Recorded ministry - some thoughts

Meeting by John Perkin

I have been following the conversation about recorded ministry on social media with interest. Sam Barnett-Cormack has done a good job of summing up what has been said here and has continued the debate. As well as commenting on other posts I find that I have just a few things to add, partly from my research and partly from my own experience.

First it may be useful to look at why ministers were first recorded. This practice arose in the UK in the18th century out of a problem (as so many Quaker practices have)! There were complaints that some people had represented themselves as ministers without the backing of a meeting and were travelling around the country asking for financial support in the places they visited when some of them were not even recognised as Friends. To deal with this a system was agreed whereby if a Friend was recognised by their meeting as having a particular gift for vocal ministry then their name was sent to the Yearly Meeting in London and 'recorded' in a book so that their qualification for support could be checked.

Not all recorded ministers travelled outside their local meetings but if they were moved to do so they had to obtain a certificate from their meeting which would be quite specific about where they might go. This certificate could be presented to the Friends they were travelling among to obtain hospitality and assistance in their journey, such as the provision of a guide and a horse, the expense of which could be claimed from the meeting visited if necessary. The practice was rooted in practicality as well as answering divine inspiration.

The impetus for recognising that a minister should be recorded always came from their meeting not from themselves. This was very far from a modern job application. Being called to the ministry was not a small undertaking as it could involve very arduous travel and prolonged absences from home and many ministers' journals contain accounts of long, anxious hesitation before a calling was acknowledged. Ministers did not act alone and usually travelled with a companion, another minister or a younger Friend. They were also answerable to their meetings and to their fellow ministers, some of whom were more encouraging than others. Samuel Bownas had experienced his own difficulties and in 1750 he published a self-help book A description of the qualifications necessary to a Gospel Minister which still has things to say to us today.

There was no initial intention to mark the recorded ministers out as superior, rather as people trying to be faithful to their calling. As time went on however in some cases the respect demanded for the calling could look to others like respect demanded for the person. In the mid-eighteenth century Catherine Payton Phillips was called 'a Great Autocratrix' by the young James Jenkins, although he was hardly an unbiased observer and in the nineteenth century James Bevan Braithwaite earned the nickname of 'the Quaker Bishop'!

Eventually in the early twentieth century it was felt that meetings had come to rely too much on recorded ministers and that if they were not present then no vocal ministry would be heard. There was a movement to share the responsibility for vocal ministry more equally between all members and in the UK the practice of recording ministers was officially discontinued in 1924. Since then not only have attitudes to recorded ministers changed but so has vocal ministry itself - in length, form and content - especially among 'liberal' Friends.

Part of the problem with reviving recorded ministry is that in the past ministers were recorded for life. It was possible to withdraw approval from ministers by refusing to issue them with certificates (as happened in the case of May Drummond) but this was rare. Indeed those Friends who had been recorded before 1924 in London Yearly Meeting remained officially ministers until they died and Neave Brayshaw in his book The Quakers mentions that they were qualified to attend Meeting for Sufferings in that capacity and that some were still doing so in the late 1940s and early 1950s!

The change to limited terms (usually triennial) for elders and overseers, who were also once appointed for life, has been a good and helpful reform which I don't think anyone would wish to go back on. Perhaps the way to look at any revival of recorded ministry is through a short-term, project-based approach. The Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellowships were set up in this way by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. When I was a fellow in 1994-1995, touring the UK with workshops on spiritual autobiography, I resisted the description of what I was doing as 'travelling in the ministry' but perhaps I was wrong to reject the label so vehemently. I was not acting entirely independently as I was answerable to the trust, who supported me financially, and I also had a support group, drawn from my meeting and more widely, who gave me spiritual and emotional support, although not a certificate!

Lastly, I have also wondered whether blogging can be a kind of ministry. Here are some thoughts on Quaker blogging which I hesitantly shared ten years ago! I have aways seen my blog as an extension of my spiritual autobiography project. Should I only have to listen to readers' comments or should I be open to discipline from the meeting or from another support group? Is there a difference between a Quaker blogging and a Quaker blog? There are a lot of questions about recorded ministry still to be considered.

