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 - C for Annie Elizabeth Clark

Annie Clark was born in 1844, fifth of the twelve children of James and Eleanor Clark of Street, Somerset. Annie's father was one of the founders of the firm C & J Clark and it was his idea to make slippers out of the offcuts left from the sheepskin rugs which were the original goods made by the firm. These proved so popular that the business switched to producing them and later other types of shoe.

The Clark family dressed in 'free-labour' cotton in 1858. James and Eleanor (1st and 3rd from left), Annie (8th from left).

Annie was educated privately at a girl's school in Bath and then lived at home, taking her full share in the work and duties necessary to her large family circle. Her mother was active in good causes, supporting the Abolition movement by selling and dressing her family in 'free-labour' cotton, produced by freed slaves. Annie did social service among the girls employed in the family factory, worked for the Bible Society and espoused the cause of temperance. From the mid 1860s she was an ardent supporter of Womens Suffrage, although in common with most Quaker women of her time she was a suffragist rather than a suffragette, seeking to advance the cause through argument rather than through confrontation.

It was not until Annie was in her late twenties that she began to study for a university entrance examination with a view to taking up a medical career. At that time no hospital or medical school in England would admit women as students. There was however an open door in Scotland at Edinburgh and Annie Clark was one of the small band of women students who entered. Their only possible route to qualification was by way of the licentiate examination of the Society of Apothecaries.

Sophia Jex-Blake

Suddenly, in 1874, the hospital authorities changed their policy, deciding that women should no longer be permitted to share in the teaching, and at the end of that year they were obliged to leave. Sophia Jex-Blake, who had been a pioneer at Edinburgh in 1869, organised the Women's School of Medicine in London and Annie Clark went there. It was, however, still impossible for a woman to obtain a medical degree from any British university, so Annie was compelled to turn to Europe and to pursue her studies in a foreign language. She selected the University of Berne, which was German speaking, and after a two-year course she took her MD in 1877.

It was still impossible for her to practice in the British Isles but just then Dublin adopted a more liberal view and she and twelve other women took the membership examination of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland. Annie then spent some time in postgraduate work in Paris, Vienna and America before returning to England in 1878 to take up an appointment as house surgeon at the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for Women which had just moved to extended premises in Yardley. She remained associated with this hospital and with the Children's Hospital for the rest of her working life. She also built up a large private practice, gaining to a special degree the friendship and regard of  a wide circle of patients, to whom she was affectionately known as 'Dr Annie'.

Hilda Clark

The causes she had worked for when she was young remained important to her throughout her life. Annie Clark was convinced that the scientific truth about alcohol showed that its use as a drug was harmful. She recognised it as a depressant which lessened the chance of recovery in dangerous illness and so, in defiance of much criticism, she refused to order alcoholic treatment, a pioneering stance at the time. She also continued to support the suffragist movement in different ways and encouraged younger women, including Hilda Clark, her niece, and Maida Sturge, her cousin, to follow her into the medical profession.


Quakerism was always an important part of Annie's life. She was described as 'an earnest Friend, laying stress on the value of regular attendance at meetings for worship and discipline. Except in cases of urgent necessity she never saw her patients until the hour of worship was over'.

Maida Sturge

Annie Clark was nearly seventy years old when she retired in 1913. For many years travelling was one of her greatest pleasures and she made frequent journeys to Switzerland and the Tyrol. In 1920 her cousin Maida Sturge had set up a Birmingham Children's Home in the healthy air of the Tyrol and it is possible that Annie Clark took as much of an interest in that as she did in the rarer alpine flowers that were always an absorbing delight to her. She died in 1924 in her eightieth year.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 37 - S for Thomas Shillitoe

Thomas Shillitoe

Thomas Shillitoe was born in Holborn, London, in February 1754, the son of Richard  and Frances Shillitoe, both members of the established church. Richard was employed as librarian to Grays Inn but when Thomas was twelve his father moved the family to Islington where he took over the running of the Three Tuns public house. Here Thomas was exposed to much temptation and bad company but the venture failed and the family returned to Grays Inn.

