Quakers 1st House Meeting Place at Lyall St South Perth
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Excert from “Chocolate Wars” -
Deborah Cadbury : Chapter 3
A little side note on Quakers origin & history
For George and Richard, the chocolate factory was to be much more than a commercial enterprise. As Quakers they shared a vision of social justice and reform: a new world in which the poor and needy would be lifted from the “ruin of deprivation.”
Richard and George had been brought up on stories of George Fox, and many of the values, aspirations, and disciplines that shaped their lives stemmed from Fox’s teachings. Born in 1624, the son of a weaver from Fenny Drayton, Leicestershire, Fox grew up with a passionate interest in religion at a time when the country had seen years of religious turmoil. Fox went “to many a priest looking for comfort, but found no comfort from them.” He was appalled at the inhumanity carried out in the name of religion: people imprisoned, hung, or even beheaded for their faith. Disregarding the danger following the outbreak of civil war in 1642, he left home the following year and set out on foot for London. At just nineteen years old, Fox embarked on a personal quest for greater understanding.
During his years of travels, “when my hopes . . . in all men were gone,” he had an epiphany. The key to religion was not to be found in the sermons of preachers but in an individual’s inner experience. Inspired, he began to speak out, urging people to listen to their own conscience. Because “God dwelleth in the hearts of obedient people,” he reasoned, it followed that an individual could find “the spirit of Christ within” to guide them, instead of taking orders from others. But his simple interpretation of Christianity put him in direct opposition to the authorities. If an individual was listening to the voice of God within himself, it followed that priests and religious authorities were a needless intermediary between man and God.
Fox was perceived as dangerous and his preaching blasphemous to established churches. Even the like-minded Puritans objected. They too adhered to a rigorous moral code and high standards of self-discipline, and they disdained worldly pursuits. But Fox’s emphasis on the direct relationship between a believer and God went far beyond what most Puritans deemed tolerable. In emphasizing the primary importance of an individual’s experience, Fox appeared contemptuous of the authorities and mocked their petty regulations. For example, he would not swear on oath. If there was only one absolute truth, he reasoned, what was the point of a double standard, differentiating between “truth” and “truth on oath”?
By 1649 Fox had crossed one magistrate too many. He was thrown into jail in Nottingham, “a pitiful stinking place, where the wind brought in all the stench of the house.” The following year he was jailed in Derby prison for blasphemy. A justice in Derby in 1650 is believed to be the first to use the term “Quaker” to mock George Fox and his followers. He scoffed at the idea expressed in their meetings in which they were “silent before God” until moved to speak, “trembling at the word of the God.” Despite its origins as a term of abuse, the name Quaker soon became widespread.
Fox was imprisoned sixty times, but the Quaker movement continued to gain momentum. It is estimated that during the reign of Charles II, 198 Quakers were transported overseas as slaves, 338 died from injuries received defending their faith, and 13,562 were imprisoned. Among them were Richard and George’s forebears on their father’s side, including Richard Tapper Cadbury, a “woolcomber” who was held in Southgate prison in Exeter in 1683 and again in 1684.
By the end of Fox’s life in 1691, there were 100,000 Quakers, and the movement had spread to America, parts of Europe, and even the West Indies. Fox established a series of meetings for Friends to discuss issues and formalize business: regional Monthly Meeting, county Quarterly Meeting, and a national Yearly Meeting. Key decisions at these meetings were written down and became known as the Advices. By 1738 these writings had been collated by clerks, transcribed in elegant longhand, and bound in a green manuscript, Christian and Brotherly Advices, which was made available to Friends Meetings across the country. It set out codes of personal conduct for Friends, under such headings as “Love,” “Covetousness,” and “Discipline.” A section on “Plainness,” for example, encouraged Quakers to cultivate “plainness of speech, behaviour and apparel.” A Friend’s clothing should be dark and unadorned; even collars were removed from jackets as they were deemed too decorative.
The strict rules of the Quakers also dictated that anyone who married outside the society had to leave. As a result, Quaker families tended to intermarry, resulting in a close-knit community across England of several thousand Quaker families. Generations of Quakers had emerged from years of persecution with a sense of solidarity and bonds forged by friendship, marriage, apprenticeships, and business. As the Industrial Revolution was gathering speed, this same solidarity and self-reliance generated a new spirit of enterprise. At a time when there was no such thing as a national newspaper, the Quakers—meeting regularly in different regions across Britain—enjoyed a unique forum in which to exchange ideas.
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