Lydia Waring Hawksworth

Lydia Waring was the daughter of two Quaker ministers. Her father, Samuel Waring, born in 1691, was a mercer from Witney in Oxfordshire where in 1714 he married his first wife Eleanor and had three children (two daughters and a son) before she died in 1718. In 1721, when he was 30 and she was 24, Samuel married Deborah Hawkins of Alton in Hampshire and moved there. The couple had ten children, although the first two died in infancy, and Lydia, born in 1733, was the eighth of these and the fourth daughter.

Alton Meeting House, erected 1672

Samuel travelled a great deal in the ministry, mainly in the south of England, and diligently attended Yearly Meeting in London for upwards of 50 years. Deborah undertook responsibility for the care of their numerous family but she had been a minister since she was eighteen and continued her calling, mainly in the local area. Their home was a centre of Quaker hospitality and Lydia would have met many visiting Quaker ministers. It is likely that she, like her mother, received a 'guarded education' at home, learning domestic skills and reading the Bible and other approved religious texts.

It was not until she was 35, in 1768, that Lydia married Abraham Richard Hawksworth, a prosperous Bristol merchant, and moved into his house in Castle Green, the central commercial district of Bristol where many Quakers lived. In the same year Lydia's younger sister Ruth married another Bristol merchant, Thomas Rutter, so the two would have been neighbours.

Abraham was 39 when he married Lydia and by that time had become a strict Quaker, but in his younger days he had been more worldly and sociable, belonging to a Jacobite drinking club, the Nagg's Head Club, named for the tavern where it met. With maturity his interests turned to benevolent ventures, particularly for the poor and needy, and in 1766 he was appointed Treasurer of the Bristol Infirmary. Abraham was well-educated as well as wealthy and was said to understand seven languages, being much admired for his eloquence and learning.

Bristol Infirmary in 1765

Although they shared a generous disposition towards the poor, some of Lydia's friends wondered whether they were well suited. Her education was limited, although she was described as a woman of very good understanding. Her natural reserve made it difficult to get to know her and could give the appearance of pride, although her manner towards those she liked and could talk freely with was agreed to be very attractive. In the event though the marriage was cut short and the doubts of Lydia's friends became irrelevant.

Lydia and Abraham were married in February 1768 and in October Abraham contracted a fever. At first he seemed to be recovering but on October 29th he died, leaving Lydia a widow. Abraham was much mourned throughout the city and his funeral procession from Castle Green to Redcliffe Quaker Burying Ground, which was supposed to be private, passed through streets lined with mourners, their numbers at times making progress difficult. When the grave was reached, in the time of silent worship around the bier, Lydia laid her hand on the coffin and ministered publicly for the first time in a most affecting and heartfelt way.

Lydia was unexpectedly left to make a life for herself. She was now a wealthy woman with a position of independence as a widow. She had the support of family with visits to and from Alton by her mother, her sisters and other relations. She had friends in a close-knit Quaker community both locally and nationally. She also now had a position as a minister within the Society of Friends in Bristol and further afield.

Much of Lydia's travel in the ministry was as a companion and support to her old friend Catherine Payton, later Phillips. Catherine was five years younger than Lydia but had been a minister for much longer and was well known as a Public Friend. She often stayed with Lydia in Bristol both alone and with her husband William Phillips who she married in 1772.

Drawing of Catherine Payton Phillips

Catherine found Lydia 'a most tender affectionate companion' and praised her ministry, particularly in private family visits. Others might see Lydia as subservient to Catherine - James Jenkins (a critical witness) said that Catherine 'appeared as a bright star in the Heavens above us, and within the sphere of its attraction moved Lydia Hawksworth' - but the two women acted in mutual help and friendship. They had much in common. Both were brought up in Quaker families where both parents were ministers. Both were socially awkward and could give an appearance of aloofness, yet were open and affectionate to those they knew well and were loyal friends.

Lydia accompanied Catherine to Yearly Meeting in London in 1773 and again in 1775 when they spent some time resting at Alton with Lydia's newly-widowed mother Deborah. In 1776, when Deborah herself died, Lydia and Catherine travelled more extensively, to the North of England and then to Ireland.

