Mary Alexander

Mary Alexander was born on February 7th 1760 at Needham Market, Suffolk, the third of the eight children of Dykes Alexander, a shopkeeper and mealman, and his wife Martha Biddle, of whom five survived childhood. Both her parents were established Quakers, her father being an elder and her mother a minister. Mary was fifteen when her mother died and was conscious of the possibility that she too might be called to the ministry, a calling for which she tried to prepare herself. 

The former meeting house in Needham Market, built 1704,in use as a store.

Mary lived quietly at home, caring for her father, but in 1786 he died, aged 62, and this blow was followed only nine weeks later by the death of her eldest brother Samuel’s wife, Elizabeth. The family agreed that Mary should continue to live in her father’s house with her youngest brother William, who at the age of 18 took on his father's business, while Samuel and his four children were looked after by his wife’s aunt, Mary Gurney. 

Mary Alexander struggled between her call to the ministry and her family obligations, especially after Mary Gurney also died in 1788. However confirmation of her calling came one night in 1789 when, she says, 'a light shone round my bed and I heard a voice intelligibly say “Thou art appointed to preach the Gospel”'. Mary first spoke in meeting in July 1789 and was formally recognised as a Quaker minister in 1791. 

A silhouette of Ann Tuke Alexander

Mary’s first journeys as a minister were mainly local but in 1794 she ventured further afield to Lincoln where she met and travelled with another minister, seven years younger than herself. Ann Tuke, was the daughter of William and Esther Tuke of York and became a close friend. Their friendship developed further when Ann married Mary’s brother William in September 1796. William and Ann asked Mary to live with them in the family home but she decided to find a house nearby instead. A ministerial journey in 1797 with Ann and William to Wales was continually interrupted by Mary’s illnesses. She struggled on but at Cirencester felt close to death. She dreamed that she was dead, but was sent back to life as her time had not yet come. 

Silhouette of William Alexander

Eventually at the beginning of 1798 Mary returned to Needham Market and moved into her own 'very peaceful home', but her ministerial obligations gave her little time to enjoy it. She travelled extensively with Elizabeth Coggeshall of Newport, Rhode Island, returning home at the end of 1800. For the next few years most of Mary’s travels were in her own area. She also acted as 'an affectionate nurse and attendant' to her sister-in-law Hannah, the wife of her younger brother Dykes, at the birth of their daughter, but the experience depressed her. 

William Forster

1808 brought another change in Mary’s life when her brother William and his family were forced to make a move as the family business was failing. They went to York where they were helped by Ann's family and William eventually became a successful bookseller and publisher. Mary found this 'a closely trying separation'. At the end of October 1809 Mary went, with her older sister Martha Jesup, on a religious visit to Friends’ families in Worcester. There she was joined by another minister, William Forster, with whom she attended two crowded public meetings. She was obviously ill and as soon as she had done her duty went  back to Worcester to the care of her relation Thomas Burlingham. 

At first Mary’s illness was thought to be another attack of the bilious complaint from which she had often suffered before, but it soon became obvious that she had contracted smallpox and she gradually grew worse. Her brothers Samuel and Dykes were sent for and she died surrounded by her family on December 4th 1809 at the age of 49.

Her brother William could not be with her, but he made sure that her account of her spiritual life was published two years later.

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 2014 - M for Mary Southworth Mollineux

Mary Southworth was born in 1651 and brought up in Lancashire, possibly in Warrington. She was an only child and, her cousin tells us, was 'much afflicted with weak eyes, which made her unfit for the usual employment of girls, and being of a large natural capacity, her father brought her up to more learning than is commonly bestowed on our sex, that she could fluently discourse in Latin, made considerable progress in Greek, wrote several hands well, was a good arithmetician, a student of several useful arts, understood physic and surgery and the nature of plants, herbs and minerals, made some inspection into divers profitable sciences and delighted in the study of nature.' Mary also began to write poetry from the age of eleven.

She was convinced while she was still young and in 1684 was imprisoned in Lancaster Castle for attending Quaker meetings in Warrington. It was there that Mary first became acquainted with Henry Mollineux, although they had seen each other before. He says that at this time 'I believed that she should be my wife; but never intended to express any thing thereof, whilst we were both prisoners there; and after she was released, I saw her, and was in company with her several times, before I expressed anything of my concern to take her to be my wife; several considerable men having before attempted to prevail with her on that account.'

Lancaster Castle in 1778

Eventually they were married at Penketh, now a suburb of Warrington, on 10th April 1685. They had two sons to whom they gave the unusual but biblical names, Othniel and Elleazor. The family lived first at Ormskirk and later at Liverpool. Both Mary and Henry suffered persecution during their marriage. Henry was imprisoned for not paying tithes and Mary disputed with the bishop of Chester about the injustice of this.

In general though Mary did not speak out in public. She wrote poetry as personal advice to those who came to her for support. Her talent was low-keyed, not fiery or controversial. Mary's epistles, meditations and contemplations are all of an improving nature, with an emphasis on homely domestic virtues, and were given to her friends and relations as a message of kindness, affection and sound advice on behaviour.

Mary was not writing for the public and would not allow her poetry to be printed during her lifetime. Her friend Trial Ryder says, 'I remember that several years ago, when she was a single woman, upon perusal of some copies of her verses which she gave me, I felt such unity of spirit with them that I said I thought they might be of service if made public in print, but she was not then free that her name should be exposed, she not seeking praise amongst men, but to communicate the exercise of peculiar gifts amongst her near friends and acquaintance.'

