land agent took him to various parts of the country, and that he made a point, at each place he visited, of asking to see the gaols, Bridewells and madhouses in the vicinity... He knew the Retreat... At Miles' house at Hoxton, he had been refused admission, a keeper telling him that 'an inspection of that house would be signing my death-warrant'. At Gore House, Kensington he was also refused admission. At Thomas Monro's house at Hackney, he was told by the physician of Bethlem that he was welcome to visit - if he could secure the consent of the relatives of every patient; and he was refused a list of names of the patients... There were a few private madhouses in which conditions were good, as far as Wakefield could tell.... At Talfourd's house at Fulham, there were fourteen ladies who appeared to be treated with the greatest kindness. They went to the local church, and were allowed out for walks - Wakefield met two who had just 'walked to Walham Green to see Louis 18." London House, Hackney, also appeared to be excellently conducted. There "One lady, who conceives herself to be Mary, Queen of Scots, acts as preceptress to Mrs Fox's little children, and takes great pains in teaching them French'"

    Whitmore House. Morris (1958) quotes Edward Wakefield favourably on Whitmore House in passages that I think come from the 1815 Select Committee Report. He spoke of the advantages enjoyed by patients at Whitmore, where there were "very large gardens; some of the patients pay rather liberally; and in these gardens are many small distinct houses; the great enjoyment which a patient who had the means of paying for it, received from living in a small house, surrounded by a garden, without the noise, or the annoyance of violent patients around him". He had visited the house in the company of Lord Robert Seymour MP, the Hon. Henry Grey Bennett, MP, and Lord Binning. [See Parliamentary Bibliography 1814 onwards] They were impressed "by the general comfort and cleanliness of the house", which at the time of their visit housed some eighty patients. "The house stands in the midst of very fine gardens to the extent of five acres, and such of the patients who can enjoy it when convalescent, are allowed to amuse themselves by keeping fowls or rabbits, or cultivating a small piece of garden ground"

    12.8.1815 Edward Wakefield, from his Pall Mall office, to Francis Place asking for the loan of £100 until the end of October, which Place was "happy" to make. "Your family occasions an increasing solicitude and repeated conversations in mine". James Mill and Francis Place were worried about Susanna Wakefield. Mill wrote to Place prophesying "nothing but destruction to the family if Mrs Wakefield be suffered to remain at home". Some weeks later, Place wrote to Mill "It is true, as Wakefield says, that Mrs Wakefield has no delusions, i.e. she does not take a church for a playhouse, but she is incapable of doing anything beyond crying and complaining and refusing both advice and assistance". (Bloomfield, P. 1961 pp 29-30)

    1816 Death of Susanna Wakefield

    Priscilla Wakefield's An introduction to the Natural History and Classification of Insects, in a Series of Familiar Letters. With Illustrated Engravings London: Darton, Harvey, and Darton, 1816.

    about 1820 Luke Howard bought a house called "The Villa" in Ackworth, Yorkshire. From here until 1828 he lived the life of a country gentleman in Yorkshire in the summer months and returned to his home in Tottenham for the winter months.

    1824

    Mariabella Howard helped to set up the Book and TractaDepository near Devonshire House

    1825 Publication of John Mitford's A Description of the Crimes and Horrors in the interior of Warburton's Private Madhouse..., with the allegation that Priscilla had been a patient and had been abused.

    1825 Marriage of Robert Howard, eldest son of Luke and Mariabella, married Rachel Lloyd of Birmingham. They set up home in Bruce Grove.

    1826 Death of Edward Wakefield, wife of Priscilla. In this year, two of his grandsons, Edward Gibbon Wakefield and William Wakefield, abducted a young heiress, Ellen Turner, from her boarding school and, under false pretences, persuaded her to marry Edward in Scotland (the marriage was annulled). Edward Gibbon and William were sent to prison. [external link]. Whilst in Newgate, Edward Gibbon Wakefield wrote a series of works on the theory of colonisation and after prison he made his career as a colonial statesman in connection with South Australia, New Zealand and Canada. His scheme for South Australia nearly ruined the colony.

