John Songhurst, Friend of William Penn

JOHN SONGHURST, FRIEND OF WILLIAM PENN By Marion Balderston* A beloved friend of William Penn, unhappily overlooked by modern historians, was the gentle preacher John Songhurst. This is certainly one of the most delightful and euphonious names in all Quaker annals, and it is interesting that John acquired it through some ancient misreading of some still-more-ancient clerk's handwriting . Most of his relatives spelled it, as he should have, Longhurst , and in that form it survived. But first, about the man himself. John Whiting, who was almost a contemporary, described him in his Memoirs as a "brave, eminent Man, as well as a Minister, who had a very fine Testimony. His birth, Convincement and coming forth in a Testimony, or his travels, I cannot be particular in, but remember I saw him once at Bristol, about the year 1678; he wrote a very notable book in the year 1680, entitled ? Testimony of Love' . . . also an 'Epistle of Love' (printed in 1681) both which bespeak him as a Man truly concerned with the good of all."1 Nor can we "be particular in" the time of his birth, though we can be practically certain it was towards the end of the 1630s. The family had lived in or near the small village of West Chiltington in Sussex for decades; John was the son of Walter Songhurst, who had married Elizabeth Bannocker (Bannister?) there in December 1633. The records of Chiltington Church are incomplete for that period and hard to read. However, the couple had a son Walter, baptized in 1636, and another son baptized in 1639, whose name is almost illegible but could be John.2 As for his "Convincement," that happened between 1655, when George Fox and his friends first came to Sussex, making *Marion Balderston lives in San Marino, California. 1 John Whiting, Memoirs, 2nd ed. (London, 1791), p. 389. The first edition was published in London in 1715. 2 MS records of St. Mary, Chiltington, now at Chichester Town Hall. 10 John Songhurst, Friend of William Penn11 many converts, and 1659 or 1660, the probable date of his marriage to Mary ----------. There is no clue in any of the records as to Mary's maiden name. As John and Mary Songhurst and John Barnes and his wife Sarah were so much together, it suggests a relationship through the women. Various writers have said that Songhurst lived at Chiltington, Coneyhurst, and Hitchingfield, which places him exactly. He lived on Coneyhurst Common, which is in the northern part of Chiltington parish and on the Itchingfield Road. It is unfortunate that so much has to be guessed at, but church records ceased almost entirely during the Cromwell period, and the Friends had not yet begun to keep theirs. However, Songhurst wrote into the Quaker archives the birth of his eldest son Edmund as 1661, so our guess cannot be far wrong.3 Oddly enough, he did not put in the birthdate of his eldest daughter Elizabeth, but from other evidence that couldn't have been much later than 1662. His other daughter Sarah was born in 1664 and his son John in 1668. Records were being kept by that time, and they include the death of Edmund a year later.4 As for his "coming forth in a Testimony," that, too, is a matter of guesswork. But he was put in jail in 1663 and stayed there nearly a year — forty-five weeks — rather than pay a church tithe of 18 shillings,5 and in 1664 he and his wife Mary were excommunicated . This in itself would not have worried them, but is was probably followed by a fine or by having some of their property taken. He was "presented" before the court of Chichester again in 1666 with his friend John Barnes.6 In 1675 he was fined £20 for preaching at nearby Lewes, and, as he didn't own that much property, the authorities collected the money from his friends. Four years later, he preached there again, and again was taken before the court, but 3 In 1659 a Mary Longhurst or Langhurst, as the name was frequently transcribed, of Sussex, was one of the 7000 Quaker...