Quaker Alphabet Blog 2014 - J for James Jenkins

I wrote a little about James Jenkins last year in my post about his father Zephaniah Fry but I am glad to have the opportunity now to say more about him. As I said before James was born in 1753, the illegitimate son of Zephaniah Fry of Chippenham and his servant Ann Jenkins. Both his parents were disowned by the Society of Friends for adultery, although Zephaniah was readmitted after only two years.

James's father wanted no contact with him and his mother was not allowed to bring him up. He was raised by a non-Quaker nurse in a village near Bristol until he was ten when he was sent to London as an apprentice to John Fry, a cheese dealer. At first James was ignorant of any family connection but eventually his master's brother told him, 'We are both thy kindred, being nearly related to thy father.' Later his master's father, another John Fry, called him nephew, a name that James received 'with surprise and pleasure'.

High Flatts Meeting house

James was ashamed of his illegitimacy and felt that he had to earn acceptance from his newly-
discovered family by making every effort to please them. He began to attend Quaker meetings and his master sent him to school, first in London and then for three years boarding at High Flatts in Yorkshire, an isolated place which James described as ‘a desolate area of rough moorland about fourteen miles long and seven in width’. After this limited education James was bound apprentice in 1768 to Hannah Jesup, a widow in the grocery trade at Woodbridge in Suffolk. When after three years Hannah married an Irish Quaker, Robert Dudley, James went with them to Clonmel in Ireland.

In Clonmel James blossomed. He became an ironmonger, made friends with other young Quaker men including Robert Dudley's son from his first marriage, began to read more widely and started a common-place book. It was in Ireland too that James joined the Society of Friends and he always judged Quakers against the standard of what he found there. Although Irish Friends rigidly enforced ruled of dress and conduct, because they were a small and isolated community they also cared personally for one another. In Ireland young Quakers like James were welcomed, consulted and made to feel important whereas in England James was not allowed to be more than an observer of the Quaker scene.

Clonmel Quays

When James completed his apprenticeship in 1773 he became clerk to a firm of Quaker merchants in Waterford. After seven years he had accumulated savings of £300 and joined in a partnership with other Friends selling Irish cheese to England, but the enterprise failed and he lost most of his capital. For the next fifteen years James led a precarious existence in business in England in various capacities, using all his Quaker connections but finding it hard to make ends meet.

James's financial position was not helped by the fact that he had taken on family responsibilities. He married the Irish Quaker Elizabeth, or Betsy, Lamb in 1780 without a dowry but with the promise of a substantial legacy from her father Benjamin which never materialised. on top of this Betsy suffered from ill-health for twenty years, her various complaints exacerbated by almost constant childbearing. She suffered thirteen miscarriages and bore ten children of whom seven died young, leaving three sons who survived into adulthood and died in 1806 at the age of 47.

James's prosperity improved in 1795 when he was employed by his uncle John Fry's stock brokerage
firm after Joel Cadbury, who had a prior claim as a son-in-law, withdrew because he could not cope with the chaos and uncertainty of the market. Although many Quakers disapproved of dealing in stocks, seeing it as a form of gambling, James discovered that he had a talent for it and became a prosperous broker. In 1819 he retired to Folkestone and left his flourishing business to his sons. Unfortunately they did not inherit his ability and within five years they went bankrupt and were disowned by Friends.

Folkestone Harbour

These further financial difficulties, together with the early death of two of his sons, were a great blow to James but he rallied and managed to somewhat recover his fortunes. When he died in 1831 at the age of 78 he was described by Kent Quarterly Meeting as 'Gentleman', an epitaph which would have given him great satisfaction.

James Jenkins left little behind him financially but his great legacy is a manuscript, Records and Recollections which he left for safe-keeping to a fellow-Quaker who made sure that it was preserved and passed down from generation to generation until it was deposited in Friends House Library in 1918 and eventually published in a scholarly edition in 1984.

