| Description | This volume is entitled 'The Booke belonging to the Womens Meeting At Badgley', but in fact from the mid 1750s it became the Baddesley and Hartshill Preparative Meeting and met in both these locations
The first part of the volume mainly contains collections and disbursements, but in 1775 a memorandum records the decision to hold and minute Preparative Meetings as there were sufficient young women Friends attending and from this date on, the volume contains minutes. These record whether or not a meeting was held, the reading of the advices and queries, the selection of representatives to attend the Monthly Meeting, collections and disbursements, and so on. The main business of the women's meeting was to care for the poor and the sick.
A loose insert contains a list of purchases made, dated 19th of 3rd month - 5th of 9th 1783, which includes port wine, gin, laudanum and tincture of bark. This was probably for medicinal uses, but it was not until later in the development of the Quaker movement that teetotalism became a part of Quaker principles. |