The notes below are for the convenience of readers who, after reading one of the quotations that are in this book, would like to know a little about its author. Every effort has been made to present accurate information in brief form, but we realize there may be errors. Please send corrections in writing to the attention of the Publications Service Group, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1515 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1479.
Note that entries are in alphabetical order with years of the person's life when known and then followed by the numbering of the extract(s) by the author which are given as follows: [#000]. Abbreviations include:
Margery Post Abbott gathered a group of women Friends from her own unprogrammed meeting and an Evangelical Friends Church—both in Portland (OR)—to discuss Quaker literature. The anthology she edited, A Certain Kind of Perfection, is one of the fruits of this experience. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College.
Nancy C. Alexander has a special interest in "how religion, psychology and politics converge to change hearts and societies." She has worked in conflict resolution as applied to energy and environmental policies and served as a lobbyist for FCNL.
Margaret Hope Bacon is a Quaker author and historian who wrote Mothers of Feminism and biographies of Henry Cadbury and Lucretia Mott. Much of her research and writing were done while she was holding down a full-time job in the public relations department of AFSC.
Robert Barclay (1648-1690) with the advantage of a good education—part Presbyterian and part Catholic—at the Scottish College in Paris, was able to write the famous Apology which first organized Quaker beliefs in a theological format. Barclay felt that, in his own time, God had "chosen a few despicable and unlearned instruments, as He did fishermen of old, to publish His pure and naked Truth, and to free it of these mists and fogs wherewith the clergy had fogged it."
Elizabeth Bathurst (1655-1685) traveled widely in the ministry in England in the seven years between becoming a Quaker and her death. Her theological work Truth's Vindication had almost disappeared until it was republished in Hidden in Plain Sight: Quaker Women's Writings 1650-1700 (Pendle Hill, 1996).
John Bellers (1654-1725) was a reformer who proposed—alas, with little success—workingmen's colleges, rehabilitation of prisoners rather than capital punishment, peaceful settlement of international disputes, and the investment of private capital in community betterment. His motives were religious, but he tried to convince others that such policies would lead to greater prosperity for England.
Molly Bishop of Duncan Mills (CA) is a teacher of reading to children who need extra help. She characterizes herself as "a feminist and a Bible reader."
Dorothea Blom (1911-1991) published nine books on design and color before the contemplative temperament and the artist in her converged, yielding a new career emphasizing art as a link between the spiritual life and the outer world. She has taught adults in Quaker and other settings, including six years at Pendle Hill.
Elizabeth Powell Bond (1847-1926) was called matron when she came to work at Swarthmore College in the late 1880s. She eventually became the institution's first dean. Apparently a believer in the goodness of young people and the possessor of an even temperament and a serene religious faith, she became a beloved figure on campus.
George Boobyer (1902-1999) was a Quaker Biblical scholar and head of the Divinity School at Newcastle University in Great Britain until 1967. He served on the committee responsible for the New English Bible translation.
Elise Boulding (1920--- ) has been a sociologist, feminist, envisioner of a peaceful world, and a wise mother of five. She is admired by Friends as a workshop leader and writer. In retirement, she lives in Massachusetts. Her latest project was the founding of Friends Peace Teams.
Kenneth E. Boulding (1910-1993) was born into a working-class family in Liverpool, England. He obtained a scholarship to Oxford and became a world class economist who taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado. A quick-witted "idea man" of abundant originality, he wrote widely on a variety of topics, especially conflict resolution. Friends knew Kenneth as a sincere Christian and a Quaker poet who wrote poems only in the sonnet form (see especially his poems on James Naylor's last words).
Sheila Boyell , a British Friend, wrote a poignant essay in 1988 on a thorny theological problem: if God is love, why do tragic things happen to blameless people? It was occasioned by the crib death of a three-week-old infant.
Samuel Bownas (1676-1753) , a blacksmith's apprentice, became one of the most powerful Quaker ministers. Though he had little schooling, he became thoroughly versed in the scriptures, and was able "by the force of their testimony to confute gainsayers" and deliver his message to multitudes on both sides of the Atlantic.
William Charles Braithwaite (1862-1922) was a British Quaker historian and New Testament scholar. He was the author of The Beginnings of Quakerism and The Second Period of Quakerism.
Howard Brinton (1884-1973) and his wife Anna Cox taught at Earlham and Mills Colleges. In 1938 they went to Pendle Hill, where Howard became director of studies and Anna director for administration. Together they helped define the mission of Pendle Hill as a religious community and retreat center for the study of Quaker mysticism. They began the Pendle Hill pamphlet series and edited 100 of them. Howard wrote the classic Friends for 300 Years.
A. Barret Brown (1887-1947) was principal of Ruskin College at Oxford University. British Friends valued his writing and spoken ministry in spiritual matters.
Thomas S. Brown (1912--- ) has been a Quaker educator who taught Classics, English and religion at Westtown School for 22 years. Decisive and fair-minded, Tom is a master of the Quakerly art of clerking a meeting for business. He has been clerk of everything in sight, including PYM and the general board of Pendle Hill.
Gordon M. Browne (1923--- ) is a writer and teacher of English. He has served as executive secretary of the FWCC, Section of the Americas, and as clerk of New England Yearly Meeting. In the 1950s and 1960s he was instrumental in reviving Quakerism on Cape Cod. He now lives in Hanover (NH).
C. Jocelyn Burnell received her Ph.D. in radio astronomy at Cambridge University where she was involved in the discovery of pulsars. She is chairman of the department of physics in the Open University (Great Britain) and has served as vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society. She is an active member of the Religious Society of Friends and a former clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting.