Unfortunately this embargo was not destined to last for long as Mary died in 1696 at home in Liverpool at the age of 44. During her last illness she spoke of her regret at leaving 'her little lads', then aged eleven and nine. She sometimes spoke in Latin, not to impress others with her learning, but in order to communicate privately with Henry when company was present. Soon after her death Henry published her poems as a tribute and testimony to her and as a help to others. The volume proved extremely popular and Fruits of Retirement; or Miscellaneous Poems, moral and divine went into six editions in the course of the eighteenth century.

It was most unusual for Quakers to write poetry at this time and even more so to publish it, so that Mary's cousin, Frances Owen, felt that some justification was necessary. 'And though verse is not so commonly used in divine subjects as prose, and but too much abused by the extravagant wits of the age; yet she, like a skilful chemist, had learned to separate the purer spirits and more refined parts of poetry, from the earthly, worthless dross, and made use of her gift rather to convince and prevail upon the mind, to affect and raise the soul upon wings of divine contemplation, than to please the airy fancy with strains of wit, and unprofitable invention, which she was ever careful to avoid.'

Although Mary's poems are not on the whole to our taste today, their popularity during the century following her death show as that her family's hope for them was not groundless. Here is a short extract from one of her poems Meditations in Trouble which gives some idea of her style.

	O Whither is he gone? Or where Shall I go mourn, till he appear, Who is my life, my love? Alas, how shall I move Him to return, that’s secretly retired Like unto one displeased, Who, till he be appeased, My heart cannot be eased? He is one lovely, and to be admired!

Quaker Alphabet blog Week 15 - H for Home

Empty house!

The subject of home has been much on my mind lately as we have gone through the tortuous and exhausting process of moving from one house to another in towns hundreds of miles apart. We are down-sizing (a bit) and although we have disposed of quite a lot of things one way and another, we still have a lot of ‘stuff’. 

My father and the cabinet he made for me in 1977

However I realised as I stood in our newly empty house, about to hand over the keys and title to it to someone else, that a lot of what felt like ‘home’ to me was bound up with this ‘stuff’.  Much of this has to do with memory, of books and furniture and ornaments passed down from parents and grandparents and from friends, and of pictures and things chosen and made my own. In the new house these things have yet to find their places and some will no doubt in time find a new home with other people. It will take a while for me to feel ‘at home’ in these new surroundings.

But of course home is not just a house with things in it. It is about the people who live there and visit it as well. I have always found section 26 of Advices and Queries on the subject of a Quaker home rather intimidating. ‘Try to make your home a place of loving friendship and enjoyment, where all who live or visit may find the peace and refreshment of God’s presence.’  My home has sometimes been a place of noise and conflict, although always grounded in love and therefore not without that divine presence that never despairs. 

In our new house we will be nearer to two of our three children and to our grandchildren. This was an important part of our reason for moving and I hope we can make our home a welcoming place for all of them as well as for friends both old and new.  Above all I hope that everyone who comes here will find a piece of home for themselves – if not always peace and quiet!

 

How many friends?

How many friends do I have? Quite a few I think, although I had never been in the habit of counting them until I went on Facebook. That was a few years ago when I wanted a way of tracking the progress of my globe-trotting sons but also wanted to prove my husband wrong when he said I had no friends.

I have never been one to have crowds of close friends. I grew up as a happily solitary only child, isolated further at primary school by the fact that my father was also my headmaster. My parents tried to remedy this situation when I changed schools by sending me to an establishment in a different town, rather than to the grammer school next door to my father's new school. I made a few close friends there but it was difficult to cultivate friendships outside school because of the distance involved.

However, when I make good friends I do try to keep them and am still in touch with two women I have known since I was 10, Fleur and Liz. At university, first in Oxford and then in Birmingham, I made more close friends and have kept up sporadically with a few of them. At Oxford I also met my closest friend, Chris, and eventually married him. I also acquired some of his friends too. I have made friends at work, some closer than others. I have also made friends of Friends in many different contexts, often by working and sometimes struggling together.

What do I mean by a friend? Well for me friendship involves sharing, giving and receiving confidences, honesty and loyal support. It is also about having things in common - a place, a way of life, even a favourite television programme - but not necessarily about always agreeing with each other. A valuable part of friendship for me is the ability to speak and hear uncomfortable things from time to time, although I admit that I almost lost one friendship through being afraid of confrontation.

But is it possible to have virtual friendships, only conducted online and never face to face? I think it is and I have discovered this through reading and writing blogs and through Facebook. Many of the bloggers I read are not known to me in person although we have a friendly relationship online. After all, I can hold a conversation with them through comments as they can with me and blogging is often about sharing one's life as one would with friends in the 'real' world.

At the last count I had 264 Facebook friends. Many of them I know personally and meet quite frequently, others I have met a few times, but some I only know online. Quite a few live in different countries which makes meeting face to face even more difficult. I am very grateful for the opportunity Facebook gives me to connect a little with all their lives. Then there are the reconnections, people I have known but may have lost touch with until an unexpected 'friend request' appears.

The other week I visited my friend James in Leeds. I met him in Birmingham 40 odd (sometimes very odd) years ago and we were close friends and housemates then. I had kept in touch sporadically and went to all three of his weddings but Facebook allowed us to connect on a more day to day level which made our face to face meeting more comfortable. I look forward to deepening this friendship when we eventually move Up North.

I know what Chris meant when he said I did not have any friends. At the time I was in danger of isolating myself from the day to day contact that nourishes friendship. I hope that I am working towards correcting that and Facebook and blogging have helped me keep in touch, not only with friends but with myself.