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The Quaker Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern British Peace Movement, 1895–1920

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Thomas C. Kennedy
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Extract

Few in Britain were suprised by Quaker opposition to the Great War; the Society of Friends had traditionally condemned war and violence. Many, however, were startled by the nature and intensity of Quaker resistance, which far exceeded anything they had previously attempted. One possible explanation for the militancy of the Society's anti-war stand certainly would be the prospect of enforced military service, a contingency that had not seriously confronted Friends since the seventeenth century. However, this article will argue that the attitudes and actions of Quaker war-resisters were most significantly influenced by a revitalization of the peace testimony that had remained dormant for nearly a century. In her study of Victorian Quakers, Elizabeth Isichei has already noted that the “patterns of world history have made pacifism, which was a peripheral importance in the nineteenth century, one of Quakerism's … central beliefs, and, for some, its most essential element.” The aim here is to show how this development not only transformed British Quakerism, but also gave the Society of Friends—a religious body of less than 20,000 members—a crucial role in shaping the first significant peace movement of the modern era.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Fall 1984 , pp. 243 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1984

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References

1 Isichei, Elizabeth, Victorian Quakers (London 1970), p. xxvi.Google Scholar

2 The best discussion of the Quaker Renaissance is R.A. Rempel's unpublished essay, “Edward Grubb and the Quaker Renaissance in Britain, 1880-1914.” Professor Rempel and I are currently collaborating on a study of the Society of Friends in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

3 See Bronner, Edwin B., “The Other Branch”: London Yearly Meeting and the Hicksites, 1827-1912 (London 1975), pp. 36–38Google Scholar and Isichei, , Victorian Quakers, pp. 9–10Google Scholar. Jones, Rufus M., The Later Period of Quakerism, 2 vols. (London 1921), 2: 931Google Scholar called the Richmond Declaration “a relic of the past” which “reflected no sign of the prevailing intellectual.difficulties over questions of science and history.” Grubb (1854-1939), Braithwaite (1862-1922), and Graham (1859-1932) are listed in the Dictionary of Quaker Biography (DQB), Haverford College Quaker Collection (HCQC).

4 Interview with Richenda C. Scott, 30 May 1976, Friends House, London and The Friend (London), 27 January 1939, p. 68.Google Scholar

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7 Quotations are from The Quaker Peace Testimony, compiled by Rowntree, Joseph S. (London 1933), pp. 7, 12Google Scholar. Also see Friends and War: A New Statement of the Quaker Position (London 1920), p. 6Google Scholar and Brayshaw, A. Neave, The Quakers (3d rev. ed.; New York 1933, pp. 130–33).Google Scholar

8 During the London Yearly Meeting of 1861 an attempt was made to abolish the doctrine of the “Inner Light” as insufficiently grounded in Biblical authority; it failed. See Scott, , “Authority and Experience,” pp. 75–76.Google Scholar

9 Isichei, Elizabeth, “From Sect to Denomination Among English Quakers,” in Patterns of Sectarianism, edited by Wilson, Bryan R. (London 1967), pp. 169–175Google Scholar passim and Jones, P.d'A., The Christian Socialist Revival, 1877-1914: Religion, Class and Social Conscience in Late Victorian England (Princeton 1967), pp. 368–69.Google Scholar

10 Graham, John W., “Whence Comes Peace,” The British Friend (BF), Feb. 1896, pp. 27–29Google Scholar. Graham had reference to the fact that Quakers often joined Peace Societies without taking any active role in their deliberations.

11 Ibid., Feb. 1896, pp. 27-29 and April 1896, pp. 77-80. In August 1895 the British Friend, 204, noted that Hodgson Pratt's International Arbitration and Peace Society was not well supported by Quakers “inasmuch as it does not assert the doctrine of the theoretical unlawfulness of all defensive wars.”

