Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2017 - Y for Yearly Meeting Gathering

Back in 2013 I wrote a post about my experience of Yearly Meeting and as I said then I have been a regular attender for many years.

London (later Britain) Yearly Meeting has usually been held in London but in modern times there have been moves to change this. In 1905 London Yearly Meeting was held in Leeds and there were other occasional forays out of the capital - to Birmingham in 1908, Manchester in 1912 and 1926, Llandrindod Wells in 1924, Scarborough in 1925, Bristol in 1937, York in 1941 and 1942 and Edinburgh in 1948.

Younger son at YM 1986

It was intended that Yearly Meeting should be held in the summer every four years outside London and a minute was made to that effect in 1945. However the organisation of these 'Residential Yearly Meetings' took a while and the first was not held until 1986 in Exeter. I was there as part of the Quaker Women's Group presenting the Swarthmore Lecture and my family came too. In fact the children enjoyed themselves so much that they insisted that we should make it a family tradition. So we continued to go not only to Yearly Meetings in London but to residentials in Aberdeen in 1989, in Warwick in 1993, in Aberystwyth in 1997, in Exeter in 2001 and in York in 2005.

Author and younger son at Aberdeen YM 1989

From 1991 it was decided to hold Summer Gatherings between Residential Yearly Meetings. These were to be predominantly social affairs with no decision-making agenda. The Yearly Meeting in these years was still held in May in London. We did not go to the first Summer Gathering in Bradford but did attend those held in Lancaster in 1995, Canterbury in 1999, Loughborough in 2003 and Stirling in 2007.

Eventually however the organisational and financial burden of these different gatherings became too much, especially in the years when both Yearly Meeting and Summer Gathering were held. The decision was therefore made to amalgamate Residential Yearly Meeting and Summer Gathering into Yearly Meeting Gathering with YM sessions and social activities being thrown together and particpants being able to make their own agenda.

Epilogue at Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath 2014

The first Yearly Meeting Gathering was held in York in 2009, followed by Canterbury in 2011 and Bath in 2014. This year YMG will be at the University of Warwick and I will be there.

Any longer residential gathering is bound to be an intense experience, sometimes almost overwhelming, and I have sometimes found it difficult, needing to carve out spaces of solitude and calm for myself. But there have been many happy and uplifting times as well as difficult ones and I have always been glad that I have gone.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015-2017 - W for Anna Rebecca Gilpin Whiting

Cartoon of Charles Gilpin 1875

Anna Rebecca Gilpin was born in 1829, the daughter of James and Mary Sturge Gilpin of Bristol. She was the thirteenth of fifteen children in a family of eight boys and seven girls and her eldest brother was the politician Charles Gilpin, who served as M.P. for Northampton for many years, and was known for his opposition to capital punishment. Anna was educated at Wigton and Sidcot schools, a lively girl with a bright temperament which made her a general favourite although she admitted tht she sometimes gave her teachers trouble.

After leaving school she took up First-Day School work and while engaged on this she met John Whiting (1819-1899) a draper of Leeds. They were married in 1850 and had six children, two girls and four boys. On her marriage Anna also took over the domestic management of her husband's business, so that she had several young men under her care as well as her own children.

The welfare of children was very important to her so that, although she took a leading part in many philanthropic and social concerns in Leeds, the work that was nearest to her heart was the supervision of the Headingly Orphan Homes. When she took over this work in 1865, eight children were provided for, but it was extended until, in 1885, there were four houses sheltering seventy-six children.

Building once Headingly Orphan Homes

Elizabeth Comstock

Anna Whiting shared with her brother Charles and with her husband, who had taken the pledge at the age of eighteen, an enthusiastic advocacy of the cause of temperance. In 1873 and 1875 Anna visited various parts of the country in this connection, accompanying Elizabeth Comstock, a well known Quaker temperance campaigner visiting from America.

When Anna was twenty-five she felt a call to speak in meeting but did not minister until five years later, after much encouragement. She was recorded as a minister by Brighouse Monthly Meeting in 1869 and soon afterwards suffered a severe attack of typhoid which left her unconscious for ten days. Her first ministry after her recovery was remembered as very solemn and moving.

It was perhaps her own experience that led her to give unstinted personal service in ministering to the sick and dying in those days when trained nurses were seldom available. She rarely paid such visits without taking with her some flowers to cheer the patients and brighten the sick room. Her Christianity was practical, with a warm hearted kindness which endeared her to all who knew her.