In 1778 Lydia endured more family sorrows when her sister Ruth Rutter died at the age of 42 and she then spent much of 1779 as Catherine's companion. There are glimpses of further travels with Catherine in the following years and Lydia also attended all the local Bristol and nearby meetings. In 1783 her older unmarried sister Hannah came to Lydia's house for several months to be cared for in her last illness, dying in December. In April 1784 Lydia was so ill herself  with a 'putrid fever' that her life was despaired of, but she made a good recovery and set off for Yearly Meeting in London in May, ministering in Bristol Meeting before she went in a memorable manner.

In 1785 Lydia travelled to Truro for a meeting and then on to Redruth to stay for a rest with Catherine and William Phillips as she had done before. Unfortunately after a day or so William Phillips was taken suddenly ill and died so Lydia had to turn her energies to helping a fellow grieving widow.

Silhouette of Rebecca Jones

Back in Bristol Lydia continued to be generous to the poor and needy and to support travelling Friends, although her own health was not good. In 1788 she helped the American minister Rebecca Jones both spiritually and in practical ways. Rebecca lists 'gifts of love' which she received from Lydia including handkerchiefs, pockets, several guineas for coach and chaise hire and even an achromatic telescope costing two guineas, when a guinea then would be worth about £80 today.

However soon after Rebecca's visit in April Lydia left Bristol in failing health and went to be cared for by her older sister Deborah Townsend in London. It was here that she died of dropsy at the age of 55 in November, telling her sister, 'Don't mourn for me. I have a comfortable hope that my Heavenly Father will receive me into his kingdom.'

Lydia's will distributed her wealth between her relations and provision was also made for the poor of Bristol.  In a codicil she asks her sister Deborah to destroy all her remaining unanswered Letters of Friendship as she has no time to go through them. Lydia's body was taken back to Alton for burial so her life came full circle.

Alton Meeting House from the burial ground

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 32 - P for Piety Promoted

In 1701 John Tomkins published the first part of a book usually known as Piety Promoted, the full title of which was Piety promoted in a collection of dying sayings of many of the people called Quakers. His intention was to inspire his readers for, as he says in his preface,

 'Having, in the course of my reading, met with many excellent sayings of our dying Friends, that afforded me much satisfaction of mind, I have collected some of them together for the benefit of others: knowing that usually the words of dying persons make deeper impression on the minds of men, than words spoken at other times.'

Tomkins acknowledges that he is bound to give some account of his subjects' lives as well as of their deaths but stresses that his purpose in this is not to 'exalt men but to exalt the great God, and his grace in Christ Jesus, by which they were what they were.' He was building on a tradition of collections of dying sayings which were popular in the 17th century and later, especially those relating to children and young people. Piety Promoted found a wide audience and eventually appeared in eleven parts, each of which was reprinted several times.

Title page of revised edition by John Kendal

The work was carried on by several editors over the years. Tomkins published three parts from 1701 to 1706 and his successor John Field another three from 1711 to 1728, followed by John Bell who published the seventh part in 1740. Thomas Wagstaffe brought out two more parts in 1774 and 1796 then Joseph Gurney Bevan put together the tenth part in 1810 which includes a helpful 'historical account of the preceding parts or volumes and of their several compilers and editors.' Finally in 1829 the eleventh part of Piety Promoted appeared compiled by Josiah Forster. 

Not only were these books popular, they were approved by the Quaker establishment and printed by official Quaker printers such as Tace Sowle, Luke Hinde and James and William Phillips. As time went on however the emphasis on a 'good death' became less important than the example of a good life. Testimonies to the grace of God in the life of deceased Friends had been written from the beginning of Quakerism by the local meetings of the deceased and in time the practice arose of sending these to Yearly Meeting for collection and publication. At first only recorded ministers were memorialised in this way but that distinction fell away in the 20th century together with the custom of specially recording those with a gift for vocal ministry.