Edward Burrough (1633-1663) was a young farmer and separatist preacher of Underbarrow near Kendal when convinced by Fox in 1652. Burrough was accounted the greatest Quaker preacher in London. In 1655 he went with fellow-worker Howgill to establish Quakerism in Ireland. He is the best-known early tract writer on Quaker doctrine and politics. Burrough died in Newgate prison. His death was a setback for the young Quaker movement.
Henry J. Cadbury (1883-1974) was among the foremost Biblical scholars of his day. He was the only Quaker in the group of translators who produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Henry Cadbury taught at Haverford College and the Harvard Divinity School. Friends loved him for his dry wit and his immense knowledge of Quaker history. We remember that he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for the AFSC wearing a tuxedo borrowed from its clothing workroom.
Mary Calderone (1904-1998) has been one of the great interpreters of human sexuality. She collected the results of research on sex and shared them in a warm, understanding way. Mary was the first medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and then a founder of SIECUS (Sex Information and Educational Council of the U.S.). She served this organization as executive director and president for 18 years. She was a member of Manhasset Monthly Meeting on Long Island (NY).
Mary Capper (1755-1845) was a "convinced Friend" at a time when there were probably not many of these in Britain. She remained faithful all her long life to the decision she made as a young girl to cast her lot with Quakers.
Steve Cary (1915--- ) was a conscientious objector in World War II. He has since devoted his life to Quaker work, especially with the AFSC and Haverford College. He worked at AFSC from 1946-1969 in various positions, ending as associate general secretary, which meant supervising all programs in the United States. In 1969 he became director of development at Haverford College, later serving as acting president for a year and a half. From 1979-1991, he was clerk of the AFSC board.
Corder Catchpool (1883-1952) , a British Friend, was imprisoned as a draft resister during World War I. From then on he devoted himself to peace and reconciliation between peoples, especially in Germany. Always a lover of mountains, he died in his 70th year while climbing Mount Rosa in the Alps.
Elsa Cedergren (1893- ? ) was born a member of the Swedish royal family (Count Bernadotte was her brother). Elsa became sensitized to poverty and injustice and exposed to pacifism through her work and travels for the international YWCA. After joining Friends in 1943 she became caught up in the international work and gatherings of Friends and from 1959-61 was chairman of the Friends World Committee.
Ranjit Chetsingh was secretary/convenor of the General Conference of Friends in India. For sixteen years he was a vice-chairman of the Friends World Committee and was its general secretary in 1954-56. He gave a lifetime of service to adult literacy work in India.
Hilda Clark (1881-1955) was a British medical doctor. During World War I she was an organizer of the Friends War Victims Relief Committee and worked to set up a maternity hospital in France. From 1919-22 she was head of the Friends Relief Mission in Austria and helped to rescue a whole generation of children there from starvation. She had the gift that "lit up sparks in others, and released in them powers they didn't know they possessed."
Martin Cobin (1920-- ) was a professor of Drama who taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Colorado. He served as clerk of the Friends Meeting in Champaign-Urbana. Of Jewish background, he outlined his personal theology in the Pendle Hill pamphlet From Convincement to Conversion. He defined conversion this way: "when you come in contact with God, not as a freak accident, but as an experience you can keep repeating."
Rhoda Coffin (1826-1909) was a Friends minister of the Orthodox branch from Richmond (IN). She was particularly interested in prison reform and the care of the insane.
Stephen Crisp (1628-1692) , though only a prosperous bays* maker from Colchester in England, was among the best educated of the early Friends. After his convincement, he began a series of visits to Holland and Germany - his mother and his second wife were Dutch. Active in London Quaker affairs, he wrote 21 books and tracts. His journal and 5 books of sermons were published posthumously.
*bays (mod. baize) was a type of fabric introduced into England in the 16th century by refugees from Holland and France.
Sandra Cronk (1942--- ) has been a spiritual nurturer, teacher and historian of religions. For ten years, she taught Quaker faith and thought, spiritual life studies, and religious community at Pendle Hill. In 1990 she became a founding member of the School of the Spirit, a ministry of contemplative prayer and religious study.
Jonathan Dale , a social activist, author and birthright Friend, was active in peacework during the Cold War. Latterly, he has felt called to give up his comfortable university life to live very simply in the deprived area of Ordsal (England) and try to put his Quaker social witness into practice.
Kathryn Damiano , as a spiritual director and retreat leader, founded the School of the Spirit (a ministry of contemplative prayer and religious study) with Sandra Cronk. She has also been on the staff at Pendle Hill.
William Dewsbury (1621-1688) was a weaver from Allthorpe in Yorkshire. He had served in the Puritan Army but left it and had reached his own inner experience of Light when he and his wife were won as colleagues by Fox in a moonlight walk in 1651. He preached throughout the Midlands and suffered long imprisonments, including 19 years at Warwick. Wisest of letter writers in counseling, he helped heal the Fox-Naylor split. He was apocalyptic in tracts and thundering sermons.
Shirley Dodson graduated from of the Earlham School of Religion and wrote and edited adult curriculum materials for PYM. She now serves as director of conferences and retreats at Pendle Hill.
Hugh Doncaster (1914-1994) was trained as a natural scientist, but began his career as a social worker among unemployed miners in Wales. Between 1942-64 he taught Quaker history at Woodbrooke, the English Quaker study center for adults. He traveled widely among Friends in England, South Africa and Australia.
Rachel Davis DuBois (1892-1993) was a pioneer in inter-group relations. She developed the Living-room Dialogues method, which may have been the beginning of our present worship-sharing. Originally, she used it with inter-racial groups as an aid to mutual understanding. She later spread the method to the Society of Friends through her Quaker Dialogues which involved sessions on meeting for worship, meeting for business and outreach. With the help of Friends General Conference, Quaker Dialogues were introduced to over 400 groups in the United States, Canada, Mexico and eight European countries.
