Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 18 - I for Isaac Crewdson

Kendal Quaker Meeting House

Isaac Crewdson was born in Kendal in 1780, the fourth child in a family of seven sons and two daughters. His parents, Thomas Crewdson and Cicely Dillworth were both from established Quaker families and Isaac was brought up strictly according to traditional Quaker ways and doctrines.

Isaac Crewdson

Isaac went into the prosperous family cotton business and in 1803 married Elizabeth Jowitt of Leeds and settled at Ardwick, Manchester. They had two children, a son who died in infancy and a daughter Margaret. Isaac was a prominent member of Hardshaw East Monthly Meeting and was recorded as a minister by them. Isaac was therefore at the centre of a close family and Quaker network where he might have remained, prosperous and comfortable, had it not been for troubling influences coming from America and from his own convictions.

Elias Hicks

A controversy had arisen among American Quakers between traditional 'Quietist' Friends who stressed the primacy of the Inward Light and Evangelical Friends who gave more weight to the authority of the Bible and to justification by faith in Christ. One party of traditional Friends were led by Elias Hicks of New York and in  time came to be known as Hicksites, while the other party were called Orthodox Friends. In America there were serious divisions and splits between the parties.

Isaac became convinced that the evangelical position was right and he was not alone in this. However his views gradually became more extreme. Joseph John Gurney, an influential Evangelical, says that around 1832 he remembered 'telling my friend Isaac Crewdson...that he and I had started our race from opposite points, had met, and crossed on the road.'

In 1835 Isaac published a pamphlet, A Beacon to the Society of Friends. This book was a systematic refutation of writings by Elias Hicks, couched in extreme terms which only served to polarise positions. In Isaac's view scriptural authority and authority derived from the Inward Light could not co-exist and he characterised the latter, upon which most of early Quakerism was based, as 'a delusive notion'.

Manchester Mount Street meeting house

The Beacon pamphlet precipitated serious disagreement and conflict among Friends. Even some of those who took an evangelical position themselves felt, like J.J. Gurney, that Crewdson was going too far and they tried to silence him rather than answer his published arguments. Some even burned his pamphlet rather than read it themselves or allow others to see it. In Manchester many Friends were reduced to tears by the debate and quite a few saw Isaac's treatment as persecution, even if they did not agree with him. Lancashire Quarterly Meeting did not know how to proceed so they appealed to Yearly Meeting. It appointed a committee to restore unity, a difficult task which they failed to accomplish. The committee, which contained several noted evangelicals including Joseph John Gurney, would not condemn Crewdson's doctrine but counselled him for 'practical' reasons first to withdraw his pamphlet and then to suspend his ministry - both of which he refused to do.

The next step was inevitable. In Manchester in1836 Isaac Crewdson and his wife, along with some fifty others, many of them members of his family, resigned from the Society of Friends. Families were painfully divided by the controversy and people were forced to take sides. There were other resignations, amounting to around 400 in all, in meetings throughout the country which included about 100 Friends in Kendal (one third of the meeting).

Isaac Crewdson in 1840

As part of their move away from traditional Quakerism many Beaconites felt that scripture required them to undergo water-baptism. Isaac was baptised and then officiated at several baptisms undertaken privately in the homes of sympathisers. Together with his brother-in-law William Boulton he founded a separate group who called themselves 'Evangelical Friends' but were generally known by Quakers and others as Beaconites, after Isaac's pamphlet. They first met for worship on 18 September 1836 at an infant school before opening their 600-seat chapel nearby in Grosvenor Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester on 17 December 1837. Here Isaac and William officiated and celebrated the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Evangelical Friends held a Yearly Meeting echoing the style of the official Quaker Yearly Meeting in London in 1837 and for a short while published a monthly journal The Inquirer.

Map of the Dissenters Cemetery

The controversy had a devastating effect on Isaac Crewdson's life. Because of the rifts in his own family he was obliged to retire from business and his health broke down. He died at Bowness near Lake Windermere, where he had gone hoping for a cure, on 8 May 1844 aged sixty four and was buried in the Dissenters Cemetery at Rusholme Road in Manchester (now Gartside Gardens) near his home.  The Beaconites did not flourish and their chapel, which was sparsely attended, was sold to the Baptists in 1844, the same year that Isaac died. Many of those who had resigned from the Society of Friends with Isaac moved on to join the Church of England. A substantial number joined the Plymouth Brethren and brought Quaker simplicity of worship to that movement.   


Perhaps if Isaac had not gone to such extremes in his views and expressed them so uncompromisingly or if the reaction to what he said had not degenerated into personal attack then a separation might not have taken place. After all at this time Evangelicalism was on its way to becoming the new orthodoxy for British Quakers. However it was perhaps the shattering effect of this comparatively small separation that held British Quakers back from fragmenting in the way that American Quakers did at this time.

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 17 - I for Image

Q for Quaker by William Nicholson 1898

For a group so concerned with simplicity and plainness, Quakers have been surprisingly concerned about their image over the years. Friends could be disowned if they acted in ways that were perceived as bringing the reputation of the Society of Friends into disrepute. Friends' testimony for simplicity meant that they were not supposed to pay too much attention to how they looked or to fashion but in practice this led to a kind of uniformity, a 'Quaker grey' that was increasingly policed. Quakers dressed, spoke and acted in ways that set them apart from the rest of Society and to outsiders they sometimes appeared intimidatingly serious and lacking any sense of humour.

