A study of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Yorkshire during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, based on the notebooks of Joseph Wood, a Quaker minister

Staples, Peter (2024). A study of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Yorkshire during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, based on the notebooks of Joseph Wood, a Quaker minister. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis discusses the beliefs and lifestyle of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Northern England, particularly Yorkshire, during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This has been made possible by the transcription and publication of five volumes of Notebooks that had remained undisturbed for two centuries until made public in 2011.1 These were written by a travelling Quaker minister named Joseph Wood, who lived near Highflatts Meeting House in West Yorkshire. They are an invaluable source for the Quaker sect theologically, socially, politically and in every other secular way. Having the Notebooks to hand encouraged me to turn to another source on early Quakerism for more information about the purely spiritual side of a Meeting’s life. Carole Dale Spencer’s book ‘Holiness: The Soul of Quakerism’2 brings a modern understanding to many of the questions that puzzled Wood and to which he could only bring to bear the thinking of the 1700s.

It will quickly become obvious that Spencer appears to have been short-changed on space. She gets little more than a chapter while Wood has five. The reason for such inequality is that 18th century Quakerism takes a good deal of explaining as do each of Wood’s five volumes. By the time I get to the core of Spencer’s contribution the reader should be well versed in early modern Quakerism. The Notebooks provide evidence for some long-forgotten Quaker beliefs and practices. Foremost among these is the spiritual insight that gave life to the Society of Friends in the mid-17th century, the holy Inward Light of Christ. Related to this is the ‘Day of Visitation’ by which Wood’s generation set much store.

The thesis also identifies some striking differences between Quakerism in the North and South of England which have been unrecognised until now. Richard Bauman in his book Let Your Words be Few says the Quakers ‘developed a distinctive, symbolically resonant’2 communicative style, one among many in ‘the Babelistic confusion of tongues’3 found in revolutionary England. We cannot assume that words and verbal constructions in Wood’s Notebooks meant to him what they mean to us. There are other aspects of Quakerism which figure large in the sect’s history but which are not developed here, the reason being that Joseph Wood makes little or no mention of them. The best example is slavery, seldom mentioned in Wood’s Notebooks but something to which he was passionately opposed. There are two more areas where originality in this thesis has been possible because of Wood’s Notebooks. Twentieth-century Quaker academic Lewis Benson believed eighteenth century Friends increasingly lost the initial understanding of the Inward Light. Over time, this changed the nature of Quakerism as it had been understood in the first generation. The Notebooks, and Spencer, show that a century later some still considered themselves to be led by the Inward Light, although the prevailing Quaker theology was by then based on Gospel Order (a system of mutual accountability that George Fox had introduced to control Friends’ behaviour and lifestyle). Although Wood was out of step with some aspects of the Quakerism of his day, the Notebooks show him to have remained an obedient Friend. He maintained both the Inward Light and ‘Plainness’ in his own life. Plainness, or simplicity in clothing, speech and possessions, was an essential part of Gospel Order Quakerism, and this is another theme explored here. The second area is women ministers. I make no claims for originality in this subject, but simply point out that women ministers came to outnumber men in Yorkshire and other Northern counties. Spencer will be of use in both these areas as well as helping to clarify the theology of the first Friends.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):