The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain (review)

Book Reviews Edited by Thomas D. Hamm The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain. By David M. Butler. London: Friends Historical Society, 1999. 2 vols. Vol. I: xiv + 482. Vol. II: 463 pp. Maps, illustrations, notes, and index. Paper, $85. In this culmination of four decades ofresearch, David M. Butler documents the 1300 known Friends meeting houses located on the island of Britain. This massive two-volume book is a great aid to anyone interested in the history of British Friends. The bulk of the work (886 pages) contains Butler's inventory. The information for each meeting includes a sketch and floor-plan of known meeting houses and a narrative history. Butler includes occasional sketches to illustrate important alterations, the interior, or unusual architectural features. The commentary includes quotations from primary and secondary sources which enliven the history ofthe historic resources. Butler includes extensive source citations, including grid references where known to aid in locating particular meeting houses. Butler's work is like the Bible in one respect: the best part is toward the back. His46-page appendixincludes anumberofoutstandingessaystracing the development of architectural styles, arrangements of the ministers' stands, and the history of benches. He also includes essays on women's meetings, recording ofministers, heating and lighting, and financing. During the 1690s, it seems American Friends dropped their earlier indigenous meeting house styles and introduced some new forms. Butler's work leaves no doubt that these new forms were borrowed directly from England. The two general types of English meeting architecture of the seventeenth century are the side-gallery type and the end-gallery type, which Butler in a recent essay in Quaker History called the cottage and chapel stylesrespectively. English cottagemeetinghouses (e.g., Adderbury, p. 492) are clearlythe forerunner ofthe American side-gallery version, such as Cecil MD (c. 1 694) and Little Egg HarborNJ (c. 1709) It appears that the 1 692 use ofthe chapel plan by the Philadelphia Keithians soured American Friends' opinion ofthat floor-plan fornearly two centuries. One ofthe most significant sketches included in Butler's work is that ofthe original Bristol Meeting House (p. 517). There is little doubt that this building was the forerunner ofa host ofAmerican urban meeting houses with lanterns (e.g., Philadelphia, Newport RI, Wilmington DE, and Charleston SC. Butler follows the terminology used by Hubert Lidbetter for interior architectural features. Throughout history, Friends have used the term 34Quaker History gallery to describe both the facing bench area and the balcony-like area, although in America the former use was preferred. Lidbetter attempted to clarify the terminology by using the English term ministers ' stand for the facing bench area and loft for the youth's gallery, eliminating any confusion resulting from the dual use of the term gallery. Although Butler followed Lidbetter's usage, his historical passages almost all use the word gallery to describe the facing bench area (e.g., pp. 257, 892). Butler himself used gallery on occasion to describe the facing bench area (e.g., p. 897). Butler does not use the term elders ' stand which is now coming into vogue in America; this term confuses the primarypurpose ofthis architectural feature and should be avoided by historians. Throughout the twentieth century, photographic inventories of Friends meeting houses have increased in quality. The first such book was printed by J. Russell Hayes a century ago, illustrating some standing Hicksite meeting houses. The Eastern Region followed Hayes's example when it printed a sesquicentennial book in 1 962 giving a cut ofeach oftheir active meeting houses. North Carolina FUM printed an inventory in 1972 including commentary and some illustrations ofprior buildings, and later inventories have at least included commentary (e.g., Eastern Region 1987, Wilmington 1991). [A smaller geographic area such as a yearly meeting is critical for an American book of this type due to the massive amount of primary research involved.] Photographic collections such as those printed by Ruth Bonner and Silas Weeks help to fill regional voids. Indiana Yearly Meeting is the only American body with a comprehensive inventory available in print (1996). A possible improvement in future books of this type would be detailed maps. Butler has set a high standard for future inventories of Friends...