James had kept a diary for many years and used it to compose the story of his own life and to comment on the state of the Society of Friends as he saw it. His own history had brought home to him the hypocrisy that could be part of Quakerism in his time and he was concerned to be an objective observer and tell the truth. He therefore wrote 'alternative testimonies' on Quakers he knew when they died as an antidote to the bland hagiographies which were approved by the British Quaker establishment. He described their physical appearance, their idiosyncrasies of speech and behaviour, their good points and their failings. James retained a respect and love for Quakerism while still pointing out what he saw as abuses. His writings give us another view of 18th century Friends, showing them as fallible individuals rather than impossibly good role models, and James thereby does both us and them an invaluable service.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 51 - Z for Zephaniah Fry

The first Zephaniah Fry to become a Quaker was born in 1658 in Sutton Benger, a small village near Chippenham in Wiltshire, and made woolen cloth for a living. He was convinced by the powerful preaching of Solomon Eccles and was imprisoned for his faith from 1683 to 1685 when he was freed under the general amnesty after the death of Charles II. For the rest of his life he lived quietly and raised a large family as respectable Quakers before his death in 1728.

His son Zephaniah, born in 1688, also lived a quiet life in another village near Chippenham, marrying and having just one son, born in 1716 (who he called, unsurprisingly, Zephaniah). Unfortunately this Zephaniah lost his father when he was only two months old, although his mother could rely on an extensive network of respectable Quaker Fry relations to help with his upbringing.  In time Zephaniah moved to Bristol and became prosperous as a woolen draper. In 1741 he married Abigail Hiscox and the couple had two children, Robert and Elizabeth, born in 1742 and 1744. All seemed set fair for another Zephaniah Fry to lead a quiet respectable life, but ten years later a scandal arose of his own making.

Ann Jenkins was also a Quaker and a servant in Zephaniah's household. In August 1753, unmarried, she gave birth to a son who she named James Jenkins and Bristol Monthly Meeting felt that it had no choice but to bring the scandal into the open. A minute made matters very clear -
This meeting having been informed that Zephaniah Fry has lived in Criminal Conversation [adultery] with his late [former] servant Ann Jenkins, and said Fry, having sent into this Meeting a letter signifying his being under strong conviction for his late misconduct and his Sorrow for the same, William Gayner and William Fry are desired to pay Z. Fry a Visit on this Melancholly occasion, and to desire two Women Friends to visit Ann Jenkins.

A month later the two women Friends reported that their visit to Ann Jenkins resulted in a confession and admission that she hath been lately delivered of a Bastard child of whom Z Fry was the Father. In spite of their contrition both parents were disowned by Bristol Friends in order to clear the Society from any aspersions that may be cast on our principles by reason of such scandalous practices, although the possibility of future forgiveness was not withdrawn.

Zephaniah had acknowledged his son as his responsibility but wanted nothing to do with him personally. He also refused to allow Ann to keep her baby. Having lost her job and unable to gain another in Bristol because of the scandal, she moved to London where she had relatives who could support her. Baby James was put out to nurse with a non-Quaker family in a village just outside Bristol. The mortality rate for infants in this situation was very high - perhaps a fact which Zephaniah was counting on - but James survived.

Two years after his disownment Zephaniah applied for readmission and was accepted. It does not appear that Ann Jenkins ever regained her membership. When he was 10 James was sent to London as an apprentice to his kinsman John Fry, although at that time he did not know of the relationship. Here James met his mother again but only briefly as she died of consumption in 1764.

Zephaniah Fry died in 1787, leaving his son James Jenkins £300 (compared with trusts for his legitimate children and their offspring worth at least £5000) which allowed him to buy a stake in a business. There is no evidence that father and son ever met. James's whole life and attitude was shaped by the shame of his illegitimacy. Although he became a Quaker when he was an apprentice in Ireland and was treated with kindness by many Friends and relations he was always particularly aware of any hint of hypocrisy in the Society. In later life he compiled a volume of Records and Recollections which gave some details of his life and also his impressions of 'weighty Friends' he had known, painting them 'warts and all' instead of idealising them as official testimonies often did. James's writings give us a valuable, because often partial and prejudiced, view of Quakers in the 18th century and we have the circumstances of his birth to thank for that.