There was another source for information about the lives and deaths of Friends in Britain and Ireland. This was the Annual Monitor, a mainly statistical volume which recorded all deaths of Quakers in these Yearly Meetings each year from 1812 to 1920. Some entries give the bare facts of name, meeting, age and date of death but others add memoirs of the Friends' lives, sometimes in considerable detail. These memoirs often concentrate on the end of life but include many other details of their lives and service. As with Piety Promoted the intention is to inspire the reader.

In our own times 'dying sayings' are no longer considered edifying reading and indeed the practice of writing and publishing testimonies is not as prevalent as it once was. There seems to be a fear that in writing testimonies for some and not for others we are failing in our testimony to equality, but is this in fact the case? As John Tomkins said, the aim is not to exalt individuals but to point out examples of the grace of God as seen in individual lives. We have good advice available about the writing of testimonies and I hope that we will follow it and so produce more inspiration for succeeding generations.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 25 - M for Meeting Houses

Come-to-Good in Cornwall with stable at side

Meeting for worship does not require a meeting house but the buildings in which Quakers gather together do reflect something of what Quaker community means and has meant over the centuries.

In Britain Yearly Meeting one of the most striking things about Quaker meeting houses is their variety. Some meetings do not have their own building but gather instead in members' houses or in hired rooms. This may be a decision reached because of lack of numbers, local circumstances or as a witness to simplicity. After all, when Quakerism began this was the way in which local meetings started out.

Manchester Mount Street

The earliest meeting houses, from the 17th and early 18th centuries,

Slough - a modern meeting house

look like houses of the period, even if they were in fact purpose-built. A little later they may take on more of the appearance of a chapel and in the expansiveness of the 19th century sometimes become quite grand. There have been relatively few purpose-built meeting houses in the 20th century but there are some notable exceptions. In modern times Friends have often adapted buildings erected for other purposes - as a house, a shop or even a masonic hall!

Wimbledon - once a house

Barnstaple - once a shop

The new meeting house in Newcastle - once a Masonic hall!

Wallingford 'stand'

Inside these different buildings there will be a meeting room and the way in which this is set out also says something about Quakers both past and present.

Slough meeting room

From the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century a meeting room had a 'stand' at one end where the ministers and, sometimes in lower seats, the elders and overseers sat. They faced the rest of the meeting who were sitting in rows of benches with men on one side and women on the other. In modern times these distinctions melted away and chairs and benches are now usually arranged in a circle with only a table, often containing flowers and perhaps copies of Quaker Faith and Practice and the Bible, as a focus. In modern meeting houses this modern practice is quite natural but in older rooms it can feel as though one is 'camping out' in the middle of somewhere originally arranged quite differently. Certainly in Reading the circular arrangement makes the acoustic quite difficult although I have found that a speaker can be heard quite clearly from the redundant ministers' 'stand'!

Reading meeting room - camping out!

Skipton meeting room

I have just moved from a large 19th century meeting house and a large meeting in Reading to a smaller 17th century meeting house and a small to medium size meeting in Skipton. The architecture of both can be inspiring in different ways but in the end for me the power of meeting for worship comes from a community of people gathering together and that can happen wherever I am.
 
If you want to get a fuller impression of the variety of meeting houses in the British Isles may I recommend John Hall's photostream of Quaker Meeting Houses on Flickr from which all the illustrations for this post are taken.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 19 - J for Journeys

The report on my fellowship

When telling others about the path they have taken to Quakerism Friends often refer to their spiritual journey. This metaphor goes back many centuries and encompasses a great variety of stories. I have the same kind of narrative to share and this blog has been and continues to be one of the ways in which I have done and am doing that. In Quaker terms journeys have always been physical as well as metaphorical and when I travelled around the UK in 1994 as a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow encouraging Friends to write and then share their spiritual autobiographies I felt that my journey continued both sides of the tradition.

 

In the 17^th century one of the ways in which Quakerism was spread through the country was by pairs of travelling Friends, known as ‘the Valiant Sixty’ by Quakers and as ‘Morris-dancers from the North’ by their opponents. They were supported, financially and spiritually, by the organisation based in Swarthmoor Hall under the leadership of George Fox and Margaret Fell. On their journeys they were often welcomed and set up a network of meetings throughout England. Sometimes they were attacked and imprisoned but this often spoke for them even louder than their words and brought more to the Quaker way. Some also went further afield to Ireland, America and Europe.