Barrington Dunbar (1901-1978) was born in British Guyana and educated in the United States. He devoted his life to social work, as the director of settlement houses, camps for refugees, etc. He joined 57th Street Meeting in Chicago and later was active with 15th Street Meeting in New York City. Committed to both black liberation and Quakerism, he explained the Black Power movement to whites as a need to express rage as a step toward self-esteem. Dunbar said that it is easy for Quakers to believe in non-violence because we are insulated from the life that poor people know; noting that we create "beautiful islands which help individuals to develop but often aren't enough concerned with the ugly world outside."
Edgar Dunstan (1890-1963) was for many years a professional journalist. He worked with the Friends Home Service (London) from 1929-52. During those years he was in correspondence with enquirers about Friends' beliefs in many parts of the world. In his Swarthmore Lecture of 1956 (these are traditionally given at London, now Britain, Yearly Meeting and later reprinted) he stated firmly that Quakerism is a Christian religion by tradition and should remain so.
William Durland (1931--- ) is a socially-concerned Friend with a strong interest in international communities. He and his wife Genie are Intermountain Yearly Meeting representatives to the Friends Peace Team Project. At one time, they were on the staff at Pendle Hill. They now are members of Lamb's Community Worship Group in Trinidad (CO).
Joesphine Duvenek (1891-1978) was born to wealth but she devoted her life to education and activist public service. She was founder and director of the Peninsula School of Creative Education in California and a supporter of Cesar Chavez's Agricultural Workers Union. Religiously, she was a mystic who needed to serve others, not retreat from the world.
Melissa Kay Elliott is director of publications of the AFSC and a member of Germantown (PA) Monthly Meeting. She formerly served as associate editor of Friends Journal.
Rosemary Elliott is the wife of a citrus farmer and a member of Eastern Cape Regional Meeting, South Africa Yearly Meeting. She is a participant in many community activities with persons of other religious and racial backgrounds, especially through the Quaker Service Fund, Sunday River Branch.
Jo Farrow is from Arundel in England. For a time, she was a Methodist deaconess. Though a latecomer to the Society of Friends, she became general secretary of Quaker Home Service. The World in my Heart is her spiritual autobiography. She is a feminist and a member of the Quaker Women's Group.
Jenifer Faulkner is a British Friend.
Margaret Fell (1614-1702) was the wife of Judge Thomas Fell of Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston in Lancashire. After meeting with George Fox in 1652 she made her house (with her husband's permission) the center for the Quaker "Publishers of Truth" and became the nursing mother of the new movement. In 1669, eleven years after Judge Fell's death, Margaret Fell married George Fox, though their incessant labours, travels and imprisonments prevented them from living much together at Swarthmoor Hall.
Val Ferguson was for a long time a staff member at the London office of FWCC, including being general secretary from 1986-91. He has also been interim head at Woodbrooke.
Joan Fitch (1908-2001) was active in the Friends Fellowship of Healing. She was a member of Harting Grove Meeting in Cambridge, England. From her writings one learns of a person who overcame tragedy in her personal life and that she had a gift for pastoral care.
Helen Thomas Flexner (1871-1956) was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, where she taught English and was vice-president of the national Collegiate Equal Suffrage League. She is known for her one published book A Quaker Childhood and her ties to others: her husband, pathologist Simon Flexner; her sister, the president of Bryn Mawr; her aunt, evangelist Hannah Whitall Smith; and her friend, Bertrand Russell.
Emilia Fogelklou (1878-1972) was the first woman in Sweden to earn a doctorate in theology. She became a Quaker and devoted her long life to teaching, writing and the support of peace and women's concerns.
Richard Foster is the author of several books, including the best-selling Celebration of Discipline. He has been part of the pastoral team at Newberg Friends Church in Oregon, and taught theology at Friends University in Wichita (KS) and spiritual formation at Azuza Pacific University. He is the founder of RENOVARE, "an effort working for the renewal of the church in all her multifaceted expressions."
Elfrida Vipont Foulds (1902-1992) was a noted British Quaker. Countless Quakers have visited the 1652 country in Northwestern England in her company—either on Quaker pilgrimages she conducted or with her guide book in hand. Many others learned our history through her book The Story of Quakerism (1954, revised 1977) and her writings for young people.
Caroline Fox (1819-1871) with her charm and intelligence won the friendship of the Coleridges, Carlyles and Mills. Her journal is an important source of information about them. She called her form of religion Quaker-Catholicism. Today we might say Quaker Universalism.
George Fox (1624-1691) was a charismatic preacher, strong in prayer and healing, who gathered the first Seekers, survived persecution and, with his wife, Margaret Fell, laid the administrative foundation of the Religious Society of Friends.
Ursula Franklin (1921--- ) is a retired university professor, activist for peace and justice, a feminist and member of Voice of Women. Born in Munich, Germany, she is a materials scientist, specializing in the physics of ancient archeological materials. She gathered and analyzed data on the strontium-90 accumulation in the teeth of Canadian children that was the result of fallout from nuclear weapons tests.
Elizabeth Gurney Fry (1780-1845) was the daughter of a banker and member of a prominent Quaker family. Her conscience was first reached by the American evangelist, William Savery. In 1813 she began visiting women and children in Newgate Prison, London. By 1817 she had established a school and founded a prisoners aid society. Marriage to fellow Quaker Joseph Fry resulted in a family of 10 children, but she continued to travel widely, preaching and visiting in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. After her husband's bankruptcy in 1823 her public activities were curtailed, but she continued her prison visiting and interest in employment schemes for London's poor.