    Eli Radley was a son Isaac Radley, an Essex agricultural labourer, and Mary Puplett. There were ten children and Eli was born in 1802. He became a gardener and worked for the Bevan family (Quakers) in Tottenham.

    Mary Louisa Gibson married Eli Radley in 19.11.1826 in All Hallows Church, Tottenham in the presence of Jane Gibson and John Puplett Radley (Eli's brother, who signed with a mark)

    The photograph is clearly later in life. Louisa died of heart disease in 1867.

    See
    Mary - Alexander - William - Joseph - Elizabeth Puplett Radley born 30.10.1836 died April 1839 - Old Bailey - Sophia Louisa Radley born summer 1838 - Rebecca Ann - 1841 census - Edmund Radley born spring 1843 died aged 2 years and six months. - 1871 - 1871 death of James Bull - tree and Fox stone - 1877-1885 (death) Eli in an asylum - Farrand Radley

    1827

    14.5.1827 Letter from Elizabeth Hodgkin in which she speaks of schoolmistressing "on a set of little rough villagers, about half a mile from here" in company with [Elizabeth] Forster. It was a plan of Rachel Forster's for "setting on foot a day-school on an improved plan, in a distant and rather neglected part of our parish"

    1828


    Grove House School 1828 - 1879

    Grove House School was founded by Thomas Binns, who served as the first headmaster. It replaced Forster's School, which had closed two years earlier. Provision was made to teach French, German, Latin, Writing and Drawing. The boys were all from Quaker families or had Quaker relatives. The school stood on the south side of Tottenham Green.

    William Edward Forster (1818-1886) was a pupil at Grove House School from 1832 to 1835. He ceased being a Quaker in 1850 on marrying a non-Quaker. In 1870 he successfully steered through Parliament an Education Act that overcame denominational antagonisms and established a national system of elementary education.

    Grove House School closed in 1879. In 1897 the site was purchased by Tottenham Council and became the Tottenham Polytechnic (now College of North East London). On the closure of Grove House School, activity was transferred to a new Quaker school in Reading, Leighton Park School, which is still running today.


    1828 Luke Howard gave up his house in Tottenham and settled in Ackworth as a country gentleman. By this time, Robert and John Eliot Howard were partners in the concern at Stratford, but lived in Tottenham. Robert and Rachel had their own house and John Eliot had a home with his aunt Elizabeth Howard until his marriage in 1830. Joseph was employed in a wholesale business in London, and mainly livedith his uncle John Eliot in Bartholomew Close.

    1829

    Birth of Mary Radley to Louisa and Eli. Mary became a Governess and then a companion. Obituary in The Friend 28.2.1902

    1830

    Birth of Alexander Radley to Louisa and Eli. Alexander became an accountant. He married first Annie Proudfoot and then Sarah Farrand. Alexander was father of John Charles Radley and grandfather of Farrand Radley

    9.9 1830 In Kendal: John Eliot Howard (22), of Tottenham, Chemist, son of Luke Howard of Ackworth ..... York, chemist, and Mariabella Howard, married Maria Crewdson (23), daughter of William Dillworth Crewdson of Helme? Lodge, near Kendal, and Deborah Crewdson. Isaac Crewdson was the first to sign as witness. They moved into Lord's Meade, Tottenham, opposite Bruce Castle.

    1831

    12.5.1831 Paul Bevan, son of Silvanus and Mary Bevan, married Judith Nicholls Dillwyn, daughter of William and Sarah Dillwyn. "Monthly Meeting of Tottenham". Paul Bevan was an elector at a leashold house West Green-lane Tottenham in 1847.

    29.7.1831 Thomas Hodgkin (1831-1913), historian, born at Bruce Grove, Tottenham, the second son of John Hodgkin (1800-1875), barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and his first wife, Elizabeth (died 1836), daughter of the meteorologist Luke Howard.