It was said of her ministry that "her messages, delivered in a clear strong voice, and simple though forcible language...often brought 'food to the hungry soul, liberty to the captive, joy to the mourner and rest to the weary and heavy laden', and on not a few occasions the whole tone of a meeting, begun perhaps in something like flatness, was felt to be changed to joy through the inspiring influence of her offerings in prayer and praise."

She was warmly interested in the work of the Society of Friends and for thirty years, with only one omission, attended London Yearly Meeting. For fourteen years she was also conspicuous at the table of the London Womens Yearly Meeting, serving as clerk in 1881 and 1882.

In 1890 the family moved to Cliff Side, where she was very happy for the few years left to her. Although not in good health, she went to London with her husband early in March 1897 and joined him and other Friends in the Meeting for Sufferings room prior to the Mission Prayer Meeting for which he had come to London. But the following day she had a heart attack and died aged sixty-eight.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2015 - N for Emilia Fogelklou Norlind

Emila aged 14

Emilia Fogelklou was born in 1878 in Skane, Sweden, into a large family. Her childhood was spent in the countryside which, together with the influence of her grandmother, had a great effect on Emilia's spiritual development. She would climb up on the garden gate to gaze at the sea or the sunset and lose herself  'in endless beholding.' However, when she was twelve the family moved to the town when her father got a better job, and although she found it difficult at first Emilia appreciated the intellectual stimulation of her new school.

In 1896, when she was eighteen, Emilia went to teacher training college for three years and then took up a succession of teaching posts. She enjoyed the work but felt under-qualified, especially in her chosen subject of religion. She was oppressed by the failure of her search for the reality of God and felt despairing and like an empty shell but then in 1902 she experienced something that was for her the central event of her life. While sitting quietly under trees preparing for her class she says 'she experienced the great releasing inward wonder. It was as if the "empty shell" burst. All the weight and agony, all the feeling of unreality dropped away. She perceived living goodness, joy, light like a clear, irradiating, uplifting, enfolding, unequivocal reality from deep inside.'[QF&P 26.05] Whatever happened to her after that she never lost the certainty of the reality of God that came to her that day.

She enrolled in the University of Uppsala in 1906, first taking a liberal arts degree and then studying theology. She also began to publish books and to write poetry. Her reading and also her life experience led her to grapple with the 'woman question'. In 1909 she became the first woman in Sweden to be awarded a degree in theology. This distinction led to a great deal of misunderstanding and hostility as it was apparently difficult for many to see why anyone would take such a degree unless they intended to enter the ministry and this path was still closed to women at the time.

Emilia next travelled to England, France and Italy in order to study religious movements and in 1910 she attended her first Quaker meeting. In 1911 she returned to Sweden and took up a teaching post. She was uncomfortably aware of the difference in salary between men and women staff and tried to make a stand on the issue but with no success.

Emilia (centre) at The Hague in 1915

During the First World War, although Sweden remained neutral, Emilia became involved in the international effort that women were making for peace. She attended the Women's Peace Conference in The Hague in 1915 from which emerged the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom and through this work again came into contact with Quakers.

Emilia continued to support herself by teaching and writing but in 1920 she became ill with eye trouble which forced her to stop her research work. Her mother was ill and Emilia went home to care for her, only to find that her sister was dying of cancer. These sorrows all brought Emilia to a low ebb but then  she met Arnold Norlind, a distinguished scholar and geographer with whom she had been carrying on a friendly and literary correspondence for several years.

Emila and Arnold

They agreed that what they felt now had slowly become more than friendship and they were married in 1922, when Emilia was 44 and Arnold 39. Their years together were happy but full of anxiety about Arnold's health. He had been diagnosed as having tuberculosis of the throat and there were several crises. In 1920 they were encouraged to hope that he was cured but in fact his disease had entered its final phase and Arnold died early in 1929.

They had lived a life full of books and writing and after the first devastating shock of grief Emilia's way forward came through writing Arnold's story. She continued to teach and write and was also becoming more involved in Quakerism. She joined a group in Stockholm which met for silent worship and in 1931 she applied for membership as a foreign member of London Yearly Meeting and was accepted. In the same year she published a book about James Nayler that led to her being invited to take up a fellowship at Woodbrooke in Birmingham. She spent a year there in 1933 researching a book on William Penn and in 1939 she visited America and spent some months at Pendle Hill.