Joan Mary Fry (1862-1955) was active in Friends' work in Germany during World War I and she worried that the large financial and commercial dealings necessary for relief work might be "too heavy a burden for the inner strength of the Society." As chairman of the Friends Allotment Committee, she helped 135,000 people to cultivate garden plots during the Great Depression.
Tom and Liz Gates went with their two young sons to live and work at Friends Hospital at Lugulu in Kenya from 1991-1994. Tom, a family physician, and Liz, a public school teacher, concluded that "Africa is not a joyless place, despite all the hardships and suffering. Most Africans continue to be sustained by traditional loyalties to family, community and God in a way that is hard for us from the individualistic West to fully comprehend ... in our time there we have, in that wonderful old Quaker phrase, been made tender." The Gates now live near Lancaster (PA).
Harvey Gilman for many years did outreach work for Friends Home Service Britain. He is known for his writings on spiritual hospitality and the necessity for welcoming strangers and minorities to our Meetings.
Margaret Glover lives in London, England where she is an artist and peace activist. She attended the Rio summit and is studying for a Ph.D. on Peace Art.
George Gorman (1916- ? ) was the highly successful head of Quaker Home Service for London Yearly Meeting. He produced a striking set of outreach posters and invented the seekers' weekend.
John Ormerod Greenwood (1907-1989) joined the Society of Friends while a student at Cambridge University. His main interests were in the theatre. He was executive secretary of the Group Theatre of London, which presented the plays of Eliot, Auden, Isherwood, etc. Later he was a radio producer at the BBC and for 18 years he taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His Swarthmore Lecture at the 1978 London Yearly Meeting dealt with religion and the arts.
Stephen Grellet (1773-1855) was born of a noble Roman Catholic family in Limoges, France. He fought in a counter-revolutionary army, was taken prisoner and then emigrated to Long Island in the United States. There he had a St. Paul-like conversion experience. He became a Quaker and carried his messages through all grades of society and all parts of the United States and Europe. It was he who inspired Elizabeth Fry to visit Newgate Prison.
Joseph John Gurney (1788-1847) , the son of a baker, affirmed his Quaker heritage but "shared the concerns of Anglican evangelicals for theology, slavery, prisons and the poor." He approved of the doctrine of the atonement and urged Friends to set up Sunday schools and study the Bible. In 1837 Gurney toured the United States where 3,000 heard him preach in Ohio and Indiana. He also went to North Carolina, New England, New York and Canada. Gurney's writings and travels gave strength to Quaker evangelicals during the Hicksite controversy.
Douglas Gwyn (1948--- ) has been a Friends pastor, a teacher, and a scholar in residence at Pendle Hill. He is now on the staff of Woodbrooke in England. Much of his writing has been devoted to exploring the spirit of early Quakerism.
Deborah Haines (1947--- ) coordinated the Centennial observances of FGC in 2000. She was a prime mover at New Swarthmoor, a "Quaker Commune" of the 1970s which was located in a farmhouse near Clinton (NY) that was owned by her parents. Deborah is a professionally-trained historian and a member of Swarthmore Meeting (PA).
T. Edmund Harvey (1875-1955) was born in Leeds, England. "He sat in Parliament about 18 years, which covered both the great wars. There his constant advocacy of magnaminity, justice and peace won him the high regard of men of all opinions. He worked in defense of conscientious objectors to military service, and in relief work for the victims of war....In our meetings his ministry was deeply valued, being simple and personal as well as profound."
Brenda Clift Heales and Chris Cook are now living in Worcester, England and often work at Woodbrooke in Birmingham. Their concern with ministry through the experience of art led them to set up the Appleseed Quaker Ministry; they travelled widely through Britain in a motor home on this concern.
Eva Hermann and her physicist husband Carl (1898-1961) were on the German Quaker list of Vertrauens Leute (Trusted Friends) who could be counted on to help Jews. Before the war, Eva had helped a number of Jews to emigrate and had hidden a Jewish family in her flat for several weeks, although her own father was a Nazi. In 1943 the Hermanns were arrested and charged with listening to the BBC. They were to stay in prison for two years.
Elias Hicks (1748-1830) was a prosperous farmer and recorded minister from Long Island (NY). He visited meetings throughout America but never went abroad. His preaching was eloquent. "To Hicks, the emerging evangelical emphasis upon the authority of Scripture, the Trinity and the atonement seemed to be putting intellectual notions above surrendering self-will to the inward Christ." He encouraged his followers to resist what he viewed as attempts to change the beliefs of Friends and to erect a hierarchy of elders; but he took no role in the maneuverings in PYM which led to the separation of 1827.
David Hodgkin (1914-1977) met his wife Bridget when they both were serving at the Quaker Centre in Vienna in 1939. In 1953 they moved to Australia, where David was on the administrative staff of the Australian National University in Canberra. From 1957 to 1965 he was clerk of Australia Yearly Meeting. In retirement, he was its executive secretary. He said, "Our faith is never in conflict with our reason. This keeps Quakerism a modern and mature religion."
George Lloyd Hodgkin (1880-1918) was described as possessing "a radiant and dedicated spirit." In 1918, leaving a young family behind, Hodgkin set out on his second war-time journey to Armenia on behalf of the lord mayor of London's Armenian Relief Fund. He was taken ill at Baghdad and died there.
Helen Hole (1906-1983) was involved in Quaker education throughout her life as a student, teacher, wife of a teacher, administrator and board member. She served as dean of Earlham College and was a member of the Pendle Hill Board.
Elizabeth Holmgaard is a Danish educator who has worked at Woodbrooke and lived in Africa. She is the author of pamphlets on prayer and is an enthusiastic weaver who was part of the Quaker Tapestry Project. She lives in Selly Oak, England.
