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Quakerism and its Implications for Quaker Women: the Women Itinerant Ministers of York Meeting, 1780-1840

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Sheila Wright
Sheila Wright*
Affiliation:
University of York
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Extract

In York Monthly Meeting, women ministers were to become dominant by the end of the eighteenth century, having been outnumbered by men since the beginning of the century. The Meeting for Ministers and Elders appears to have degenerated between 1726 and 1768 under the stewardship of Nathaniel Bell and Daniel Peacock. At the same time, female influence in the Meeting suffered a hiatus, the Meeting ceasing to send female representatives to the Quarterly Meeting in about 1718. This situation continued until 1783, when women once again began to feature strongly in the Meeting of Ministers and Elders; they were appointed to the positions of elder and minister and resumed sending representatives to Quarterly Meetings. From 1706 to 1775, York Meeting had 7 male ministers, of whom 4 were itinerant. There were 5 female ministers; 3 made more than one journey in the ministry. From 1775 to 1860 there were 11 male ministers, 2 being itinerant. There were 20 female ministers, of whom 11 made regular journeys in the ministry.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 403 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 Minutes of Meeting of Ministers and Elders 1709-1775, York Monthly Meeting, Borthwick Institute, York (hereafter B.I.), microfilm reel (hereafter MFR) 18.

2 Mack, P., ‘Women as prophets during the English Civil War’, Feminist Studies, 8 (1982), pp. 19’47 Google Scholar. Her comments on the idea that women are particularly receptive to God’s word because of their natures must be as valid for late eighteenth-century Quaker women as it was for their seventeenth-century counterparts. But the expression of this receptivity is quite different, being more calmly and quietly expressed, and with the greater discipline required by a Society no longer welcoming prophetic preaching or what might be deemed the ‘bad publicity’ which might result from ecstatic female behaviour. Also for ideas of women’s receptivity and spirituality, see Owen, A., The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Nineteenth Century England (London, 1989 Google Scholar).

3 Dews, D. C., ‘Ann Carr and the Female Revivalists of Leeds’, in Malmgreen, G., ed., Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760–1930 (London, 1986), p. 71 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 73.

5 Ann Mercy Bell’s style of preaching was to hold impromptu meetings on street corners, often up to six or more a day. Preaching in Leadenhall Market her style was described: ‘Entering in at the lower end of the poulterers Market, she went thro’ calling for repentance as she passed, with uncommon force and solemnity; and coming to a convenient place in the Leather Market, after the people, who poured in at every avenue, were gathered round her, she had a large and favourable opportunity with them’: Journal and Correspondence of Ann Mercy Bell, 1745-1786. York Monthly Meeting: B.I., MFR 13, p. 4.

6 York Monthly Meeting. Meeting of Ministers and Elders Minute Book, 2, 1776-1856: B.I., MFR 18. Since all of the women ministers in York Meeting between 1780 and 1840 were drawn from the middle classes, it was they who could afford the servants, nursemaids, etc. to look after their children in their absence, and this in itself discriminated against women in less affluent circumstances taking up the work of a travelling minister.

7 Memoirs of Elizabeth Dudley, ed., Tylor, C. (London, 1861), p. 33 Google Scholar. Her mother, Mary Dudley, was a notable minister in Clonmel Monthly Meeting, southern Ireland, having been Convinced into Quakerism in 1773. Previously she had been a friend of John Wesley and a Methodist. Ann Alexander preached to tin-miners at Pyrden, Cornwall, in October 1794. Letter dated 22 Oct. 1794, Ann Alexander to Henry Tuke: B.I., Tuke papers, Box 17.

8 Memoirs of Elizabeth Dudley, p. 33.

9 Ibid. This report was by a member of the audience not a Friend.

10 Ibid., p. 51.

11 Letter from Ann Alexander to Henry Tuke, 31 July 1797: B.I., Tuke Papers, Box 17.

12 Some Account of the Life and Religious Experience of Mary Alexander late of Needham Market (York, 1811), p. 143.

13 Swift, W., ‘The women itinerant preachers of early Methodism’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, 29 (1953), pp. 76’83 Google Scholar. Eliot, G., Adam Bede (repr. Harmondsworth, 1980), pp. 66’76 Google Scholar.

14 Bible Christian Magazine, 2, 1823-4, p. 169.

15 Some Account of the Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb (London, 1796), pp. 2–4; Life and Religious Experience of Mary Alexander, p. 24; Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry with extracts from her journal and letters edited by two of her daughters (London, 1847), 1, pp. 39, 89.

16 Letter from Sarah Tuke Grubb to Tabbitha Hoyland 12 April 1774:B.I., Tuke Papers Box 14.

17 York Monthly Meeting Certificates of Friends travelling in the Ministry: B.I., MFR 19, List of Members, 1700-1841.

18 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb, p. 36.

19 Sarah Tuke Grubb to Tabbitha Hoyland, 1788. B.I., Tuke Papers, Box 14.

20 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb, p. 149.

21 Ann Tuke Alexander to Henry Tuke, various letters. B.I., Tuke Papers, Box 17.

22 York Monthly Meeting Certificates of Friends travelling in the Ministry, B.I., MFR 19: List of members 1, 1790-1841.

23 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb, p. 42.

24 Swift, , ‘The Women Itinerant Preachers of Early Methodism’, p. 80 Google Scholar.

25 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb, p. 159.

26 Henry Tuke to William Tuke 8 August 1797: B.I., Tuke Papers Box 4.

27 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Grubb, p. 46. Also Burnett, G. B., The Story of Quakerism in Scotland, 1650-1850 (London, 1952 Google Scholar). He states that Quakerism in Scotland by the mid- eighteenth century was in such a state of decline that it almost died out. Scottish Friends sent no representative to London Yearly Meeting for some years. Efforts to revive the Society in the 179OS, which included this journey by Henry Tuke and George Millar in 1797, failed. Not until 1811, when a further effort was made, did the Society in Scotland see the beginning of a revival.

28 Davidoff, L. and Hall, C., Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle-Class, 1780-1850 (London, 1987), p. 138 Google Scholar.

29 Dews, , ‘Ann Carr’, p. 68 Google Scholar.

30 See Dews, ‘Ann Carr’, for some ideas as to why female preaching and the growing middle-classness of Wesleyanism became incompatible, also Valenze, D. M., Prophetic Sons and Daughters: Female Preaching and Popular Religion in Industrial England (Princeton, 1985), pp. 51’72 Google Scholar, and Anderson, O., ‘Women preachers in mid-Victorian Britain: some reflections on feminism, popular religion and social change’, HJ, 12 (1969), pp. 467—84 Google Scholar.

31 Life and Religious Labours of Sarah Crubb, p. 34; also Corder, S., Life of Elizabeth Fry. Compiled in her Journal, as edited by her daughters & various other sources (London, 1853 Google Scholar).

32 Unlike Quaker women Ministers, who served for a lifetime, women preachers in the Bible Christian Connexion and Primitive Methodism served only for very short periods. Of 71 women ministers of the Bible Christian Connexion in 1819, 27 served for three years or less. By 1844 there were only 6 women preachers active on the B.C.C, circuit. The same is true of Primitive Methodism: of the 21 women listed as being active in 1821, only 5 served for up to 5 years; 3 for between 5 and 10 years, but the majority for 1 or 2 years. Marriage or ill-health seems to have been the main cause of their leaving the ministry.