The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as the Britain Yearly Meeting (and, until 1995, the London Yearly Meeting), is a
Yearly Meeting of the
Religious Society of Friends (
Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.
History
First Quaker meetings in Britain (1654–1672)
Britain Yearly Meeting, which until 1995 was known as London Yearly Meeting, grew out of various national and regional meetings of Friends in the 1650s and 1660s and has met annually in some form since 1668. The first meeting of Friends from different parts of Britain to be organised was at
Balby
Balby is a civil parish and suburb of Doncaster in the City of Doncaster district in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Balby is within the Doncaster Central constituency and contains the electoral ward ...
in
Yorkshire in 1656. This consisted of representatives from meetings in
Yorkshire,
Lincolnshire,
Derbyshire and
Nottinghamshire "to consider of such things as might (in the Truth's behalf) be propounded unto them; and to enquire into the cause and matter of disorder, if any be."
The Quaker
book of discipline
A Book of Discipline (or in its shortened form Discipline) is a book detailing the beliefs, standards, doctrines, canon law, and polity of a particular Christian denomination. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned ...
, ''
Quaker Faith and Practice
A Book of Discipline may refer to one of the various books issued by a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, setting out what it means to be a Quaker in that Yearly Meeting. The common name for this book varies from one Yearly Mee ...
'':
We may think of that at Swannington in 1654 or Balby in 1656 (the postscript to whose lengthy letter of counsel is so much better known than the letter itself) or Skipton the same year, or the general meeting for the whole nation held at Beckerings Park, the Bedfordshire home of John Crook, for three days in May 1658, and attended by several thousand Friends. This in some ways might be considered the first Yearly Meeting were it not for the fact that the 1660s, through persecution and pestilence, saw breaks in annual continuity. The meeting in May 1668 was followed by one at Christmastime, which lasted into 1669, since when the series has been unbroken. It is 1668, therefore, that we have traditionally chosen as the date of establishment of London Yearly Meeting. But many (though not all) of the meetings up to 1677 were select, that is, confined to "publick" (or ministering) Friends: from 1678 they were representative rather than select in character.[Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain (2014). ''Quaker Faith & Practice']
6.01
Fifth edition
Seventeenth century
Establishment of Yearly Meetings (1672)
In 1660 was a meeting which was attended by representatives from Friends from the whole of Britain. At this meeting it was decided that an annual "General Assembly of the Brethren" be held in London annually, the first being held in Fifth Month (May) 1661. For various reasons, this meeting was not held every year, although there has been a national annual meeting of some sort in Britain every year since 1668.
At the "General Meeting of Friends for the Nation" in 1672, it was decided that there would be a:
Generall Meeting of friends held in London once a yeare in the week called Whisun week to consist of six friends for the Citty of London, three for the Citty of Bristoll, two for the Towne of Cochester and one or two from each and every of the Counties of England and Wales respectively (sic)
Minutes are preserved from 1672 which record that this meeting was held in 1673, and from 1674–1677 consisted only of recorded ministers. The Yearly Meeting with representatives from each area as described above was restored in 1678, and has met on an annual basis every year since then.
The end of official persecution in England (1689)
Under
James II of England persecution practically ceased. James issued a
Declaration of Indulgence
The Declaration of Indulgence, also called Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, was a pair of proclamations made by James II of England and Ireland and VII of Scotland in 1687. The Indulgence was first issued for Scotland on 12 February and t ...
in 1687 and 1688, and it was widely held that
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
had been its author.
In 1689 the
Toleration Act was passed. It allowed for freedom of conscience and prevented persecution by making it illegal to disturb anybody else from worship. Thus British Quakerism became tolerated though still not widely understood or accepted and were instead identified in
English and Welsh law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
Principal elements of English law
Although the common law has, historically, be ...
as a dissenting group.
From almost the very beginning of the movement in the middle seventeenth century, Quakers became notable in the popular imagination not merely for their radical religious ideas and seemingly peculiar social habits but also for their legendary willingness to be jailed or punished for their beliefs.
Eighteenth century
During the first full century of Quakerism, Quakers underwent a transformation from enemies of the Church of England to quiet pursuit of inward faith. Responding to the struggles and persecution of the seventeenth century, Friends insisted on pursuing a practice of "peculiarity" to protect Quaker communities. This often meant that the business of monthly meetings was taken up with incidents of "outside marriage" and Friends who had chosen a path upon which to "walk disorderly". Women were entitled to remain single or choose to defer marriage and according to James Jenkins' records of the time, Quakers recognised the presence of a "call" or "service in all" that existed "beyond their function in family". This parity of roles may have led to a higher rate of literacy for Quaker women than for women in Britain at large during the eighteenth century. Employment and civil rights were a major Quaker concern during this period.
