| AdminHistory | Following the instructions of George Fox in 1656, the Quakers began to keep registers of births, marriages and burials. These were maintained by the monthly meetings, but details often came from the records of preparative meetings and sometimes registers were also kept by the preparative meetings. From 1776, following a decision in 1774 by Yearly Meeting to ensure more comprehensive recording of births, marriages and deaths, printed registers were provided for Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, but these ceased on 30 June 1837 with the introduction of civil registration. Between 1840-1842, Quakers, together with other non-conformists, had to surrender their registers to the Registrar General and these are now held at the National Archives (see Related Materials field at collection level for details). Before their surrender, digests of the registers were made in duplicate, with one copy being kept by the Quarterly Meeting and the other by Friends House Library.
See SF/2/1/1/9 for birth notes, notices of intention of marriage, marriage registers, burial registers and burial notes. |