| AdminHistory | The Central Area Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and its predecessors have a long history in Warwickshire, Birmingham and the surrounding area. The existence of a Quaker presence in the county from 1645 was recorded by George Fox (1624-1691), the founder of Quakerism, who visited north Warwickshire from his home in Fenny Drayton, across the border in Leicestershire. The first meeting to be established in the county was at Baddesley Ensor, where in 1655, it is estimated there were 100 Friends attending. It is likely that many other meetings developed across central and southern Warwickshire at the same time, although there is little evidence of anything but a small Quaker community in Birmingham until the end of the 17th century.
During the 1650s and 1660s, Fox and other pioneers such as Richard Farnsworth (n.d. [17th century]), Thomas Goodyear (n.d. [17th century]) and William Dewsbury (c.1621–1688) travelled around the area preaching and holding meetings. Under the Conventicle Acts of 1664 and 1670, attending any religious meeting not held by the established church was a punishable offence so they were often met with hostility and persecution, with many of the meetings being broken up with violence by the authorities. Many Friends were imprisoned, including Dewsbury and Goodyear who were both held in Warwick gaol, where it was reported that at one time there were 140 Friends imprisoned. Friends also suffered distraint (forced seizure of belongings and goods), and were fined or excommunicated for a number of offences including not attending church, not baptising their children, not burying their dead in a churchyard, not paying tithes, allowing their houses to be used for meetings of worship and not swearing allegiance to the king. This persecution came to be known as Sufferings and was carefully recorded in Books of Sufferings (see SF/1/6), which were continued until the mid 19th century.
By the time of the Act of Toleration in 1689 which permitted Quakers and other non-conformists to hold meetings in their own places of worship, there were more established congregations, mainly made up of the trading and yeoman classes, across the county including in Alcester, Armscott, Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick, Brailes, Coleshill, Coventry, Ettington, Harbury, Kenilworth, Long Compton, Radway, Southam, Stratford-upon-Avon, Fulford Heath, Meriden, Pailton, Shipston-on-Stour, Nether Whitacre and Wigginshill. Established meetings also existed in Stourbridge and Dudley which, although in Worcestershire at this time, are included in the geographical area covered by the current Central Area Meeting.
Between 1689 and 1715, there was a period of consolidation during which a number of smaller meetings merged, larger meetings extended the area they covered and membership increased. The organisation of Quarterly and Monthly Meetings, which had initially been developed during 1667-8 when Fox toured the country strengthening centres of support, gradually became more established and the distinctions in function between them more defined (see SF/1 and SF/2 for further details). To this were added the locally based Preparative meetings, completing the hierarchical structure which was to become the official structure of the Religious Society of Friends, both locally and nationally. By 1715, Warwickshire was divided into the following three Monthly Meetings and it was to retain this structure until well into the 19th century: Warwickshire North, Warwickshire Middle and Warwickshire South, with a Quarterly Meeting above, and Preparative Meetings below (see SF/3 for further details of these). At the head of the organisation at national level was the Yearly Meeting.
In contrast to the religious fervour fuelled by persecution, and the need to spread Quaker beliefs and increase membership which were prevalent in the 17th century, Quakerism in the 18th century became more inward looking as Friends focused on strengthening their Quaker identity and way of life. They increasingly focused on silence rather than vocal expression of their beliefs. By continuing to adhere to a plainness of dress and speech, rejecting all forms of entertainment in preference for a simple life-style, and focusing on obedience, honesty and strict discipline, they became more and more insular and detached from the outside world. At the same time, their conduct meant that they became known for their integrity and strength of character, and being excluded from the professions or parliament, they became increasingly successful in commerce and business.