John Bellers
John Bellers (1654 – 8 February 1725) was an English educational theorist and Quaker, author of ''Proposals for Raising a College of Industry of All Useful Trades and Husbandry'' (1695).
Life
Bellers was born in London, the son of the Quake ...
, a Fellow of the Royal Society and educational theorist called for "the rich to take care of the poor and their education" and in his 1714 text, ''About the Improvement of Physick'' advocated for a national system of hospitals to treat the poor and train doctors, a precursor to the
National Health Service.
Throughout the century there were a significant number of Quakers who travelled as missionaries to Europe, the Americas, and Africa. Quaker missionaries from England were supported spiritually, financially, and logistically by London Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting "routinely funded" transatlantic crossings for Quaker ministers to Pennsylvania. However, within British society this period is marked as an "inward" era – more commonly known as the Quietist period (a reference to early
Christian Quietists). Influenced by Quietists such as
Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon,
Francois Fenelon, and
Miguel de Molinos
Miguel de Molinos (baptised 29 June 1628 – 29 December 1696) was a Spanish mystic, the chief representative of the religious revival known as Quietism.
Biography
He was born in 1628 near Muniesa (Teruel), in Aragon, a village around south o ...
, the spiritual practices of nonviolence and inward nourishment resonated with Quaker testimony and significant numbers of Friends adopted plain dress and a "concern against ostentation".
Yearly Meeting for Women (1784–1907)
Participation in
Yearly Meeting was originally limited to men but in 1784, the Yearly Meeting for Women was established, which corresponded with equivalent Yearly Meetings for Women abroad, and corresponded with the Monthly Meetings for Women and Quarterly Meetings for Women in Britain. In 1898, London Yearly Meeting produced a minute stating that:
in future, women Friends are to be recognized as forming a constituent part of all our Meetings for Church Affairs equally with their brethren
and since then women have had an equal right to attend London Yearly Meeting. The Yearly Meeting for Women was laid down in 1907.
Nineteenth century
The actions of British Quakers in the nineteenth century can be characterised by political activism (political and philanthropic), social reform, and
industry
Industry may refer to:
Economics
* Industry (economics), a generally categorized branch of economic activity
* Industry (manufacturing), a specific branch of economic activity, typically in factories with machinery
* The wider industrial sector ...
. The society underwent a number of changes and series of revisions to the Quietist method which ultimately led to the breakaway denominations of
Hicksite
Elias Hicks (March 19, 1748 – February 27, 1830) was a traveling Quaker minister from Long Island, New York. In his ministry he promoted unorthodox doctrines that led to controversy, which caused the second major schism within the Religious Soc ...
, Gurneys, White Quakers, Waterites, and Fritchley General Meeting. London Yearly Meeting in the nineteenth century was a central base for political activity, allowing individual Quakers to "distribute doctrine and ideas" supported by the centrally managed Yearly Meeting based at
Devonshire House. A significant number of Quakers began to take seats in Parliament during the nineteenth century. Amongst them,
Joseph Pease Joseph Pease may refer to:
* Joseph Pease (railway pioneer) (1799–1872), railway owner, first Quaker elected Member of Parliament
** Sir Joseph Pease, 1st Baronet (1828–1903), MP 1865–1903, full name Joseph Whitwell Pease, son of Joseph Pease ...
,
John Bright
John Bright (16 November 1811 – 27 March 1889) was a British Radical and Liberal statesman, one of the greatest orators of his generation and a promoter of free trade policies.
A Quaker, Bright is most famous for battling the Corn Law ...
,
Fowell Buxton
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet (1 April 1786Olwyn Mary Blouet, "Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, first baronet (1786–1845)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., May 201accessed 25 April 20 ...
,
John Ellis,
Edmund Backhouse, and
Charles Gilpin. Bright was a vocal opponent to the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, the Quaker
peace testimony
Peace testimony, or testimony against war, is a shorthand description of the action generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) for peace and against participation in war. Like other Quaker testimonies, it is not a "b ...
a central part of his pacifism and campaign, beginning a thirty-year tenure as the
MP for
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
from 1857–1885. Fowell Buxton was a prolific campaigner for the abolition of slavery, founding the
Anti-Slavery Society with
Joseph Pease (younger) in 1823 and becoming leader of the abolition movement following
William Wilberforce in 1825. Joseph Pease served as the president of the
Peace Society
The Peace Society, International Peace Society or London Peace Society originally known as the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace, was a pioneering British pacifist organisation that was active from 1816 until the 1930s.
Hi ...
for twelve years alongside the Quaker scientist and philanthropist
William Allen.
In 1818 on capital punishment Yearly Meeting was not merely preoccupied with introspective consideration of the state of the Society: it sought to awaken the public conscience. A statement in 1856 on liberty of conscience was translated into half a dozen languages and taken by deputations of concerned Friends to ecclesiastics and statesmen from Madrid to St Petersburg.
