Public Spirit: Dissent in Witham and Essex, 1500-1700 (review)

Book Reviews85 running low on food, they ultimately resorted to cannibalism, drawing lots to see who would die to keep the others alive. Finally, in February 1821, survivors in two ofthe whale boats were rescued to tell their tale. Philbrick's portrayal ofNantucket Quakers is critical but convincing. He finds that often they did not live up to the standards that they set for themselves. Greedy Quaker shipowners stinted crews on supplies and provisions. Quakercaptains andmates couldbe astyrannical andhardhearted as "the world's people," particularly in their treatment of African Americans , who made up a largeproportion ofthe sailors on Nantucket ships. One drawback is that it is not always clearjust who among the crew is actually in membership with Friends. In the Heart ofthe Sea is not a happy story. But it is a gripping one, and one from which students of Quaker history can learn. Thomas D. HammEarlham College Public Spirit: Dissent in Witham and Essex, 1500-1700. By Janet Gyford. Witham, Essex: Janet Gyford, 1999. xli + 216 pp. Tables, graphs, maps, facsimiles, drawings, appendices, notes, bibliography, and index. Paper, £15. Within its genre of local histories written by local non-academics primarily for local readers, this book is highly attractive. Janet Gyford has spent many years researching a variety oftopics on her place ofresidence. Her previously self-pollinated books include Memoirs of Witham: Shops (1983), Domesday Witham (1985), and Witham 1500-1700: Making a Living (1996). As the title indicates, this volume gives attention to "dissent" in Withambutincludes appropriate developments in otherEssex towns such as Braintree, Chelmsford, Colchester, and Maldon. Most of the book is arranged chronologically around the reigns of monarchs. Normally, each chapter begins with background and ends with overview sections. Using Protestant/Catholic preambles to wills, church court records, and numerous other sources well-documented by endnotes and bibliography, Gyford traces the vicissitudes of religious life through the Protestant Reformation, the rise ofPuritanism, the civil war and interregnum, and the Restoration. She links local with selected national developments including, for example, the names of Essex residents mentioned in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, the wealthy Katherine Barnardiston's support of Puritanism, the St. Patrick's Day 1628 citizens' affraywith Irish soldiers billeted in Witham in connection with the Thirty Years War, the plundering of Royalists' houses in 1642, and the distress within the Witham parish church caused by the appointment of a Laudian vicar accused of theological aberrations as 86Quaker History well as lewd and drunken behavior both before and after his temporary removal during the civil war and interregnum. The wide range in Gyford's choice of episodes also provides a broad picture of community life: cases illustrating disrespect for church court officials, the alleged oversupply of alehouses in Witham, fear ofvagrants, charges ofwitchcraft, and the case ofamanthrown down some stairs by others and consideredby ajury to have died from a "divine visitation." Quakers receive attention with the visits ofFox, Parnell, and Caton to the county and the establishment of meetings at Witham and elsewhere. Charitable and educational efforts as well as Friends' sufferings and defections are noted. Depiction ofthe Quaker John Freeborne's house is among nearly 40 drawings by Ray Brown that, together with maps and reproductions of primary sources, greatly enhance the book's value and attractiveness. There are also useful attempts at quantification supported by graphs and tables, although sometimes the numbers are so small as to be of questionable significance. Missing fromthe discussion ofdissent, however, are the Muggletonians who were in Braintree in the last half of the 1 7th century. They and the Quakers engaged in one ofthe most bitter pamphlet wars of the century, and they were also the only two radical religious movements arising in mid-century that lasted much beyond that time (see my The Acts ofthe Witnesses, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Although intended primarily for local readers, persons with no connections at all to this geographical area will find Public Spirit an interesting work, and those desirous ofwriting their own local histories can learn much from it. T. L. UnderwoodUniversity of Minnesota, Morris The Quakers in English Society, 1650-1 725. By Adrian Davies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. xvi + 262 pp. Map...