In Warwickshire during the rest of the first half of the 18th century, as with other areas, a gradual decline in membership began which was strongest in the south of the county, where many Quakers emigrated to America. In the rest of the county, although a number of new meetings were created and new meeting houses constructed, congregations generally decreased in size and meetings were either amalgamated or closed completely. This shrinking membership continued towards the end of the 18th century and by the 19th century, a period when non-conformity was increasing across the country, in Warwickshire, with the exception of Birmingham, the Religious Society of Friends had lost many of its members in places where it had previously been strong: of the 18 meetings which existed in the county in 1750, 4 of these had closed by 1800 and 10 had closed by 1850. This can be attributed to the growth of the evangelical movement which had begun at the start of the 19th century, emigration to America, a high number of disownments, in particular for 'marrying out' (to non-Quakers) and to the continuation of a strict adherence to the outward distinctions such as plain dress and speech, which discouraged people from converting to Quakerism.
As numbers fell, the geographical coverage at each level of the hierarchy increased. In 1790, Warwickshire Quarterly Meeting joined with Leicestershire and Rutland Quarterly Meetings, and in 1852 these joined with Staffordshire Quarterly Meeting to become the Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire Quarterly Meeting, which continued to exist until the mid-20th century. In 1837, Warwickshire North absorbed the Middle Monthly Meeting, as well as several meetings from Worcestershire (Dudley and Stourbridge). It then united with Warwickshire South Monthly Meeting to form Warwickshire Monthly Meeting. This meant that by the time of the 1908 Yearly Meeting held in Birmingham, of the 22 meetings then in existence in the North Warwickshire Monthly Meeting, ten were in Warwickshire, ten were in Worcestershire, and two were in Staffordshire.
While the Society of Friends struggled to maintain membership in the rural areas surrounding Birmingham, in the second half of the 19th century, membership in Birmingham itself, where the working and middle classes were increasing rapidly, flourished, resulting in the establishment between 1890 and 1908 of 14 new meetings in the city and its suburbs. This coincided with an increasingly more liberal approach in which the strict discipline of the past became more relaxed, with less of a focus on outward distinctness and a growing acceptance that members may wish to engage with the external world. In addition, from 1870, the restrictions which had prevented them from joining the professions or government since the mid 17th century, were lifted and Friends became increasingly involved in the adult school, home mission and overseas movements, education, prison reform, social work among the poor, missionary work, peace work, relief work, temperance, local government and so on.
Many of the new meetings which were established found their origins in the Friends Adult Schools where scholars attending non-denominational Adult School classes wished for some form of meeting for worship for themselves and their families. Corporately, the Society of Friends was initially resistant to providing this, and meetings for worship were given by the Christian Society. This was a non-denominational organisation established in 1874 with the support of a few individual Friends at Severn Street Adult School which offered Christian fellowship to its members. From the 1890s, Friends became more supportive of the work of the Christian Society and started their own evening Mission Meetings. If the meeting was sufficiently strong, it could become a Morning Meeting and eventually apply to Warwickshire North Monthly Meeting to become a Preparative Meeting. There was additional impetus for new Preparative Meetings with the introduction, at the start of the 20th century, of a new 'associate' membership of the Society of Friends specifically for attenders of Evening and Morning Meetings which led many members of the Christian Society to leave and join the Society of Friends.
Membership in the area continued to develop in the first half of the 20th century. Additional meetings were established in Barnt Green, Hall Green, Sutton Coldfield, Walsall, and Redditch in the years before the Second World War and the membership of Warwickshire North Monthly Meeting which had been at 1159 in 1908 was at 1701 by 1953. The work started at the end of the 19th century continued and widened in the 20th and 21st centuries, reflecting many of the social issues of the time, including conscientious objection, involvement in peace movements and nuclear disarmament, war relief work (including during World War One, the Spanish Civil War and World War Two), aid for refugees and asylum seekers both in the UK and abroad, the allotment movement, unemployment, adult education, housing conditions, racism, the plight of prisoners and their families, victims of torture, protecting the environment, sustainability, alcohol and drug abuse, care of the elderly, gay rights and same sex marriages, animal rights, euthanasia and so on.