    1832

    6.8.1832 Birth of William Radley to Louisa and Eli. He died 13.11.1864, aged 32.

    1832 Death of Priscilla Wakefield, widow of Edward

    Bridget Hill 1997 Priscilla Wakefield as a Writer of Children's Educational Books is available as a pdf file from: http://www.triangle.co.uk/wow/pdf/04-1- bh.pdf. The quotations I have used from Priscilla Wakefield's journals are all taken from Bridget Hill's article. which was originally published in Women's Writing volume 4, No. 1, 1997.

    1833 The Quaker Meeting House was practically rebuilt on the old foundations at the cost of £1677. A small Meeting House and living room at the side were built, and so the buildings remained for more than 100 years. (1999 Exhibition)

    1833

    23.5.1835 Joseph Radley born. Said to have been the third son and fourth child (of Eli and Louisa). His obituary says "there being little money at home, he had his own way to make in the world", but he was helped by education provided in the district for working class children by or with the help of the local Quakers. All the Radley children went to the Infants School founded by Elizabeth Forster. Joseph then went to the local Lancastrain system school that Tottenham Quakers supported "which he always praised for having given him a basic education". In 1847 he went Friends School Croydon. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to its Superintendent, John Sharp. "From him he learned much until, in accordance with established Quaker practice where there were clever children of Friends in modest circumstances, he continued his training as a teacher at the Flounders Institute and at Bootham School in York. In 1861 he returned to Croydon, having married Phebe Jane Bentley, the daughter of an Ipswich Quaker family. Seven years later she died leaving him with three sons. For a time he went on teaching at Croydon, but his friends persuaded him that a complete change was essential for his general well-being. So for a few months he tried a new occupation and worked as an accountant with a brother, an experience which served mainly to show that it was teaching which gave him the fullest satisfaction. He therefore returned to his first career, taught for five years at Wigton School in Cumberland, and towards the end of his time there married Mary E. Robinson of Pardshaw. Within a few months they and the three boys came to Lisburn where Joseph Radley entered upon what may be said to have been his life's work at Ulster Provincial School."

    1836

    12.5.1836 Edward Marsh (1812-1884) married Ellen Pryer (died 1887) at Tottenham Meeting House. See Devonshire House - 1862 - 1877 - 1884

    1837

    "I have before me a tract of about thirty pages, 16mo., entitled ' Water Baptism an Ordinance of Christ : an Address to the Society of Friends, by Isaac Crewdson : 1837.' The author, an esteemed Friend and minister in the society, has laid down his membership among ns, and undergone baptism in the Independent way, professing now, with many others in like circumstances, as an Evangelical Friend." The Yorkshireman No.93 1837

    7.6.1837 Luke Howard baptised by Isaac Crewdson

    24.9.1837 Rachel Howard, daughter of Luke and Mariabella, died at Tottenham, aged about 33?, and was buried at Winchmore Hill on Saturday 29.9.1837. After Rachel's death, Luke and Mariabella "spent the winters at Tottenham, in a small house in Bruce Grove".

    1838

    18.6.1838 Eli Radley gave evidence at the Old Bailey that he worked for a Mr Bevan, next to Thomas Binns. He was working in the garden at West-green, Tottenham on Tuesday 12.6.1838 when "I saw the prisoners Webb, Newland, and Jenkinson in a footpath adjoining the field of master's premises, with two others who I do not know". (Court case)

    1838: John Phillips (1803-1894) married Mary Payne. Their children were Mary Elizabeth, John, Alfred and Ellen.