Fritchley General Meeting (1868)
Fritchley
Fritchley is a small village in Derbyshire south of Crich and north of Ambergate. It falls under the civil parish of Crich. To the west of the village is the ruin of a windmill. Fritchley has an active Congregational Church, and there is a Quake ...
Meeting in Derbyshire split off from London Yearly Meeting in 1868 because they felt that London Yearly Meeting was becoming too
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual exper ...
in its outlook.
They also objected to Friends in London Yearly Meeting stopping the practices of plain speech and
plain dress.
They therefore established Fritchley General Meeting as a self-proclaimed Yearly Meeting for
Conservative Friends
Conservative Friends are members of a certain branch of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). In the United States of America, Conservative Friends belong to three Yearly Meetings, Ohio, North Carolina, and Iowa. English Friends affiliated wi ...
in Britain, which existed as a separate
Yearly Meeting entirely independent of London Yearly Meeting, until 1968. Friends from
Bournbrook
Bournbrook is an industrial and residential district in southwest Birmingham, England, in both the Selly Oak Council Ward and the Parliamentary District of Selly Oak. Prior to what is commonly termed the Greater Birmingham Act, which came in ...
in Birmingham also joined with Fritchley Friends for a few years, before emigrating to
Saskatchewan in Canada.
The separation was healed in 1968 with Fritchley Meeting rejoining London Yearly Meeting. Fritchley Quaker Meeting is now a full member of Britain Yearly Meeting, with a variety of theological outlooks amongst its membership.
Twentieth century
Meetings outside London
In the twentieth century, Yearly Meetings started to be held outside London, namely in Leeds in 1905; in Birmingham in 1908; in Manchester in 1912; in Llandrindrod Wells in 1924; in Scarborough in 1925; in Manchester in 1926; in Bristol in 1937; In York in 1941 and in 1942. in Edinburgh in 1948. In 1945, London Yearly Meeting produced a minute stating that the Yearly Meeting should be held in Eighth Month (August) outside London every four years. These four-yearly meetings, which have become known as "Residential Yearly Meetings" have been held in Exeter in 1986; in Aberdeen in 1989; in Coventry in 1993; in Aberystwyth in 1997; in Exeter in 2001; in York in 2005; in York again in 2009; and in Canterbury in 2011.
London Yearly Meeting in 1994 decided on a change of name to "The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain" in 1994, with the short form being "Britain Yearly Meeting". This name change came into effect at the start of 1995.
Organisational structure
Britain Yearly Meeting is the name used to refer to both the Yearly Meeting of Quakers and the central organisation of Quakers in Britain, based in
Friends House
Friends House is a multi-use building at 173 Euston Road in Euston, central London, that houses the central offices of British Quakers. The building is also the principal venue for North West London Meeting and the Britain Yearly Meeting
The ...
, London. Britain Yearly Meeting is the national organisation of
Quakers in Britain. Its membership consists of the members of all
Area Meetings in England, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands. Any member of Britain Yearly Meeting is entitled to attend the Yearly Meeting gathering.
The national work of Quakers in Britain is undertaken by
Meeting for Sufferings and four central standing committees. The committees are composed of representatives from Meetings throughout Britain. This correspondence and representation means that Quakers in Britain can have unified response on major issues. The central work of Meeting for Sufferings and the standing committees is supported by the staff of Britain Yearly Meeting who work from
Friends House
Friends House is a multi-use building at 173 Euston Road in Euston, central London, that houses the central offices of British Quakers. The building is also the principal venue for North West London Meeting and the Britain Yearly Meeting
The ...
(Euston),
Edinburgh,
Swarthmoor Hall
Swarthmoor Hall is a mansion at Swarthmoor, in the Furness area of Cumbria, North West England. Furness was formerly part of Lancashire. The Hall was home to Thomas and Margaret Fell, the latter an important player in the founding of the Religiou ...
and Vibrancy teams whose work covers large areas of Britain.
Central committees
There are committees set up to deal with particular issues, including long running committees consisting of representatives from all over Britain:
Meeting for Sufferings,
Quaker Life
Quaker Life is a central department of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, the national organisation of Quakers in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Its work is to develop ...
and
Quaker Peace and Social Witness.
Meeting for Sufferings
Meeting for Sufferings is a national representative committee which deals with decisions which need to be made on a national basis for the Yearly Meeting during the year whilst Yearly Meeting is not in session. It has two representatives from each
Area Meeting in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The General Meeting for Scotland is a member of the ecumenical organisation
Action of Churches Together in Scotland
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
.
Standing Committees
Britain Yearly Meeting currently has four standing committees who carry out work at a national level on behalf of Friends in Britain. Each have representative committees of Friends appointed by
Meeting for Sufferings, and accountable to British Yearly Meeting trustees, to oversee the work, as well as a paid secretariat who carry out the day-to-day work of each department:
*
Quaker Life
Quaker Life is a central department of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, the national organisation of Quakers in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Its work is to develop ...