12 Ibid., letters from M.L. Cooke, March 1896, 69 and from Francis Thompson, April 1896, pp. 92-93.

13 BF, May 1897, p. 101.

14 Ibid., Sept. 1899, pp. 235-36 and Oct. 1899, p. 259.

15 Ibid., Nov. 1899, p. 290 and Rempel, Richard A., “British Quakers and the South African War,” Quaker History 64 (Autumn 1975): 79–80, 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Grubb, Edward, “Some Personal Experiences,” Friends Quarterly Examiner 72 (October 1938): 307Google Scholar and Dudley, , Edward Grubb, p. 66.Google Scholar

17 John Wilhelm Rowntree to Rufus M. Jones, 6 Feb. 1901, Box 3, Rufus M. Jones Papers (RMJP), Quaker Collection, Haverford College. Rowntree was particularly incensed by the pro-war activities of the very influential Thomas Hodgkin and his family: “The spirit of war stalks the land naked, unashamed and our leading Quaker gives his benediction.” Ibid.

18 The Friend (London), 26 Jan. 1980, pp. 56–57Google Scholar. Also see BF, June 1901, p. 134. These remarks were in answer to an article by Richardson, Anne W., “A Quaker View of War,” in The Friend, 12 Jan. 1900, pp. 19–23Google Scholar which counselled “passive resistance” and “patient consistency.”

19 E.g., see letters to The Friend by Robinson, Ellen, 26 Jan. 1900, pp. 58–59Google Scholar; Herbert Corder, 16 Feb. 1900, p. 105; Alexander C. Wilson, 23 Feb. 1900, p. 122; and Frederick Sessions, 9 March 1900, pp. 154-55. In the peculiar vocabulary of Quakerism, a “weighty” Friend is a person of particular influence and importance in the Society.

20 See especially Bellow's, pamphlet, “The Truth about the Transvaal War, and the Truth about War,” (London 1900)Google Scholar. For views of other neutral or pro-war Quakers, see The Friend, 16 Feb. 1900, pp. 104–5Google ScholarPubMed; 23 Feb. 1900, pp. 122-23; and BF, April 1900, p. 97.

21 Edward Grubb and John S. Rowntree, “John Bellows and the War,” ibid., Dec. 1900, pp. 307-09. For other criticism of Bellows see ibid., May 1900, pp. 119-20; Sept. 1900, pp. 236-38; Oct. 1900. pp. 263-66 and The Friend, 9 March 1900, pp. 153–54.Google Scholar

22 Quoted by Rempel, , “British Quakers,” p. 77.Google Scholar

23 Grubb's, statement is in BF, 8 June 1900, pp. 155–56Google Scholar; the second quote is by James H. Midgley, ibid., p. 155. Also see Extracts from the Minutes and Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting of Friends (hereafter MPYMF, with year), 1900, pp. 64–69Google Scholar for the Yearly Meeting's address on “Christianity and War” which was also issued in pamphlet form (London 1900).Google Scholar

24 BF, 8 June 1900, p. 157.

25 MPYMF, 1904, pp. 33-35.

26 See, for example, Grubb, Edward, “Some Personal Experiences,” Friends Quarterly Examiner 72 (October 1938):300–02Google Scholar

27 John Wilhelm Rowntree to a Friend, 18 Sept. 1893, quoted in Rowntree's, Essays and Addresses, edited by Rowntree, Joshua (London, 1905), p. xiii.Google Scholar

28 For the significance of the Summer School Movement see ibid., pp. 151-160 and Jones, R.M., Later Period of Quakerism, 2: 777–78Google Scholar. Woodbrooke is discussed in Rowntree, Arnold S., Woodbrooke: Its History and Aims (London 1923)Google Scholar and Davis, Robert, ed., Woodbrooke, 1903-1953 (London 1953)Google Scholar. The fullest and best discussion of the importance of the Young Friends movement in the early twentieth century is Greenwood, J. Omerod, Quaker Encounters, vol. 1, Friends and Relief (York, 1975), pp. 172–177.Google Scholar

29 Bfrayshaw, Alfred Neave, “The Young Friends' Movement,” Swanwick, 1911 ([London 1912?]), pp. 5–10.Google Scholar

30 See ibid., p. 16 for a list of sub-committee members, eight of whom were women and one an older male; four of the members were also original appointees to the twenty man Friends Service Committee in 1915, see below, p. 17.