    1839 Brook Street Chapel of the Brethren opened by ex- Quakers from Tottenham Meeting who had left the society under the Bible leadings of the Beacon to the Society of Friends. There is a "Register of Internments in the Burial Ground attached to Brook Street Chapel, Tottenham, Middx. From the opening in 1841 til closed Jany 1st 1858. John Eliot Howard. Minister"

    1840 The population of Tottenham and District was about 9,000. Gas lighting was installed on the High Road.

    1840 Mary Elizabeth Phillips born. Died 1922.

    Autumn 1840 Rebecca Ann Radley was born to Eli and Louisa. She never married and was living with her father and two children of widowed brothers in 1871

    1841

    1841 Census: Paul Bevan aged 55 and Judith Bevan same aged lived in Philip Lane. A few entries away was Eli Radley, aged 39, Gardener - Louisa Radley 39 - Alexander Radley 10 - William Radley 8 - Joseph Radley 6. Then comes High Cross Green. High Cross Green is mostly teachers and pupils. Then comes Clock House. In Clock House is Thomas Binns 40 School Master. Mary Binns 40. Thomas Binns 13. Mary Binns 8 and some teachers and pupils.

    1846 Ellen Phillips born. In 1867 Ellen and Mary Elizabeth, opened a small house as a dispensary for women and children. It was so busy it became necessary to reserve treatment for children only. They moved to larger premises where arrangements were made to open a small hospital for children with twelve beds. This was the beginnings of what is now the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. Ellen married Alexander Fox at Tottenham Meeting House in 1869. They moved to New Zealand soon after.

    1847

    Will of Isaac Radley of Purleigh, labourer is in the Essex Record Office Dates of Creation: 26.3.1847 "Scope and Content: Quaker". Date From: 1847 Date To: 1847

    1851

    Tottenham Monthly Meeting 1851
    A
    meeting census on 30.3.1851 revealed:
    Members worshipping at
    Tottenham Friends Meeting House: 156 (morning), 101 (afternoon);
    Winchmore Hill Friends Meeting House: 42 (morning), 16 (afternoon);
    Epping Friends Meeting House: 40 (morning)

    1851 census: Luke Howard, landed proprietor aged 78, and Mariabella Howard, aged 81, living with two female house servants (both born in Yorkshire) at 76 Bruce Grove. Elizabeth Howard, aged 71 lived at 78 Bruce Grove with three female servants. Robert Howard, aged 49, and Rachel Howard his wife, lived at 79 Bruce Grove with children: Saml L Howard (23), Rachl M. (20), Elizabeth (18), Robert (16), Theodore (13), David (11), and Elist (8), and five female servants.

    1852

    24.2.1852 Death of Mariabella Howard. She was buried in the Quaker burial ground at Winchmore Hill on 28.2.1852 "where four of her children were interred, also her parents and brother".

    1864

    21.3.1864 Luke Howard died at Tottenham. At his own request, and with the consent of Quakers, "the funeral took place at Winchmore Hll" on 26.3.1864.

    1869

    "Within the limits of that extensive district known as Tottenham Monthly Meeting, stretching from Chipping Ongar to the east, to Chipping Barnet on the west, and from Lea Bridge northwards almost to Hoddesdon, there are now three meetings of Friend, viz, Tottenham, Winchmore Hill, and Epping" (Beck and Ball page 295)

    1871

    Grandfather, spinster daughter and two motherless boys
    Rebecca Ann Radley daughter aged 30 living living with Eli Radley (aged 88) Gardener at 106 Phillip Lane, Tottenham. She is unmarried. With them are Arthur Henry Radley aged 9 and Joseph Fuller Radley aged 7 grandsons.
    Arthur Henry (born 1862, died 1922) was the son of Alexander Radley and Annie Proudfoot. Annie had died in 1866. Joseph Fuller Radley was a son of
    Joseph Radley and Phoebe Jane Bentley. Phoebe Jane had died in 1868. Rebecca Ann died December 1925 in West Ham [Forest Gate]. Previous to 1911 she classified herslf professionally as a housekeeper. In 1911 she was living on private means.

    1872

    Population was about 23,000. The Bethnal Green to Edmonton Railway line opened with stations at Bruce Grove and White Hart Lane.

    1873

    3.2.1873 Birth of John Charles Radley to Alexander Radley in Tottenham. He was the grandfather of Farrand Radley

    1879

    The meeting continued to grow through the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1879 a school room was added over the forecourt. This quite altered the original appearance of the meeting house.