Central Committee deals with the running of Quaker meetings within Britain, including outreach work within Britain, education and development for Quakers in Britain, activities for children and young people.
*
Quaker Peace and Social Witness deals with Quakers' peace and development work, both in Britain and overseas.
*Quaker World Relations Committee maintains contact with other yearly meetings and with Friends World Committee for Consultation and its Europe & Middle East Section to which Britain Yearly Meeting is affiliated.
*Quaker Committee on Christian and Interfaith Relations deals with relationships between Quakers and other Christian and faith groups.
Britain Yearly Meeting assembles and publishes a
book of discipline
A Book of Discipline (or in its shortened form Discipline) is a book detailing the beliefs, standards, doctrines, canon law, and polity of a particular Christian denomination. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned ...
, which since 1995 has been known as ''
Quaker faith & practice''. In 2018, Britain Yearly Meeting decided to revise Quaker faith & practice.
Yearly meeting
Before 2009, three out of four yearly meetings of BYM were held at Friends House over one of the May bank holiday weekends, and once every four years a week-long Residential Meeting was held in the summer. In a change to this practice, the first Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) was held in York in 2009, with the 2010 Yearly Meeting being held at Friends House in
London on May. The second YMG was held in Canterbury in 2011. A new three-year rotation has been established with Yearly Meetings being held two years running at Friends House, and the third year as a residential YMG.
All types of issues are discussed in the standard fashion of
Quaker decision making. Among several lectures over the gathering, one of the highlights is known as the
Swarthmore Lecture, relating to issues concerning Quakers. There is also an
under 19's programme, with activities tailored to each age group.
Events for young Quakers
Under 19s Programme
The Under 19s Programme is held during the annual Britain Yearly Meeting and is attended by young Quakers aged 0 to 19, with appropriate age grouping (i.e. 0–3,...,15–18). The programme aims to provide young Friends with an insight to Quaker beliefs and values, as well as providing a safe environment for relationship building within the society.
Junior Yearly Meeting
Junior Yearly Meeting, commonly known as "JYM", is an event for young Quakers aged 14 to 18. The annual event is normally held around the Easter holidays at the Pioneer Centre in Kidderminster, and coincides biennially with Yearly Meeting Gathering in late July. It acts as a stepping stone for the transition from the Under 19s Programme into the Society of Friends.
Relationship with international Friends
Britain Yearly Meeting participates in the international
Religious Society of Friends through the
Friends World Committee for Consultation. Britain Yearly Meeting also contributes a large portion of the
Quaker United Nations Office
The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) is a non-governmental organisation representing the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) at the United Nations in Geneva and New York City. Parent bodies of QUNO are the Friends World Committee for Consult ...
budget, through
Quaker Peace and Social Witness.
Communications between Yearly Meetings take the form of
epistles. Formerly these would be indvidiually addressed to other Yearly Meetings, but now epistles are posted online by the
Friends World Committee for Consultation. Quakers are a highly decentralized denomination with a great degree of diversity in beliefs and practices. Britain Yearly Meeting worships in a way that is most similar to
Ireland,
Canada,
Australia and US meetings affiliated with the
Friends General Conference characterized by
unprogrammed worship and
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and ...
to
universalist theology.
See also
*
Book of Discipline
A Book of Discipline (or in its shortened form Discipline) is a book detailing the beliefs, standards, doctrines, canon law, and polity of a particular Christian denomination. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned ...
*
Friends House
Friends House is a multi-use building at 173 Euston Road in Euston, central London, that houses the central offices of British Quakers. The building is also the principal venue for North West London Meeting and the Britain Yearly Meeting
The ...
*
George Fox
*
Junior Young Friends
*
List of Quakers
*
Margaret Fell
*
Meeting for Sufferings
*
Quaker Life
Quaker Life is a central department of the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, the national organisation of Quakers in England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Its work is to develop ...
*
Quaker Peace and Social Witness
*
Swarthmoor Hall
Swarthmoor Hall is a mansion at Swarthmoor, in the Furness area of Cumbria, North West England. Furness was formerly part of Lancashire. The Hall was home to Thomas and Margaret Fell, the latter an important player in the founding of the Religiou ...
*
Swarthmore Lecture
*
Szechwan Yearly Meeting
*
Young Friends General Meeting
References
External links
Britain Yearly Meeting(Official Website)
Quaker Fellowship in ChristQuaker Faith and Practice(Online)
{{Authority control
Quakerism in the United Kingdom
Quaker yearly meetings
Quakerism in England
1660 establishments in England
Annual events in the United Kingdom
Quakerism in Scotland
Quakerism in Wales