31 Brayshaw, , “Young Friends Movement,” Swanwick, pp. 5, 9Google Scholar. For Brayshaw (1861-1940) see DQB, HCQC.

32 Brayshaw, “Introductory Address,” ibid., pp. 26-31, 38.

33 For Graham's speech, see ibid., pp. 156-175.

34 Ibid., p. 175

35 Ibid. For wartime differences between younger and older Friends concerning the nature and degree of wartime resistance, see below p. 266.

36 G[eoffrey] H[oyland], “Swanwick, 1911,” ibid., pp. 11-12.

37 BF, July 1911, pp. 189-90. For the Territorial Force, see Howard, MichaelStudies in Warand Peace (New York 1971), pp. 83–98.Google Scholar

38 BF, Sept. 1911, pp. 263-64 and Oct. 1911, pp. 292-92.

39 Ibid., May 1912, p. 134 and MPYMF, 1912, p. 107.

40 Ibid., pp. 107-119, italics in original. “Our Testimony for Peace” was also published as a pamphlet by London Yearly Meeting (London [1912]).

41 The Friend, 8 Jan. 1909, p. 19Google ScholarPubMed and 23 Dec. 1910, p. 855; BF, Feb. 1910, p. 54 and MPYMF, 1910, pp. 83, 132-33, and 1911, pp. 113-14.

42 Ibid., 1912, pp. 102-05. Also see BF, Jan. 1911, pp. 23-24; April 1911, p. 113; July 1911, pp. 188-89; and June 1912, p. 163.

43 See Swanwick, 1911, p. 80 and photos, pp. 140, 172.

44 See Jauncey, Leslie C., The Story of Conscription in Australia (London 1935), pp. 65–117Google Scholar passim; Weitzel, R.L., “Pacifists and Anti-Militarists in New Zealand, 1909-1914,” The New Zealand Journal of History 7 (October 1973): 123–47Google Scholar; and Hirst, Margaret E., Quakers in Peace and War, pp. 487–92.Google Scholar

45 The Friend, 23 May 1913, pp. 335–36Google ScholarPubMed and MPYMF, 1913, pp. 106, 108-114, 121-22, 215-17. From January 1911 to April 1914 London Yearly Meeting's Committee on Australasian Defence Acts received subscriptions of over £4,300, see ibid., p. 109, and 1914, p. 122.

46 Ibid., 1914, p. 116.

47 The theme of innocence, developed around Philip Larkin's poem “MCMXIV” is presented with great insight, humor and sympathy by Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (London 1975), pp. 18–29.Google Scholar

48 The Friend, 7 Aug. 1914, pp. 575–76Google Scholar and 4 Sept. 1914, p. 647.

49 MPYMF, 1915, pp. 30-32. This report noted that few Quaker enlistees were active members of their respective Meetings, and that “the large number were only nominal Friends,” ibid., p. 30. Also see The Friend, 28 May 1915, 408–09Google Scholar and Hirst, , Quakers in Peace and War, pp. 504–05Google Scholar. Howard, Elizabeth Fox, “Friends Service in War-Time” (London, n.d.), p. 11Google Scholar, notes: “Strain proved too much for any whose Quaker principles were not rooted in something far deeper than mere tradition or inherited beliefs. But the vast majority of young Quaker manhood and womanhood choose a different kind of service …”It was generally conceded that about one-third of eligible Quakers joined the armed services; see Graham, John W., Conscription and Conscience (London 1922), p. 352.Google Scholar

50 Rowntree, B. Seebohm, “Friends and Enlistment,” The Friend, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 724Google Scholar; the Meeting for Sufferings' document is quoted in Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, pp. 155–56.Google Scholar

51 “The Society of Friends and Their Peace Testimony” Friends Quarterly Examiner 48 (1914): 553–560Google Scholar. At this time the author cannot be positively identified, but he or she was almost certainly beyond military age.