Francis Howgill (1618-1669) was a preacher and pamphleteer from the north of England. As one of the "Valiant 60" he carried Quakerism to London and helped organize its spread elsewhere. Falsely accused of political sedition, he was jailed in 1663 and died in prison five years later.
Dorothy Hutchinson (1905-1984) was "a shy person inwardly compelled into a career of obedience." She joined the Society of Friends in 1948. During the war, she had founded Peace Now, an effort to shift American policy from unconditional surrender to negotiation. A decade later, she journeyed from home to home around the world with a message of friendship from her Meeting (Abington, PA). In May 1958 she fasted in the lobby of the Atomic Energy Commission to protest nuclear testing. In the 1960s, as president of the U.S. Section, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, she visited Poland and the USSR.
Ayesha (Clark-Halkin) Imani is valued for her workshops which have helped many Quakers and others uncover racism in themselves. She now lives in Germantown (PA).
Yukio Irie (1908-- ) was a Japanese Friend who was a professor of English at Tokyo University. He studied at Woodbrooke (England) in 1956-57.
Rufus Jones (1863-1948) was a writer, scholar, orator and skilled administrator. Believing that both quietists and evangelicals of his time distorted the original message of Quakerism, he worked to turn Friends toward a mystical and prophetic Christianity. As a major figure among Protestant religious leaders, he exerted more influence on other denominations than any previous American Quaker. He was a professor at Haverford College for 40 years, edited the American Friend for 20 years, and was the first chairman of the board of the AFSC, serving from 1917 to 1928.
Ilse Karger (1902-- ) was born in Berlin into a family of "free thinkers." She became a Quaker and worked as a nursery school teacher and a nurse for sick children in the United States and Australia.
Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941) was raised in Ohio. He earned a Ph.D. at Hartford Theological Seminary and became a professor of religion and philosophy. He taught at several Quaker colleges: Wilmington, Earlham and Haverford. Failure to obtain a second doctorate at Harvard threw him into a depression from which he emerged spiritually stronger. In the last three years of his life he produced several devotional classics, including A Testament of Devotion and The Reality of the Spiritual World. They fruitfully combine evangelical language and a mystical Quaker emphasis.
Paul Lacey first became acquainted with Quakers through weekend work camps. He teaches English literature at Earlham College, where he has been provost and served as acting president. He has written extensively about teaching and conducts a workshop for teachers new to Friends schools under the auspices of the Friends Council on Education.
Diana Lampen with her husband has worked in a school for delinquent boys and on peace-making projects in Northern Ireland. She now leads workshops on mediation and death and dying issues.
Elsie Landstrom is a member of Wellesley (MA) Meeting and is now living at Kendal-at-Longwood (PA). She was one of the original editors of Approach, a literary magazine born at Pendle Hill in the 1950s. Later she worked as a writer and editor for AFSC and edited non-technical publications for M.I.T.
William Littleboy (1853-1936) was a highly respected clerk of London Yearly Meeting. He attended the Manchester Conference and wrote on mysticism and prayer.
Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971) was a crystallographer and a world-class scientist. She was the first woman elected to the Royal Society (British) in the physical sciences. She and her husband joined the Society of Friends in 1935. In 1943 she spent a month in Holloway prison as a conscientious objector. She published books and articles on issues of war and peace as well as her scientific papers.
Patricia Loring is released by Bethesda (MD) Friends Meeting for a ministry in the nurture of the spiritual life. She is a graduate of Hartford Theological Seminary and spent 5 terms at Pendle Hill. She creates and leads adult religious education courses and retreats. Her two-volume book Listening Spirituality is much valued.
Mable Lugalya is co-pastor with her husband, Alfred, of a large Quaker meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.
Gordon Macphail (1956-1991) was a British Friend who gave up general practice as a physician to do full-time hospice work for people with AIDS. He urged the Society of Friends to come out from behind Quaker euphemisms and openly recognize committed homosexual relationships.
Howard Macy is professor of religion and biblical studies at George Fox College in Newberg (OR). He has served as a Friends pastor, led retreats, and worked with young people. His book Rhythms of the Inner Life helps us find clues to deeper spirituality through the Psalms.
Lorna Marsden was a founding member of the Open Letter Movement in Britain. She is the author of several books on Quaker spirituality and theology.
Peggy McGeoghegan worked in the children and young peoples section at Friends House (headquarters of Britain Yearly Meeting) in the 1970s. She is a librarian and the author of books and study materials on and for children, including Quaker Meeting & Its Children.
Margaret McNeill (1905-1994) was the extension secretary at Woodbrooke, the British Quaker study center in Birmingham. She retired to Ireland.
Walter C. Michaels (1906-1975) was a professor of physics at Bryn Mawr College from 1932-72. He was a naval officer during World War II.
Jennifer Morris was born into an English Quaker family in the 1940s. She trained in speech and drama and has taught in different settings. She is the mother of two daughters.
Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) was a recorded Hicksite minister. She became a major figure nationally in two reform movements: anti-slavery and feminism—working for these causes with non-Quakers. This and her increasingly liberal theology led some Friends to try to disown her or get her to resign from the Society of Friends, but she stayed within Quakerism and worked for change.
Esther Murer (1935--- ) writes for the newsletter of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting and edits Types and Shadows, a quarterly published by the Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts. She has prepared a computerized index to scriptural references in the writings of George Fox and other early Friends.
Carol Murphy (1916-1994) said of herself "my abilities ran in the groove of reading, thinking and observing rather than participating." Though she was solitary and introverted, her messages during worship were treasured in her home Meeting of Swarthmore (PA). She sensitively explored religious philosophy, psychology, comparative religion and methods of spiritual growth in her 17 Pendle Hill pamphlets—the largest number written by a single author.
