Jordans: The Making of a Community. A history of the early years (review)

124QUAKER HISTORY and the more important essays on poverty and slavery with reasonable confidence that he is hearing John Woolman speak to the issues of 1972 as he did to those of 1774. University of PennsylvaniaRobert E. Spiller John Perrot, Early Quaker Schismatic. By Kenneth L. Garroll. Supplement No. 33 to the Journal of the Friends' Historical Society. London, 1971. 116 pages. This substantial monograph is a natural by-product of the author's interests in Quaker history in early America, since John Perrot, an Irish Friend, endured die vicissitudes of his later life in the American colonies, besides his original career in the British Isles and in the trek of Friends towards Italy and the Middle East in the second decade of Quakerism. Like other Friends of the period John Perrot was a deviationist from mainline Quakerism, differing chiefly in minor matters of Friends practice— the best known of his nonconformity to the usual practice being in the small matter of not removing his hat during vocal prayer. His aberrations followed those of James Nayler and preceded those of Wilkinson and Story. His long imprisonment by the Inquisition of Rome was part of his pride and perhaps of his undoing. For a time many leading Friends accepted his leadership. Kenneth Carroll has made full use of the abundant but difficult printed and manuscript material from Perrot's pen. It permits us to think of him as partly the victim of uncharitable attitudes of some censorious Friends and even of his own understandable independence of thought. His very method of writing rather puts a modem reader off. Though this study of him does not commend his views it was high time that a full dress account should be made available of him, and of the gradual decline of his considerable influence in the American colonies. He died in Jamaica in September, 1665. Haverford, PennsylvaniaHenry J. Cadbury Jordans: The Making of a Community. A history of the early years. By Arthur L. Hayward. With an introduction by John Macmurray. London, Friends Home Service Committee, 1969. £1.00. The occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of Jordans village community is the cause for the publication of this interesting volume. The book itself suffers somewhat from a lack of unity despite its stated intention of giving an account of the first two decades of an English intentional community with Quaker roots. Arthur Hayward and his family moved to Jordans village some years after the initial years of establishnient and became keenly interested in the background of Quaker history in the area as well as in the current struggles of the community to establish itself. He made a very thorough examination of the many accounts and journals which exist in order to bring together a consistent account of the development of Quakerism in Buckinghamshire from the earliest times into the twentieth century. This he writes with clarity and directness and considerable charm. The account of the origin, founding, BOOK REVIEWS125 and long struggle of the village community to come into viable being is a rather discouraging story. High human hopes for an intentional community based on the living out of Quaker testimonies basically came to a collapse as a result of the usual human frailties. John Macmurray's introduction is best reread at the close of the book for it brings the history of the community down to date, from its ending by Hayward at the opening of World War II. Haverford College LibraryBarbara L. Curtis ...