    The picture below is of the meeting house in 1905. The gabled front is the 1879 addition. The lower structure behind to the right is the earlier building. Ralph Wadge, who know the building, explained to me that you walked through the school to get to the meeting. The graveyard (which became the lawn and garden) is at the back. In this 1905 picture young, but pollarded, plane trees line the pavement.

    Tottenham Meeting House in 1905


    1.5.1885 Eli Radley of Philip Lane Tottenham died - He had been admitted to the York Retreat as a private patient on 7.8.1877 and died there 1.5.1885. His will was proved at the Principal Registry by John Burgess Seale of Plaistow Lodge, Plaistow, Essex and Mary Radley (spinster) of 6 Belmont-villas Leicester, daughter of the executers on 3.7.1885

    1890

    1890: Average attendance at First Day School was 74 children

    1891

    10.12.1891 Tottenham Monthly Meeting Minute

    "During the severe weather of last winter, efforts were made to relieve some of the suffering poor in our neighbourhood by giving cocoa suppers for men three times a week in the school room and dinners for children, tickets for the latter being distributed by one of the Board School teachers. We also distributed about ten tons of coal."

    1937

    Electricity was installed in the Meeting House in 1937.

    1956

    By 1956, the meeting had shrunk substantially as Quakers moved away from the area. Only four Quakers lived in Tottenham neighbourhood, though sometimes as many as nine attended Meeting. The meeting decided that it should continue, but the premises were proving a big obstacle. They were old, enormous and difficult for such a small membership to maintain.

    1961

    In 1961 the old meeting house was demolished and shops and offices built on the site in 1962, with a new, smaller meeting house on the roof of the shops.

    October/November 1999 Dressed in Simplicity
    300 years of Quakers in Tottenham
    An exhibition held at Bruce Castle Museum, London N17 to mark the 300th anniversary of Quakers in Tottenham
    archive of text
    Women quaked as well


    Winchmore Hill

    6.9.1897 Irene Louise Lloyd born to Louisa and William J. Lloyd of Winchmore Hill Meeting. Educated at Friends School, Saffron Walden, Essex. Through the Young Friends Committee she met George William Edwards, becoming Irene Louise Edwards on 12.9.1925. Living at Dulwich, London, they became active members of Peckham Meeting. For some years she was helpful as a member of the Adult School. Moved to Bromley in 1951.


    Walthamstow

    Several Quakers lived in the parish in the late 17th century, and one family in 1778, that of Lewis Weston of High Hall, who refused to pay his rates in 1779. Though such wealthy 19th-century residents as John Harman of Highams, John Gurney Fry of Hale End House, and Joseph Gurney Barclay of the Limes were Quakers, there was no meeting-house in the parish until about 1870, when the Friends had a small place of worship at Higham Hill, which was also a day-school. This meeting-house was taken over by the Baptists about 1888.

    In 1903 a mission hall opened in Greenleaf Road as a branch of the Bedford Institute Association. Friends' Hall, adjoining the mission hall, was opened in 1906. In 1921 the Walthamstow Educational settlement was established at the hall, which became a centre of educational and social work among adults and young people. (Victoria County History - Essex)

    Friend's Hall and Educational settlement merged 1955, and a new Settlement Council set up. An extension was opened in 1964.

    In 1965 the Settlement came under the control of the newly formed Waltham Forest Borough Council. The settlement is maintained jointly by the Friends and the borough council. In 1976 the Centre was fully taken over by Waltham Forest


    Essex

    mid-Essex Quakers

    1780 Isaac Radley born Chelmsford, Essex to James Radley and Mary Martha. Isaac married Mary Puplett and had 10 children.