Travelling to America was one way in which Emilia tried to get over one of the greatest disappointments of her later years. In 1938 she was encouraged to apply for the post of professor of history and religion at Uppsala university. Not only was she passed over in favour of a man younger and less qualified than herself but because her main expertise was in the psychology of religion rather than history the authorities felt it necessary to publicly declare her incompetent to hold the post. This led to a loss of income as her lecturing work dried up.

The outbreak of the Second World War however meant that Emilia put her personal worries aside and engaged in practical work for peace. She helped to set up the IAL (International work camps) and as soon as the war ended was involved in relief work in Germany. Working in Hamburg she wrote in her diary, ' Now I feel I've got work. All daylight hours are filled and [I feel] an almost constant inner joy, right through the thickening darkness out there...I walk in a whirlwind of life, and I reach out for more'.

Emilia aged 90

As she grew older Emilia became a well-known public figure in Sweden. Her writings were very popular and she was still called upon to pass on her wisdom. She longed to retire quietly but her public was reluctant to let her go. When she was past ninety she was troubled with increasing deafness and longed to die. 'Hope to be out of school soon' was one of her frequent expressions. At the last a severe fall and broken hip meant that she had to go into hospital where she suffered on untill she died in 1972 at the age of 94. Even in her last uncomfortable weeks, a friend said, she 'influenced people to the very end just by existing, without words'.

Emilia Fogelklou Norlind is buried beside her husband in a quiet village churchyard. On her headstone are three words in Swedish meaning - There is light still.

For many years most of Emilia's writings were only available in Swedish but extracts are now available in translation and there is also a biography of her, translated into English by the Swedish author.

Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - D for Duty

Duty sometimes has a bad press among Quakers today. It is seen as something cold and unfeeling and we are told that we should act instead out of love, should do what we want to do. If the Quaker community is to thrive then certain tasks have to be undertaken, but if doing our duty as elders, overseers, doorkeepers, providers of food and drink, even when those duties are difficult, is disparaged rather than encouraged, then Nominations Committees will continue having difficulty finding names.

For me duty is another word for commitment. My relationship with my widowed mother was often difficult but as her only child I felt a duty to try to look after her. In her last years I cooked a roast lunch for her every Sunday, often staying away from meeting to prepare a meal that I would seldom have cooked from choice. I played endless games of very competitive Scrabble with her and engaged in repetitive and often superficial conversation. I worried about her constantly. I did this because I loved her, but I continued doing it out of duty. Some days were better than others and in the end I felt that my love was returned and a real connection between us was made, but I would never have reached that position without the promptings of duty.

Although it does not use the word, the 10th section of Advices and Queries is also about duty. It  advises us to 'Come regularly to meeting for worship even when you are angry, depressed, tired or spiritually cold.' Yearly Meeting in London in 1765 had the same message for Friends. 'Shall a cloudy sky, a little wet, a little cold, a little ease to the flesh, a view to a little earthly gain, or any common incident, furnish an excuse for declining this duty, and thereby depriving ourselves of the blessed advantage, often vouchsafed to the faithful, of enjoying heavenly communion together in spirit with the Lord of life and glory?' [Quaker Faith and Practice 2.43] It is true that not every meeting for worship we attend will leave us spiritually refreshed but duty and commitment will give us the opportunity to be there when it does.

Writing this blog is a commitment which sometimes feels like a very onerous duty but I am glad that I have duty to keep me going as well as enjoyment for myself and, I hope, for my readers.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 33 - Q for The Quaker Bishop, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite

Painting of J B Braithwaite

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite was born in Kendal, Westmoreland on 21st June 1818, the youngest, together with his twin sister Caroline, of the nine children of Isaac Braithwaite (1781-1861) and Anna Lloyd (1788-1859). Anna's sister Mary had married Isaac's brother George and her brother Charles and his wife settled in Ambleside.  Bevan therefore grew up in a close knit community of family and fellow Quakers, went to a Quaker school in Kendal and was apprenticed to a Kendal solicitor. His parents both travelled frequently and for long periods in the ministry but there were always sisters, cousins and aunts to take care of the children.