52 The fullest discussion to date of the Society of Friends during the First World War is Tucker, Leigh Robert, “English Quakers and World War I” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1972)Google Scholar. Tucker, however, has depended almost entirely on published sources and thus failed to develop some of the more interesting aspects of Quaker-especially the Friends Service Committee's-resistance to conscription. Also see Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, pp. 154–171Google Scholar and passim and Kennedy, Thomas C., “Fighting about Peace: the No-Conscription Fellowship and the British Friends' Service Committee, 1915-1919,” Quaker History, 69/1 (Spring 1980): 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 For the National Service League see Summers, Anne, “Militarism in Britain before the Great War,” History Workshop 2 (Autumn 1976): 114–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hayes, Denis, Conscription Conflict (London 1949), pp. 37–135.Google Scholar

54 Grubb, Edward, “Compulsory Military Training,” The Friend, 12 Feb. 1915, pp. 114–16Google Scholar. Also see John W. Graham, “The State and the Individual,” ibid, 9 April 1915, pp. 267-69.

55 See Ceadel, Martin, Pacifism in Britain, 1914-1945: The Defining of a Faith (Oxford 1980), pp. 15–17, 25–27Google Scholar for a discussion of Quakers as collaborative pacifists.

56 Ibid., p. 35. For the full proceedings of the Llandudno Conference see Friends and the War (London, [1914])Google Scholar. The Fellowship of Reconciliation is discussed by Brittain, Vera, The Rebel Passion (London 1964)Google Scholar. For Hodgkin (1877-1933), see Wood, H.G., Henry T. Hodgkin: A Memoir (London 1937).Google Scholar

57 Bertrand Russell to Ottoline Morrell, 11 Aug. 1914, No. 1069, Ottoline Morrell Papers, Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, Texas; and The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols. (London 1967–1969), 2: 39–40Google Scholar. See The Friend, 26 Feb. 1915, p. 170Google Scholar for a letter signed by a number of “weighty” Friends, including Anna Barlow, Roger Clark, Joseph Rowntree, Edward Grubb and John W. Graham, recommending the UDC to Quakers.

58 Hodgkin to Jones, 29 March 1915, Box 9, RMJP.

59 Grubb to Jones, 22 May 1915, ibid. For the report of the Committee on Young Men of Enlistment Age, see MPYMF, 1915, pp. 193-94. Also see The Friend, 28 May and 4 June 1915 for a summary of Yearly Meeting proceedings.

60 See note by Horace Alexander (an original member of the FSC) in Quaker History 70 (Spring 1981): 48Google Scholar. Also see Catchpool, T. Corder, On Two Fronts (London 1918), p. 104nGoogle Scholar and Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, pp. 160–62.Google Scholar

61 Littleboy, Wilfrid E., “Our Peace Testimony and Some of Its Implications,” The Friend, 2 Oct. 1914, p. 724.Google Scholar

62 Friends Service Committee (FSC), Minutes, Records of Work and Documents Issued, 3 vols, (hereafter FSC Minutes), 1 (June 1915-June 1916), p. 7Google Scholar, Friends' House Library (FHL), London. Also see MPYMF, 1915, p. 194; The Friend, 28 May 1915, p. 447Google ScholarPubMed; and Hirst, , Quakers in Peace and War, p. 507Google Scholar. A list of original members of the FSC is in FSC Minutes, 1:8Google Scholar, FHL and MPYMF, 1915, p. 201.

63 Reade, J.B. to The Friend, 18 June 1915, p. 503Google Scholar and Hodgkin to Jones, 31 May 1915, Box 9, RMJP.

64 NCF, “Statement of Principles,” leaflet in Clifford Allen Papers, McKissick Library, University of South Carolina, Columbia, S.C. Also see [Brock, A. Fenner way], ed., The No-Conscription Fellowship: A Souvenir of Its Work During the Years, 1914-1919 (London 1919), p. 8.Google Scholar

65 FSC Minutes, 1:11Google Scholar and FSC Secretary to Clifford Allen, 26 July 1915, in unsorted FSC Files, FHL. Brown (1887-1947) had also been appointed to the Young Friends Sub-Committee at Swanwick. For relations between the NCF and FSC see Kennedy, , “Fighting about Peace,” p. 3–22Google Scholar and Hound of Conscience, pp. 197-215.

66 FSC Minutes, H.W. Peet to FSC members, 13 Dec. 1915, 1:33; ibid., 1:8; and Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, p. 161.Google Scholar

65 Hubert W. Peet to Clifford Allen, 18 Oct. 1915, FSC Files, FHL; FSC to members of Society of Friends, 3 Nov. 1915, ibid.; and The Friend, 17 Dec. 1915, p. 945.