    Abigail Radley
    Evonne Radley
    Hannah Radley
    Isaac Radley
    John Puplett Radley
    Sophia Radley
    1802 Eli Radley
    1810 Mary Ann Radley
    1816 Samuel Radley died 1877
    1823 Elizabeth Radley

    12.10.1805 James Bull born in Stock, Essex. Father Daniel Bull and mother Sarah Bull. Father a husbandman. Note says "Parents not members". Records of Monthly Meeting of Witham. Mary Ann Radley, his wife to be, was born about 1807 in Purleigh, Essex. She was a sister of Eli Radley. When she married James at Ratcliff in 1832, James was an Oilman. [Sold oil for lamps]. He became grave maker at Bunhill in the autumn of 1844. John and Mary Ann were living with their daughter Emma in 7½ Coleman Street, in 1851, when his occupation in the census was Housekeeper, In 1854 he signed a certificate as "Resident in Charge 7½ Coleman Street. Bunhill Row". He buried his last body on 3.9.1854. He and his family continued to live there after the graveqard closed ( 1861 census). By 1871 just James Bull lived there. James Bull, aged 66, died 23.12.1871, Bunhill Row, London [The Annual Monitor for 1873, or, Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland, Number 31]


    London South of the Thames

    Southwark and Bermondsey

    Quaker Burial-ground, Worcester Street [Southwark?]

    Quaker Burial-ground, Long Lane, Bermondsey. Bought in 1697 for £120. Closed in 1844, but In 1860 a large number of coffins and remains were brought there and re-buried when Southwark Street was made and the Worcester Street burial-ground annihilated. In 1895 it was being laid out for the public, and was be maintained by the Bermondsey Vestry, who have it on lease from the Society of Friends. There were no gravestones in it.

    Next to the Quaker Ground was the Ebenezer Burial-ground, Long Lane established by the Independent Chapel in Beck Street, Horselydown, about 1795 and then passing to the trustees of Ebenezer Baptist Chapel. This had a "minister's vault" in the centre. In 1895 it was "closed and untidy, 220 square yards in extent" and it was hoped it might eventually be added to the Quaker garden.

    Horsleydown

    Deptford

    Deptford Meeting House at 144 Deptford High Street was acquired in 1693 and continued in use until 1907.

    1895 Burial ground (closed) - about 360 square yards. Behind the meeting-house. It is neatly kept and only contains one gravestone.

    Dulwich

    Wandsworth

    The first Meeting House on the site of 59 Wandsworth High Street was built in 1674. The present meeting house dates from 1778.

    1895: Burial-ground (closed) - 400 square yards - attached to the meeting- house. "Very neatly kept. There are a few upright tombstones."

    Peckham

    Hanover Street, Peckham Rye dates from 1821.

    1895 Burial-ground (closed) - about 470 square yards - behind the meeting-house. It has some small flat gravestones. "It is most beautifully kept with neatly mown grass and a border of flowers."

    Croydon

    1720 Croydon became a Monthly Meeting upon its separation from Wandsworth. By 1755 monthly meetings were being held only four or five times a year

    1761 John Eliot left £100 towards a fund for keeping the meeting house and burial ground in repair. Eliot died 18.8.1762 and his trust remains to this day [1955]. In 1764 Francis Eliot gave £50 and a little later Mary Eliot gave £100 towards the Repair Fund. John Eliot lived at The Grove, a large house situated at the corner of Coombe Road and Park Lane. It is now known as Coombe Hill House and occupied by a school.

    1811 The burial ground was enlarged, the cost being defrayed by John and Ann Hall, who also gave £400 towards the erection of a meeting house.

    1861 A public cemetery opened in Queens Road with a portion allotted to Quakers. the Burial Acts of 1852-57 organised local burial boards throughout the country, which had a duty to provide burial grounds where interment would be cheap and decent. The Croydon Local Board of Health was appointed as a Burial Board by an Order in Council on 3 March 1859, and was responsible for establishing Queen's Road Cemetery.[2]

    1871 Quaker burial ground reported nearly full. Agreed that most future burials should be made in the public cemetery.

    Kingston, Surrey

    1663 Kingston Quakers purchase by subscription a burying ground for £24.18s, situated in Norbiton Street (Beck and Ball p.212)

    1998 "The excavation of a Quaker burial ground, 84 London Road, Kingston upon Thames" by Lucy Kirk. London Archaeologist Volume 8 No.11 Winter 1998

    Bromley, Kent

    1951 George and Irene Edwards moved to Hayes, Kent, and attended Bromley Meeting, where their home was open to all. Irene Edwards was an Overseer at her meeting.