Present day Quaker Oats logo

First image of 'Quaker Oats man'

Of course one of the most iconic Quaker images, the Quaker Oats man, has absolutely no connection with the Religious Society of Friends. He was created to embody the perceived honesty and straightforwardness of Quakers and to associate these qualities with the products he advertised. The first image used is reminiscent of portraits of William Penn but the latest incarnation is jolly and smiling - not the older image of a Quaker at all.There are other examples of this advertising association, such as Quaker Maid motor oil which uses the image of a demure young girl in a Quaker cap to tell buyers that their product is pure.

Nowadays the image of a Quaker is often that of a campaigner for peace, equality or the environment. Quakers are seen as 'good people' if perhaps rather naive. I worry about the condescension of this view and would rather ally myself with the message of the recent outreach posters produced for Quaker Week in the UK - here are a wide range of people who are all Quakers whether they fit the Quaker image or not!

Quaker Alphabet Blog Week 16 - H for Lucy Violet Hodgkin Holdsworth

Violet's father Thomas Hodgkin

Lucy Violet Hodgkin came from a long line of Quaker ancestors. She was born in 1869 in Northumberland, the eldest of the six children of Thomas and Lucy Fox Hodgkin. Her father was a prominent Friend, co-founder of the Quaker bank of Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence, later amalgamated with Lloyds Bank, and an eminent historian. Lucy Violet was her father’s favourite and shared his love of literature. As she said later, 'He and I lived our real life in the book world.' By the age of ten she was reading his proofs and seemed much older than her brothers and sisters. Her sister Lily wrote, 'In one way Violet was like an only child, it was "Violet and the children" always.'

When she was eleven Violet had a bout of scarlet fever which left her with increasing deafness. Cures were sought but in vain and by 1895 she had no hearing at all. Although she had episodes of despair she learned to lip-read very well and spoke out clearly. Her whole manner was regal and this was accentuated by her commanding stature and by the large hats and long dresses that she always wore.

Violet with her parents in 1911

Violet was educated at home and remained there as a companion to her parents who were very protective of her. In 1894 her engagement to Malcolm Powell was broken off as a result of family pressure. They felt that someone who, although charming, was also mentally unstable was not the right husband for Violet, but she did not forget her first love. When, ten years later, he married someone else she noted in her diary, ‘Wednesday 11 May 1904, Malcolm’s wedding day and not mine.’

The Hodgkin family were wealthy and often travelled in Europe but in 1909 they undertook a longer voyage ‘under concern’ to Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand they stayed with John Holdsworth and his wife Margaret at their house 'Swarthmoor'. Violet was deeply affected by her experience there of silent worship in an ecumenical atmosphere at meetings held at the Church in Havelock North by a group which included Friends, Theosophists and the Anglican minister.

The Holdsworth home Swarthmoor

Like many birthright Friends Violet felt that she had become involved in Quakerism without making a conscious choice and in New Zealand she found a setting for the more mystical spiritual expression that she was reaching for. When she returned to England she pursued this side of her faith and was eventually recorded as a minister in 1915. Throughout the years her ministry was marked by a catholic spirit and by directness, simplicity and depth. In 1919 she gave the Swarthmore lecture on Silent Worship; the way of wonder.

George Lloyd Hodgkin in 1911

In 1913 the Hodgkin family moved from Northumberland to Cornwall but very soon after they had done so Thomas Hodgkin died. Violet felt his loss very keenly, as she also did that of her favourite brother George who died of dysentery while engaged in relief work in Armenia in 1918. She found consolation in her work as a writer and began to publish historical and religious subjects. Her retelling of Quaker stories for young people A Book of Quaker Saints was published in 1917 and many other books and articles followed.

Writing was one way in which Violet could communicate and counter her deafness. Another way was through art. She was an avid watercolour painter, making opportunities everywhere she went to settle down to sketching, complete with umbrella, easel and stool. She would sometimes give ‘sketch shows’, displaying her paintings and talking about them.

In 1922 New Zealand came back into Violet’s life in the shape of John Holdsworth who was on a visit to England. His wife had died in 1920 and the friendship between him and Violet soon developed to the point where they decided to marry. He was 72 and she was 55 when the wedding took place in Cornwall. The couple went back to New Zealand but Violet was not used to running a household without servants and had to learn even how to boil and egg. She was made welcome by John’s daughter Beatrice but felt uncomfortable taking the place of John’s first wife in her own home. Eventually, after several voyages back and forth, John and Violet settled in England for good in 1928.

Illustration from A Book of Quaker Saints by F. Cayley-Robinson

Violet enjoyed the companionship of her husband and of her growing family of nieces and nephews. After John died in 1935 her quiet life continued, welcoming guests to her beautiful home near Falmouth and maintaining contact with a wide circle of Friends through a correspondence which grew year by year. She also continued writing into her eighties, meaning to ‘retire’ and then finding another subject to absorb her. One of her nephews remembers how important ‘the book world’ was still for her. 'Her drawing room was always full of new books including review copies. She would introduce you to them like guests at a party, with an affectionate pat for the good ones and a noise of disgust for bad ones.'

Lucy Violet Hodgkin Holdsworth led the life of the mind that her father had introduced her to, but also found affection and happiness when she had ceased to look for it. Her deafness closed some doors to her but opened others and she always welcomed new experiences and people into her life. She died in Cornwall in 1954 at the age of 85.