Janet Mustin is an artist who works in print making and with oils. She is a member of Lansdowne (PA) Meeting. Graduating from Swarthmore College in 1945, she obtained her art education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Wallingford (PA) Art Center.
James Naylor (1617-1660) is famous today for his last words; but he was once reckoned the best speaker in the Quaker movement and perhaps more its leader than Fox. Sadly, he seemed to lose his mental balance and, in 1656, he permitted enthusiastic followers to strew garments in his path as he rode into Bristol, England. He was tried for blasphemy and cruelly punished. Released from prison in 1659, Naylor died the following year after being robbed and beaten while travelling toward his home in the north.
Kara Cole Newell was raised among Evangelical Friends, but she has shared her administrative talents and speaking ability widely among different branches of Quakers. Kara has been general secretary of Friends United Meeting. Later she was executive director of the AFSC.
Ferner Nuhn (1903-1989) taught at Claremont College in California. He published a book about Friends and the ecumenical movement and was active with the Friends World Committee for Consultation.
Ursula Jane O'Shea is an Australian Friend who was formerly an Ursuline nun. She served on the staff at Woodbrooke (England) for three years.
Charles Warner Palmer (1879-1963) was a beloved member of Middletown (PA) Meeting where he frequently said this prayer during meeting for worship.
Parker J. Palmer is a writer and teacher with a particular interest in the spiritual life of educators. He has been dean of Pendle Hill and a staff member at the ecumenical St. Benedictene Retreat Center in Madison (WI). He is now a senior associate of the American Association for Higher Education and in demand as a speaker and retreat leader.
Alexander Parker (1628-1689) , a Quaker of the first generation, pled with Charles II to release imprisoned Friends. In Fox's later years, Parker was his travelling companion.
Damaris Parker-Rhodes was first an Anglican, then a communist, and then a convinced Quaker. She is active in peace and social issues and has great interest in oriental meditative traditions. Her book The Way Out Is the Way In expanded her previous Swarthmore Lecture in the light of her experience with cancer.
George Peck (1916--- ) was trained as a historian, with a doctorate from the University of Chicago, and he then worked in his family business for twenty years, mostly in advertising. In 1970 he returned to college teaching and was a founding member of Brunswick (ME) Meeting. He has been clerk of the general board at Pendle Hill. His pamphlet Quakerism: a Primer is widely used.
Isaac Penington (1617-1679) was the son of a leader in Cromwell's Parliament. He was 42 when he joined Friends. Scholarly and retiring by nature, his spiritual writings continue to inspire us. As a person of some wealth, he was both fined and imprisoned for his faith.
Mary Proude Springett Penington (1644-1682) , "after earnest search and some disillusionments she, with her husband, at length found her goal in worship with Friends." Though at first she was "still exercised against taking up the cross to the language, fashions, customs, titles, honour and esteem in the world" she found her voice and began to write her own prayers. Eventually she produced an autobiography, a manuscript that she hid in a wall. It was found forty years later and has been reprinted in modern times.
William Penn (1644-1718) was an Admiral's son who cast his lot with Friends and became a promoter of religious freedom and the proprietor of the Holy Experiment in Pennsylvania. He was the author of many pamphlets, most notably No Cross, No Crown and the Fruits of Solitude.
Clarence Pickett (1884-1965) was raised in Illinois as a Gurneyite Friend and educated at Hartford Theological Seminary. He served as a Friends pastor, and as secretary of the American Young Friends Movement. He headed the AFSC from 1929 to 1950. Pickett directed the agency's growth as its mission moved beyond relief toward aiding the economic development of the poor, promoting better race relations, etc. It was he who persuaded Eleanor Roosevelt to tour the coal regions of Appalachia during the Great Depression.
Eva J. Pinthus was a German Friend who fled the Nazis and settled in England. By profession she was an occupational therapist.
A. Barrie Pittock (1938--- ) is a physical scientist—specializing in atmospheric ozone—with a deep sense of social responsibility. As a member of Melbourne Monthly Meeting, he has been a lobbyist and worker for Aboriginal rights and immigration reform for Australia. He is on the board of the Quaker Service Council of Australia.
John Punshon (1935--- ) is a lawyer who once ran for Parliament. He became widely known as a tutor at Woodbrooke and, later, a professor at the Earlham School of Religion. He is a recorded minister of Indiana Yearly Meeting. Punshon's Portrait in Grey is a readable modern history of the Society of Friends.
Phyllis Richards (1900-1976) did not formally become a Friend until she was 47, after she had worked with Jewish children in Vienna during World War II and raised a family of her own. Thereafter, valued for her skill in ministry and pastoral care, she was an elder in several Meetings in different parts of Britain.
Clive Sansom (1910-1981) was an Australian Friend and a published poet.
Heredio Santos is a beloved Quaker pastor from Cuba. He visited New England Yearly Meeting in 1991, as part of the Puente des Amigos exchange program between Cuban and New England Friends.
Joolz Saunders and her husband, David, live in Worcester, England. She is a social worker by profession.
Pat Saunders is a Canadian Friend who worked on environmental and development issues for Quaker Peace & Service (Britain) and now runs a small bookshop in the north of England.
Deb Sawyer has attended Friends Meetings in Salt Lake City (UT) and Boulder (CO). In her Friends Journal article she said, "We can create a non-violent society but it will involve interrelated changes in the way we think, the way we raise our children, in our economic system, and the way we resolve conflicts."