A number of organisational and administrative changes have taken place in the last seventy years. Birthright membership of the Society of Friends ended in 1959, meaning that the children of Friends no longer automatically became members, and this along with an increasingly secular society has had an effect on membership numbers. From 1967, the functions of the Quarterly Meetings were reduced and renamed General Meetings by the Religious Society of Friends. In Warwickshire, Leicestershire & Staffordshire General Meeting, it was decided to discontinue regular meetings in 1974 due to low attendance and the feeling that it no longer fulfilled a purpose, although meetings did continue as and when needed. Several boundary changes occurred with some Preparative Meetings being transferred to Staffordshire Monthly Meeting and others being transferred to Banbury and Oxfordshire Monthly Meeting. In 2007, across the country, the Religious Society of Friends decided to remove the General Meetings from the hierarchical structure which had existed over the previous 300 years because many of their functions had either ceased or were undertaken by the Monthly Meeting. The Monthly Meetings became known as Area Meetings and the Preparative Meetings became known as Local Meetings. In Warwickshire, Birmingham and the surrounding area, the Monthly Meeting was renamed Central England Area Meeting in 2007. It is composed of a number of Local Meetings in Birmingham, as well as Local Meetings in Coventry, Warwick, Walsall, Sutton Coldfield, Stourbridge and other parts of the West Midlands, and a number of Quaker projects based in Birmingham, such as the Northfield Ecocentre, the West Midlands Peace Education Project, Central England Quakers Peace Hub and the Priory Rooms.
Although numerically small, Friends have been disproportionately influential in the social, economic, philanthropic and political life of the area. Quaker businesses and banks played a leading role in manufacturing, industry, and the regional economy. Historically local Quakers have been prominent in local government, charitable and philanthropic initiatives, and at the forefront of social, educational and political reforms. Individual Friends who were prominent within the Society of Friends locally and nationally include Mary Capper, Catherine Payton Phillips, William White and members of the Cadbury, Sturge, Southall, Albright, Galton, Pumphrey, Gibbins, Grubb, Impey, Wilson, Tangye and Lloyd families among others.
For details of individual Area/Monthly Meetings for which there are records, see the relevant entries in SF/2. For details of Local/Preparative meetings for which there are records, see the relevant entries in SF/3.
For further information about the general development of Quakerism and Quaker beliefs, see:
Angell, S. and Dandelion, P. (eds) 'The Oxford Handbook of Quaker Studies' Oxford University Press, 2015
Dandelion, P. 'The Quakers: A very short introduction', Oxford University Press, 2008
For further information about the development of the Quaker meetings in Birmingham and Warwickshire, see the references listed below.
Note on the Quaker Calendar:
Quakers used their own system of dating because they did not agree with using the names of days (Sunday-Saturday) and months (January to August) which had their origins in the names of gods and goddesses. Instead they used numbers, so for the days of the week, Sunday was First Day, Monday was Second Day and so on. For months, they used First Month, Second Month etc up to the Eighth Month. Until 1752, they used September-December for the remaining months of the year as these names originated from Latin numerical terms, but after the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1752, these were replaced by Ninth Month, Tenth Month etc.
In the records, the names of the months are sometimes written out in words, sometimes in Roman numerals (I-XII) and sometimes in Arabic (1-12). Use of this system dwindled during the 20th century. It should be noted that British and Irish Friends frequently used the American system of month/date/year when writing dates in a numerical format.
In addition to this, researchers should remember that until the Gregorian calendar was introduced in 1752, the First Month was March, not January. Furthermore, before 1752 some of the records, when referring to January, February and March, use double-dating. This is when the clerk of the meeting was aware of the difference between the Julian calendar and the Quaker calendar and in order to avoid confusion, gave both forms of date. To add to these complications, there is some debate as to whether the first 24 days of March before 1752 were considered to be part of the old year or the new year by the Quakers.