Isaac Braithwaite

Isaac and Anna were uncompromisingly evangelical in their theology, looking to the Bible for authority rather than the Inward Light, and when they visited America in the 1820s sided with Elisha Bates in vigorously and outspokenly opposing what they saw as the 'unsound' teaching of the more mystical Elias Hicks. Hicks considered the attitudes of the Braithwaites and other English visitors to be a major cause of the separations of 1827-8 which split American Quakerism for more than a century.

At home the Braithwaite family came under the influence of their cousin Isaac Crewdson, who took an extreme position, resigned from the Society of Friends and underwent a rite of baptism.  Most of  Bevan's brothers and sisters agreed with Crewdson and, when Bevan himself went to London to complete his legal training, they encouraged him to join them. He wavered and got as far as booking an appointment for a baptism but then, urged by a letter from his father, he attended the Yearly Meeting of 1840 and changed his mind. As he wrote to his cousin, George Gillett, 'I went to the Yearly Meeting expecting it to be the last I should ever attend; but as it proceeded, one sitting after another convinced me that I had not duly appreciated the views of the great body of Friends, that there was much that was excellent and much that was sound among them.' He believed it his duty to remain and could not see where else he would go, but the rift in his family and among his friends was intensely painful to him. In the end only Bevan and his brother Charles Lloyd Braithwaite remained Quakers. Having made up his mind Bevan in time became a pillar of the Society of Friends, firm and decided in his views and wary of innovation.

Martha Gillett with her father

Bevan was call to the bar in 1843. Because he had a stammer he did not practise in court but set up a conveyancing practice. From 1840 until his death Bevan belonged to Westminster Friends' meeting in which he soon started to speak (without an impediment) and who acknowledged his gift in the ministry in 1844. In 1851 he married Martha Gillett (1823-1895), the daughter of a Quaker banker of Banbury, Oxfordshire and a recognised minister herself. They made their home in Camden in North London and raised a family of nine children. In many ways Joseph Bevan Braithwaite repeated his parents' model of parenthood - a large sheltered Quaker family with both parents travelling in the ministry. Bevan travelled extensively in England, Ireland, Europe and the Near East in the service of the Society of Friends and as a representative of the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1865, 1876 and 1878 he visited eight Yearly Meetings in America, although following his parents' example he always stayed aloof from the Hicksites.

J B Braithwaite with cravat

Bevan worked very hard as a lawyer in order to support his growing family, but he also read widely, particularly the Church Fathers whom he could, and did, quote at great length. He wore Quaker plain dress with the addition of a distinctive stiff wide white cravat which together with his natural air of authority led some, including John Bright, to call him the Quaker Bishop. No Yearly Meeting was complete without him and for forty years he was the chief author of the Yearly Meeting Epistle.

In 1887 Bevan attended the Richmond Conference in America and played a major role in composing the Richmond Declaration, a statement of Evangelical Quaker doctrine which the delegates hoped would be acceptable to 'all the Yearly Meetings in the world.' This was not to be the case and London Yearly Meeting refused to ratify it in 1888. Younger Friends saw it as the statement of a 'creed' which they felt had no place in Quakerism.

Bevan was disappointed and hurt by this rejection. Even though in 1898 London Yearly Meeting agreed to uphold their refusal to recognise Hicksite Quakers, a decision which Bevan called in his journal 'a very great relief to me', the tide was turning. Bevan viewed with dismay developments such as the Manchester Conference in 1895 which marked the beginning of Liberal Quakerism. He battled on but privately revealed, 'I often feel my solitariness.'

William Charles Braithwaite

After the death of his wife in 1895 he was looked after devotedly by his two youngest unmarried daughters, Rachel and Catherine. When his youngest son William Charles, who had worked with him for ten years, married and moved away in 1896 Bevan felt the loss keenly and gave up his legal practice. He said 'We are so bound up in our pursuits and in each other. It is almost like cutting off the right hand.'

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite continued to engage in Quaker work and to enjoy his extensive family. He wrote many letters and kept up the journal that he had written throughout his life. Old age crept upon him gradually but he retained his clarity of mind and gentleness of disposition to the last. He died on 15th November 1905 aged eighty seven, having remained unquestioning in his devotion to the vision of Quakerism he had loved and defended since his decision at Yearly Meeting 1840, sixty five years before.