Thomas was apprenticed to a grocer at the age of sixteen but his master drank and the business failed. Finding another sober master Thomas settled down and began to attend Friends' meetings, a move which enraged his father, and, when he adopted plain dress and plain speech, was not acceptable to his master either. Thomas left his situation and hoped to live with his parents but, as he reports, his father soon told him "he would rather follow me to my grave, than I should have gone amongst the Quakers; and he was determined I should quit his house that day week, and turn out and 'quack' amongst those I had joined myself in profession with."

Gracechurch Street Meeting

At the last moment Friends found Thomas a situation in a bank where most of the clerks were Quakers. He prospered as a Friend and became a member of Gracechurch Street meeting, but his faith still brought him to uncomfortable choices. Even though some Friends advised against it, he left his job at the bank because of his conscientious scruples about buying lottery tickets for clients and trained instead as a shoemaker and tailor. Although Thomas did well at his new trade his health was not good so in 1778 he left London and moved to Tottenham, then a country village, where he found a welcoming Quaker community and also a wife, Mary Pace.

Thomas Shillitoe was subject throughout his life to severe nervous depression and anxiety. His state of mind could be 'a pit of horrors'  and he says that he was twice confined to his bed from the sudden sight of a mouse. While crossing London Bridge he would run for fear that it would collapse under him. Sometimes, for weeks on end, he believed himself to be a teapot, living in dread of anyone coming near him in case they should break him.

Rural Tottenham in a 19th century painting

Although his health improved when he moved to Tottenham he still consulted doctors about his nervous complaints for another twenty years. These medical men prescribed a diet of beefsteak with a liberal supply of wine and ale at dinner and supper. When Thomas became worse they advised him to smoke and to take spirits and water but the only effect of this was to cause him to lose sleep on top of his other ailments. For this the doctors prescribed ten drops of laudanum a day which quickly became ineffective so they increased the dose little by little until  Thomas was taking 180 drops each night!

Unsurprisingly Thomas's health did not improve and he says, 'I went about day by day frighted by fear of being frighted - a dreadful situation indeed to be living in.' Eventually, around 1800, he decided to turn his back on the doctors, rely entirely on God's help, and give up all his stimulants at once as he had found that gradually changing things did not work. He became a total abstainer and also took no animal food except milk and eggs. His health improved, although he remained of a nervous disposition. He was known for walking everywhere very fast, which may have been a healthier way of releasing his nervous energy.

As his lifestyle changed and his health improved Thomas was able to retire from business in 1806 and
devote himself to his Quaker ministry. He became a tireless campaigner for temperance before many of his fellow Quakers took up the cause and in 1808 and 1811 visited Ireland where he preached against the evils of alcohol in hundreds of whiskey shops.

Drawing of Thomas Shillitoe 1830

He also travelled extensively in the ministry at home and abroad. In 1830 he visited the continent, going to the principal towns of Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Switzerland and France. In every place he visited he went first to the prison and then to the palace and was usually well received in both establishments.

Thomas  delivered several plain-spoken addresses to British monarchs and George IV never forgot his encounter with 'that little Quaker.' Thomas went with Peter Bedford to deliver an address asking for greater public morality to William IV and his Queen. He told the Friends to whom he submitted it for inspection, 'There must be no lowering it as with water, it must be all pure brandy' - an interesting choice of words for a temperance campaigner.

Thomas Shillitoe was described as being 'below the middle height, spare, active...as if made of wire and muscle.' In 1812 he left Tottenham to be near his children, living for some time in Barnsley, Yorkshire and then for eleven years in Hertfordshire. After his continental visits in 1821 and 1825 he went to America for three years from 1826 when he was over seventy. On his return he went back to Tottenham and remained very active, living near the meeting house and regularly attending meetings there until just before his death in 1836 at the age of 82.