Patience Schenck was an administrator for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynocologists in Washington (DC) during the 1980s. She is a member of Annapolis (MD) Meeting. In a Friends Journal article she said "Being open to the spirit has an element of fear for all of us. We don't know what we'll be called to do. It might be hard for us."
Virginia Schurman serves on the board of the Tract Association of Friends and is active in the Spiritual Formation Program of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. A microbiologist, she wrote George Fox and the Care of Creation. She has travelled in the ministry with a Friend from Ohio Yearly Meeting Conservative.
Janet Scott , a British Friend and theologian, is a member of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission of the World Council of Churches. She is head of the religious studies department of Homerton College at Cambridge University where she teaches New Testament and religious education.
Job Scott (1751-1793) has been called "the most creative theologian in 18th century America." He made three extended journeys, two in America and one to Europe—where he died of smallpox in Ireland. "Scott was a quietist who saw all outward means—including the Bible, reason, learning—as irrelevant or a hindrance to salvation....He refused to use the term trinity and denigrated the atonement. Like Hicks, Scott made the Inward Light the entire substance of faith." He was not criticized during his lifetime, but statements in his Journal (published in 1797) upset evangelicals.
Daniel A. Seeger is an active Universalist Friend. He headed the regional office of AFSC in New York City and served as executive secretary of Pendle Hill. The law case he brought during the Korean War establishes the right of conscientious objection for those not officially members of any church but who are believers in a Supreme Being, which was his own position at the time.
Alison Sharman is a British feminist and writer. She was editor of the Friends Quarterly and edited various pieces of literature put out by London Yearly Meeting.
Bradford Smith (1909-1964) was a writer who taught English in this country and Japan. He published books on social history, biography and religious philosophy. During World War II, Smith worked for the Office of War Information in Japan. He retired early, only to find he had cancer, and then wrote the beloved Pendle Hill pamphlet Dear Gift of Life: "the message now comes home, strange and yet familiar: I, too, am mortal."
Hannah Whitall Smith (1832-1911) , after her marriage to Robert Pearsall Smith, embarked with him on a career of religious evangelism in both America and Europe. She took part in the founding of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and Women's Suffrage movements. Her Christian's Secret of a Happy Life is still in print and sold widely. (President M. Carey Thomas of Bryn Mawr College was her neice; Bertrand Russell and Bernard Berenson were her sons-in-law.)
Beatrice Saxon Snell (1900-1982) was a British writer whose perceptive essays, frequently on the subject of worship, were originally published in the magazine The Friend.
Dorothy Steere (1907--- ) confessed that during the earliest days of their marriage, she sometimes felt inferior to her charismatic and better educated husband. At the same time, he felt inferior to her when it came to dealing with people. Eventually they became a partnership in which the whole was greater than its parts. She typed and edited his manuscripts, helped him teach work-campers at Pendle Hill and shared his ecumenical interests.
Douglas Steere (1901-1995) was for many years a member of the department of religion at Haverford College. He was intensely mystical but also had a strong practical side. He was prominent in the rebirth of Radnor (PA) Monthly Meeting and led the work camp movement in Finland after World War II. Receptive to insights from other faiths, he studied Buddhism in Japan and kept in touch with Catholics during Vatican II. His book Dimensions of Prayer has become a Quaker classic.
Caroline E. Stephen (1834-1909) was a gifted newcomer to the Society of Friends. She was able to interpret the Quaker heritage in a dynamic way to young people and others who may have taken it for granted. Her Quaker Strongholds, published in 1890, influenced a whole generation.
Kingdon Swayne (1920--- ) was born into the Society of Friends. His first career was as a foreign service officer for the U. S. State Department. After 1967, he taught for many years at the Bucks County Community College. He has been elected to several local political offices and served Quakers in various capacities, including a term as clerk of PYM.
Frances Irene Taber grew up among Conservative Quakers in Iowa and Ohio Yearly Meetings. She has lived and worked among Friends in New England, Indiana and Pennsylvania, between intervals at Barnesville (OH) where she had a variety of roles at Olney School, and where she now lives. While at Pendle Hill she became particularly interested in solitary silent retreats. After a two-year course at the Shalem Institute, she became a core teacher on spiritual nurturing for the School of the Spirit.
William P. Taber has life-long roots among the Conservative (unprogrammed) Friends of eastern Ohio. He was a teacher and administrator at the boarding school in Barnesville (Olney School) for 20 years. He was made a recorded minister in 1966. He taught Quaker Studies and the Prophets at Pendle Hill. He and his wife Frances have retired to Barnesville, where they run a small retreat center.
Agnes L. Tierney (1868-1947) served on the board of the Friends Freedman's Association from 1909 until her death in 1947. Her chief concern was education and she frequently visited the Christiansburg Industrial Institute. "Her concern for her Negro friends was based on a deep religious conviction of racial equality which was like that of John Woolman, and, like him, led her to a friendly relationship that made no distinction of color and was so accepted." She had been a teacher and was a member of the Germantown Friends School board.
Frederick B. Tolles (1915-1975) was a distinguished Quaker historian and scholar. He was director of the Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College. His books included Quakers and the Atlantic Culture and Meeting House and Counting House. During World War II he was a C.O.
N. Jean Toomer (1894-1967) , being of mixed racial heritage, worked hard to promote the concept of "universal man" who was representative of all people. He published a novel, Caine, and was active with Friends in the 1940s, when he wrote for Friends Intelligencer and was a popular leader of the high school group at Friends General Conference.
Margaret Torrie with the help of her psychiatrist husband, Alfred, and others, founded CRUSE in 1958 to help widows and their families. Its work helped to change social attitudes towards widowhood in England and to break through the existing taboos on death.
Frederick J. Tritton (1887-1968) was a British Friend active in the Spiritual Healing Fellowship. He wrote pamphlets and also articles for The Friend (London) in the 1950s, often about intercessory prayer.