Swarthmoor Hall

As Quaker practices became more established a need was felt for more regulation of Friends’ journeys. In the early 18^th century a formal system of elders and overseers was set up and it became unacceptable for Friends to go on religious journeys without the approval of their meetings. A local meeting would ‘recognise’ those who it believed to have a particular gift for vocal ministry and would support them if they had a concern to travel either locally or further afield. Each minister would apply for, and usually be given, a certificate which approved a particular journey. This was to be presented to and endorsed by local Friends at each stage who would be expected to aid the traveller with hospitality and whatever other assistance was required. If a concern arose for the minister to travel further then another certificate from their home meeting was required. On their return to their own meeting  the minister would return their certificate and give an account of their journey.

As more ‘recognised’ Friends began to travel further their names were ‘recorded’ centrally in London and this practice was formalised in 1773. Recorded Ministers were also known as ‘Public Friends’ and many of them did indeed gain a national reputation, helped by the widespread publication of their journals and records of their journeys. Many of the Friends whose lives I am trying to make more widely known through my part in the Quaker Alphabet blog were Recorded Ministers and Public Friends.

During my year as a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow I visited 58 groups in half the Monthly Meetings  in Britain Yearly Meeting and spoke to more than 750 people. I travelled over 9,500 miles, mostly by rail and far more comfortably than Public Friends in earlier times. They often travelled hundreds of miles by foot or on horseback on appalling roads and in dreadful weather. They crossed the Atlantic in both directions and often found themselves in uncharted territory. They suffered accidents and ill-health but were not deflected from their task. Given the conditions under which journeys were undertaken in the 17^th and 18^th centuries it is not surprising that the words ‘travel’ and ‘travail’ were used interchangeably!

Susanna Morris's account

There are so many examples of the rigours encountered by travelling ministers on their journeys recorded in their journals that it is hard to choose between them  but here are just three. 

Susanna Morris from America having problems in the West Country in 1752, 'My companion and I visited all down the south parts of the west of England from Portsmouth to Land's End, though a very hilly country and bad roads, I thought it was very hard for me to get up and down the hills, for some of them were more like to stairs in an house than any other thing, and so stony that my creature threw me off many times, but (forever blessed be my great Master and preserver) I was never much hurt and sometimes not hurt at all; for the creature bowed herself so low with me that it was like laying me down and the last time it was in the soft mud.'

Catherine Payton Phillips

Catherine Payton Phillips, travelling from Cornwall to Bristol in 1776, ‘The weather was extremely cold and the snow so deep that the roads in Devonshire, and thence to Bristol, had been impassable, and were then dangerous; but through Divine favour we got along safe, although the cold was so extreme that it was hard to bear. The road in some places was cut through the snow, so that it looked like passing through a deep hollow way, which had a very striking appearance.’

and lastly Joseph Wood of Yorkshire walking to a meeting at Dewsbury in 1804, 'I set out from home ye 15th. of ye. 1st. Mo. 1804 and 1st. day of the week, about 10 o clock in the forenoon being accompanied this journey by Frances Field my housekeeper. We went by Shelley, Roydhouse and Briestfield, to Dewsbury were we got betwixt 3 and 4 o.clock in the afternoon, having called to rest us twice by the way and got some refreshment we brought with us from home The roads were extremely bad and difficult owing to the very heavy rains which had lately fallen, and when we got near Dewsbury the river was much out so that in one place we should have had to have waded up to the knee had not a man kindly let us through his mill, and in another place the water was upwards of a yard deep in the road for a considerable way so that we were obliged to go through the fields on higher ground.'

Joseph Wood

Journeys of different kinds have always been an integral part of Quakerism and physical journeys can still help to develop our own and others’ spiritual journeys. We do not necessarily have to feel a concern to travel in the ministry or ask or a minute from our meeting.  Visiting Friends and attending meeting for worship when away from home for our work or when on holiday can also lead to a greater understanding of both the  variety among the wider Quaker family and also the similarity of many of our concerns.  Sharing our experiences when we return to our own meeting can also strengthen our home community.