George Fox and His Family II

GEORGE FOX AND HIS FAMILY II Cecil W. Sharman* In a strongly worded paragraph in his Introduction to Braithwaite's The Beginnings of Quakerism (1912) Rufus Jones remarks: "Persons who had occupied only the most humble stations in life, unschooled in books and unpractised in affairs, became the exponents of a new message and conception of life, the powerful and convincing preachers of a fresh word of truth, the champions of new moral and social ideals, and the organisers of a unique Christian society."1 We have already seen that this rather disparaging assessment of the social status of an early Friend is not really true of Fox, and though it did apply to many of his followers, in general it hardly describes those whose skills in speaking and writing and administration gave a solid strength to the new Society. It overlooks the fact that in a preindustrial world there was much less ofthe filtering process by which people of ability find their way through abundant education into "middle-class" professions. In those days people's basic occupations gave much less of a clue to their native abilities or to the extent to which they had educated themselves. The characteristic of the potential Quaker was not the outward social standing or the absence of it but a certain measure of self-awareness, an unease in the material commonplace and a desire for spiritual understanding. These qualities can be found anywhere. Poverty may stunt them, but wealth can just as easily stifle them. A substantial number of early Friends did come from the embryonic professional and business class and had the advantage of as much education as the age had to offer, at least outside a university. This is conspicuously true of the Fell family group in which Fox moved freely and intimately. Margaret Fell junior married a wealthy merchant and planter "of Barbadoes and Kingston on Thames"; Isobel married a Bristol merchant, William Yeamans; Sarah, after having for years shown her business skills in the management of her mother's estate at Swarthmoor, married William Meade, a master *Cecil W. Sharman was until retirement head of the English department in a Grammar School at Warrington, Cheshire, England. He was also editor of Not More than Love, Selections from the Epistles of George Fox. 1. William C. Braithwaite, Vie Beginnings of Quakerism (London, 1923), p. xxxviii. 2 Quaker History draper and merchant, "of London and Gooses, Essex"; Mary became the wife of a doctor from Cornwall whose brother was a Court physician to Charles II; Susannah married another London merchant ; and young Rachel a Manchester merchant who was later to find the money to buy back Swarthmoor Hall itself and settle a longrunning family dispute with the heirs of their violently anti-Quaker brother, George Fell. It is worth enumerating this list, for these were the people who warmly encouraged Fox's marriage to Margaret Fell, who helped to provide homes for Fox in his later London years, who worked hard for Quakerism, and of whom one, Thomas Lower, chose to stay in Worcester gaol with Fox even after an order for his release had been obtained. It is not however the public work of these Friends which concerns us here but the relics of their private lives, the letters which have chanced to survive. The Friends of the first generation are looked on as heroes, and with reason, but that is not a distinction they were seeking. Repeatedly they made it clear that they were peaceable and law-abiding English citizens who wished only to worship in the way they had come to see as right. They longed to bring others to the Truth which was transforming their lives, but they did not seek to be provocative. Only when the state or the church asked of them something which they saw as wrong would they accept suffering rather than betray their vision. When persecutors allowed, they were happy to go about their everyday interests, desiring to "owe no man anything but love; yet serve God in Truth and one another in their generation."2 What therefore have their surviving papers to tell us about Fox and his family? It is...