Information sources used throughout the catalogue:
Dandelion, 'The Quakers: A very short introduction', Oxford University press, 2008
Hodson, J. A., 'Supplement to the Introduction: Warwickshire Nonconformist and Quaker meetings and meeting houses, 1660 - 1750', in Warwick County Records, Proceedings in Quarter Sessions 1682 - 1690, Edgar Stephens, Warwick, 1953
Bull Street Friends, 'History of Quaker Premises at Bull Street' 2010
Hooper, M. 'Cotteridge Friends: a Quaker Meeting in Birmingham, 1906 - 1985', 1985
Milligan, E. and Thomas, M., 'My Ancestors were Quakers, How can I find out more about them?', Society of Genealogists, London, 1983
Osbourne, J. 'Selly Oak Friends 1895 - 2000', 2000
Pushin, J,. 'Portrait in Grey', Quaker Home Service, 1984
Wadsworth, Raymond, V. 'A History of Bournville Friends Meeting 1882 - 1955', 1956
White, W., Friends in Warwickshire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, White and Pike, Birmingham, 1886
Wood, Jack V. 'Some Rural Quakers. A History of Quakers and Quakerism at the Corners of the Four Shires of Oxford, Warwick, Worcester and Gloucester', Sessions of York, 1991
'Religious History: Places of worship', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7, the City of Birmingham, ed. W B Stephens (London, 1964), pp. 434-482 https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol7/pp434-482 [accessed 28 June 2015].
'Religious History: Protestant Nonconformity', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7, the City of Birmingham, ed. W B Stephens (London, 1964), pp. 411-434 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol7/pp411-434 [accessed 28 June 2015].
Quaker Faith and Practice, 5th edition, available at http://qfp.quaker.org.uk/
Quakers in Britain, available at http://www.quaker.org.uk/
Quakers in the World, http://www.quakersintheworld.org/
Records of Central England Area Meeting (SF)
Handbook of the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends, Birmingham, 1908
An Account of the Charitable Trusts and other Properties belonging to Friends of Warwick, Leicester, and Stafford Quarterly Meeting, Prepared by Direction of the Quarterly Meeting, White and Pike, Birmingham, 1875 |
| Related Material | Please note the list of related material below is an indication of what is available and is not exhaustive.
Archival material held by Birmingham Archives & Collections relating to Quaker organisations:
MS 703 Midland Adult School Union papers, late 19th-20th cents (includes records relating to Moseley Road Men's Early Morning School)
MS 2160 Records of the Birmingham Friends Book Society, 1822-1988
MS 3173 Records of the Birmingham Ladies Negro's Friend Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, 1825-1919
MS 1536 Records of Bournville Village Trust, 19-20th cents
MS 1579 Records of the Barrow Cadbury Trust, 20th cent
MS 2797 Records of Fircroft College, 1890s-1981
MS 3033/4/2 Religious Society of Friends congregational lists for Birmingham Meeting 1768-1808
MS 4095 Records of Selly Oak Nursery School, formerly Birmingham People’s Free Kindergarten, Greet, 1903-2003
Archival material held by Birmingham Archives & Collections relating to Quaker families (including their property and business interests as well as family members’ participation in Friends meetings and concerns).
MS 1509 Albright family papers, 17-20th cents
MS 1724 Records of Albright & Wilson Ltd., 1841-1940
MS 857 Papers relating to the Bayes family and others, including the Southall family, 1807-1978
MS 1529 Papers relating to Cornelius Boeke and his wife Beatrice nee Cadbury, 1918 - 1920
MS 466 Cadbury family papers, 18-20th cents
MS 695 Papers of Mary Capper (1755-1845) including family papers, tracts etc., 1668-1837
MS 3101 Galton family papers, 1250-1882
MS 3999 E. Gibbins: Records of the Gibbins family, 1911
MS 3498 Diary of Capt. Arthur E. Impey, gunner, covering the British Army’s advance from Albert to Maberge, 1918
MS 1061 Humphrey Lloyd papers, 1630s-2001
MS 4039 Lloyd family papers, 18-20th cent.
MS 1612 Letters of Alan Scrivener Lloyd c.1900-1914
MS 2013 Pumphrey and Palmer family papers, c.1839-1950s
MS 1513 Papers of the Southall and Shorthouse families, 1790s-1990
MS 588 Notebooks and papers of Joseph Edward Southall, artist (1861-1944) 1876-1925
MS 2945 Correspondence between Joseph Southall and Arthur Gaskin, 1904-11
MS 614 Letters, photographs and historical notes relating to the Sturge family and to the Friends Proprietary School at Camp Hill, 1831-20th cent.