    Westminster and further west

    Isleworth

    1785 Present Meeting House (2015) built. "The building, which is very similar to those at Esher and Uxbridge, is in plain Georgian domestic style, and surrounding it is the Quaker burial-ground for West London and the garden."


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  • Adult Schools

    William Allen

    Baker

    Bedford Institute

    Braithwaite

    Bull and Mouth

    Bunhill Fields

    Bunhill Mission

    Bunhill Quaker Gardens

    Bunhill web

    John Bunyan

    clerks of meetings

    colonials

    Coffee Taverns

    City Quakers

    Clerkenwell Workhouse

    clouds

    Devonshire House

    discipline

    Family History

    Friends House

    Friends in the truth

    Elizabeth Fry

    George Fox

    Gracious Street

    hat homage

    Hoxton Hall

    Luke Howard

    Mary Hughes

    Charles Lamb

    Mary Lamb

    Love and Unity

    William Mead

    Meeting for Sufferings

    naked as a sign

    Peel Meeting

    William Penn

    plague

    Quaker beginnings

    Quaker Women

    Quaker Social Action

    Quaker Street

    Ratcliff Meeting

    Recording Clerk

    Royal Sufferings

    Royal connections: Penn, Quire, Bevan, Allen, Fry,

    slave owners

    Solomon Eagle or
    Solomon Eccles

    Spitalfields

    Stoke Newington

    Tottenham

    trees

    Tuke family

    Priscilla Wakefield and family












    Horace Alexander

    When I was young,
    And not yet a child,
    Horace, old, taught me
    To pray

    He sat on a chair
    And breathed

    He fell on the floor
    On his knees

    Stood up, arms open
    Branches of trees

    And not a word said
    As into the presence
    The child in him led















































































    Bunhill park

    flat ground
    empty park
    sparse grass
    loneliness and
    children play
    where the dead
    Quakers lay

    Not a stone
    not a sign
    flat ground
    empty park
    sparse grass
    loneliness and
    children play

    Son of man
    son of God
    all in him
    are gathered in
    not a sign
    to tell apart
    all in him
    are gathered in
    gathered in the
    lonely park
    where I see
    light of God
    streaming from
    the old plane tree

    Light of God
    is all around
    saints are streaming
    from the ground
    gathered in
    from all the world
    son of God
    son of man
    all are one















































































    Love

    There are so many mysteries
    He is the son of God
    Born with God
    He is God
    He is without sin
    Carrying all sin
    In his flesh
    Tonight, I cannot
    Bear to leave my love
    Hanging where I killed him
    I carry his filthy body
    To a funeral cave
    And fail to dispel
    The stench
    With perfume
    In my loneliness I never
    Felt closer to him
    I hear him preach
    I feel him touch my
    Infirmity
    And, as I pray,
    He searches
    The depths of hell
    That there be none left
    When, rising with them,
    He throws away the key
    Love is risen.















































































    Wet drops on fabric















































































    God with us

    Put your finger
    on the pulse of creation
    See what draws near

    Rather distant
    from creation?
    Gently touch
    another's heart beat
    See what draws near

    No one with a
    pulse you can share?
    Put your hand
    on the heart beat within
    See what draws near.















































































      Divine errors

      Why does God make so many mistakes? For example, in parables, why does he not give us footnotes to explain exactly what they mean? Why leave us open to experience by telling parables? Why leave us open? Why leave us openings?















































































    Domestic and
    Divine

    Chapel's cold
    where faith
    took love away
    Frozen a meeting
    where only the
    righteous pray

    Hands are warm
    that, holding
    cakes and tea,
    heat the heart
    and chapel
    to welcome
    you and me