Carol Reilly Urner worked with her husband, Jack, in international aid and development projects in many countries, including the Philippines, Egypt, Bangladesh and Bhutan. Since Jack's death in an auto accident in South Africa in which she was seriously injured, she divides her time between Oregon and California and works on disarmament issues for the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom. She is a member of Sarasota (FL) Meeting.
James G. Vail (1886-1951) was a chemical engineer and a leading authority on soluble silicates in industry. A member of 3rd St. Meeting in Media (PA), he worked throughout his life on short-term assignments for the AFSC. From 1940-45 his title was foreign secretary and he travelled widely. He died in Delhi, India while serving as head of the Delhi International Friends Center.
Jo Vallentine (1946--- ) is a member of the Australian Parliament. She refers to herself as an "eco-feminist."
Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999) was a librarian, a widow and the author of nine children's books when she was asked to serve as a tutor to the crown prince of Japan during the American occupation (1946-50). The book she wrote about that experience, Windows for the Crown Prince, was a best-seller. Friends also value her biography of Rufus Jones, her novel The Virginia Exiles, and her devotional anthologies.
Elizabeth Watson (1914--- ) had a call to preach early in childhood, but was told "girls don't do that." She studied theology and learned she was expected to become a director of religious education. Instead, she became a Quaker speaker, writer, retreat leader and wise woman. Her book Wisdom's Dauqhters imagines the stories of the women around Jesus. Anyone who has heard Elizabeth read these in her fine, deep voice will not forget the experience.
Miriam Were grew up in a Quaker village in Kenya. For six years she represented the World Health Organization in Ethiopia. At the FWCC Triennial in 1992, she spoke like a prophet of old. She wondered why liberal Friends were not sure they were Christians when George Fox had said Christ had the keys to the kingdom. Then, breaking down in tears, she told her fellow Kenyans that none of their new yearly meetings were founded in love.
Henry W. Wilbur (1850-1914) was general secretary of FGC when he died suddenly of a hemorrhage during their conference at Saratoga Springs (NY). He was also President of the National Federation of Religious Liberals. Living in Swarthmore (PA), he was allied with the Progressive Friends of Longwood Meeting (PA) and worked for improved race relations, Prohibition, Women's Suffrage, and peace.
John Wilbur (1774-1856) was a Rhode Island farmer, land surveyor and Quaker minister. After the separations of 1827, Wilbur thought that New Englanders, reacting against the ideas of Elias Hicks, were leaning toward an overemphasis on outward forms and a weakening of the experience of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When Joseph John Gurney visited America in 1838, Wilbur tried to get him to recant and go home. Evangelicals in New England Yearly Meeting managed to have Wilbur disowned. Wilbur and 500 supporters then formed a competing yearly meeting. Wilbur's letters to George Crosfield in 1832 provided a summary of the quietist view.
Dan Wilson (1913--- ) and his wife, Rosalie, were in residence at Pendle Hill from 1950-1970. For fifteen of those years, he was the director. A graduate of Kansas Wesleyan University, he had previously spent 10 years with the AFSC. After leaving Pendle Hill, he was founding curator of the Mohonk Mountain House Museum, and a VISTA volunteer.
Lloyd Lee Wilson (1947--- ) is an acknowledged minister of the gospel in Virginia Beach Friends Meeting. He is a former clerk of North Carolina Yearly Meeting Conservative and a former general secretary of FGC. In 1992 he and a fellow Quaker formed Friendly Management Services to provide management and financial assistance to non-profit organizations.
Roger Wilson (1906-1991) was in charge of British Friends' relief work in France and Germany after World War II as secretary of the Friends War Victims Relief Committee. He was later clerk of London Yearly Meeting and much respected both for his practical abilities and his speaking in meeting for worship.
John Woolman (1720-1772) has been called "America's Quaker saint." This tailor from Mount Holly (NJ) fruitfully combined simplicity of life-style and transcendent spirituality in the service of strong social concerns—particularly for the abolition of slavery.
Jillian Wychel and David James are clerks of Whanganui/Taranaki Monthly Meeting in Australia. They founded the Rowan Partnership, a freelance consulting business that works mainly with public bodies and voluntary organizations on team development, conflict resolution and social justice issues.
Tayeko Yamanouchi was a member of Japan Yearly Meeting, having joined Friends in 1947 while she was in Shanghai, China. From 1971-76 she was associate secretary of the FWCC. She wrote Ways of Worship as background material for a study group at the 1979 Triennial.
Elizabeth Yates (1905-2001) was an American Quaker author of historical novels, a biography of Prudence Crandall, and books of memoirs about her husband's blindness and their New Hampshire home. She was a member of Monadnock (NH) Monthly Meeting. Her Book of Hours, unlike the medieval ones, embraces the ordinary and finds it holy.
Mildred Binns Young (1901-1995) grew up among Wilburite Friends in the mid-west. She spent some time at Westtown School, where her husband, Wilmer, was dean of boys. They then worked for AFSC in the South and for fifteen years they lived with sharecroppers and took up voluntary poverty in order to share the hardships of their lives. They were in residence at Pendle Hill from 1955-1961. Mildred said, "Poverty can be taken up. True simplicity comes by the grace of God."
John Yungblut (1913-1995) served twenty years in the Episcopal ministry before becoming a Quaker in 1960. He became director of Quaker House in Atlanta (GA), a faculty member at Pendle Hill and later headed two retreat centers. A life-long student of mysticism, he was inspired by Rufus Jones, Teilhard de Chardin and C.C. Jung. He did spiritual guidance and counseling and conducted seminars and retreats.