MS 3458 Letters between members of the Quaker community including George Bottomley of Ackworth (Yorks) and J.R. Seekings of Birmingham, 1830-1843
MS 3782/14/76/8 Letter from Matthew Boulton to Anne Boulton describing a large meeting of Quakers which was being held at Truro where his friend Catherine Phillips was preaching. He goes on to describe her husband’s funeral, 17 Aug 1785
MS 4103 Research papers and correspondence of Pamela Williams relating to the publication of 'The Birmingham Quaker Trail' leaflet 2008
MS 5009 Glass slides and photographic prints owned by John Snowden Smithson
Local Studies material held by Birmingham Archives & Collections:
Milligan, E. and Thomas, M., My Ancestors were Quakers, How can I find out more about them?, Society of Genealogists, London, 1983, 929.342
White, William, The Story of Seven Street and Priory First-Day Schools, 1895, L18.6
White, W., Friends in Warwickshire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, White and Pike, Birmingham, 1886, L18.6
Copies of digest birth, marriage and burial registers for the whole country are available on microfilm in the Heritage Research Area.
A number of printed reports, addresses, programmes, conference papers and other material mainly relating to Severn Street Adult Schools, Friends Sunday School Union, Friends Reading Society and Moseley Road First Day School can be found in the Local Studies Collections. Please see the 'Local Studies Catalogue of Acquisitions pre-1941' available in the Heritage Research Area for details.
Printed resources held by Reader Services:
Annual Monitor & memorandum books (obituaries), 1819-1920, B289.6
The British Friend, 1894 - 1913, B289.6
Includes reports from Yearly Meetings, summaries from Quarterly Meetings, notes from Friends schools, notes from the Society, lists of births, marriages, deaths, scholarships awarded, degrees awarded, articles on issues of concern etc
Friends Historical Society, 1903 - 2000, B289.6
Friends Historical Society Supplements, 1907 - 2000, B289.6
Friends Quarterly, 1947 - 2012, B289.6
Quaker Monthly, 1980 - 2003, B289.6
Quakers Yearly Meeting of Friends Philadelphia, 1895 - 1956, B289.6
Quaker Social Responsibility & Education Journal, 1979 - 1990, B289.6
The Quarterly Examiner, 1867-1910, B289.605
Friends Book of Meetings, 1935 - 2011, B289.6058
The Friend, 1843 - 1959, BQ289.6
Includes summaries from Yearly Meetings, lists of births, marriages, deaths, obituaries, articles on issues of concern, news from Friends abroad, book reviews etc
Supplement to the Introduction: Warwickshire Nonconformist and Quaker Meetings and Meeting Houses, 1660 -1750' in Warwick County Records, Vol. VIII, Proceedings in Quarter Sessions 1682 - 1690 1682 - 1690, 347.96
Archival material held by external organisations:
Original birth, marriage and burial registers pre-1837 are held by the National Archives (ref RG6), and are searchable on the non-conformist registers database available at http://www.bmdregisters.co.uk/. Digest birth, marriage and burial registers are also available at Friends House Library, London.
Records of Broad Campden Meeting are held at Gloucestershire Archives and Oxford History Centre.
Records of Ettington Preparative Meeting and Stratford-upon-Avon Preparative/Local Meeting are held at Oxford History Centre.
Records of Rugby Local/Preparative Meeting are held at Warwickshire Record Office.
Records relating to the Quaker school at Hartshill, are held at Warwickshire Record Office.
Records of Wolverhampton Preparative Meeting are held at Wolverhampton City Archives.
Records of Leicester Area/Monthly Meeting and constituent local/preparative meetings are held at Leicestershire Record Office.
Records of Staffordshire Area/Monthly Meeting and constituent local/preparative meetings are held at Staffordshire Record Office.
Records for Worcestershire and Herefordshire Quarterly Meetings and their monthly and preparative meetings are held at The Hive, Worcester.
Papers of Rendel Harris and Geoffrey Maw are held at Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
Newsletters of Central England Area Meeting (and its predecessors) are held by Friends Library, London. |