66 Ibid., 30 Aug. 1918, pp. 529-30 estimated that 700 Friends served with the FAU or War Victims Relief Committee; Howard, “Friends' Service in War-time,” pp. 26-29 says that the FAU eventually numbered 1800, but not all its members were Friends.

69 The quotation is from a letter critical of H.M. Wallis's activities, ibid., 19 Nov. 1915, pp. 872-73. For examples of letters from “war-Friends,” see ibid., 20 Aug. 1915, pp. 652-54; 3 Sept. 1915, p. 687; 10 Sept. 1915, p. 707; 5 Nov. 1915, pp. 844-45; and 19 Nov. 1915, pp. 871-873.

70 For Hodgkin's remarks, see ibid., 17 Dec. 1915, p. 944 and for Brayshaw's, 24 Dec. 1915, p. 961. Earlier, J.B. Hodgkin had noted: “I am amazed at the apparent inability of some … correspondents to understand the position of the Society of Friends in relation to Peace and War,” ibid., 26 Nov. 1915, p. 887.

71 Edward Grubb, Joan Mary Fry and R.O. Mennell to Cabinet and Members of Parliament, 3 Jan. 1916, FSC Minutes, 1:41Google ScholarPubMed and Joan M. Fry to R.O. Mennell, 2 Jan. 1916 FSC Files, FHL. Reprinted in The Friend, 7 Jan. 1916, p. 5Google Scholar. Also see ibid., 10 Sept. 1915, pp. 696-97 and Edward Grubb, “Compulsory Service and Freedom of Conscience,” ibid., 15 Oct. 1915, pp. 783-85. For Asquith's introduction of the bill see 5 H.C., 77:949-62, 5 Jan. 1916. The best discussion of the provisions for conscientious objectors is Rae, John, Conscience and Politics (London 1970), pp. 27–35.Google Scholar

72 Grubb, E. to Croyden Advertiser, 11 Jan. 1916Google Scholar; Grubb to Rufus M. Jones, 13 and 19 Jan. 1916, Box 10, RMJP; and “Lord Roberts on Conscience,” The Friend, 24 Dec. 1915, pp. 948–50Google Scholar and “The Hardest Question of All,” Ibid., 21 Jan. 1916, pp. 29-30.

73 Tucker, , “English Quakers and World War I,” 104–105Google Scholar and Hubert W. Peet to Warren Leurs, 31 Jan. 1916, FSC Files, FHL. See The Friend, 21 Jan 1916, pp. 31–37Google Scholar for a summary of the proceedings of the adjourned Yearly Meeting.

74 See FSC Minutes, 1:5Google Scholar, FHL for an extract from Minute 3 of the Yearly Meeting of 1915, which reads: “We are warmly in sympathy with the proposal to help by advice and financial assistance young Friends to train for non-combatant service.” Also see MPYMF, 1915, pp. 25-27. A history of the FAU is Meaburn Tatham and James Miles, E., The Friends' Ambulance Unit, 1914-1919 (London [1919])Google Scholar. Also see Catchpool, T. Corder, On Two Fronts (London 1918), pp. 9–22Google Scholar, for an eyewitness account of the work done by the FAU prior to 1916.

75 FSC Minutes, 2:1Google Scholar; FSC to members, 22 March 1916, FSC Files; and Hubert W. Peet to Ernest W. Davie, 25 March 1916 and to Herbert Corder, 18 March 1916, ibid., FHL.

76 Catchpool, , On Two Fronts, pp. 104–08Google Scholar, and Corder Catchpool to Hubert Peet, 11 Feb. 1916, FSC Files, FHL. Howard, , “Friends Service in Wartime,” p. 23Google Scholar notes that about a dozen Friends resigned from the FAU to return home and face the tribunals.

77 See R.O. Mennell to Sir George Newman (FAU Chief), 20 June 1916, ibid., and a “Series of Papers on the Friends Ambulance Unit and Its Effects upon the Principals [sic] of the Society of Friends,” ibid., FHL. Twenty members of the FAU were killed in the line of duty, Howard, “Friends's Service in War-time,” p. 23.

78 Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, p. 161Google Scholar and MPYMF, 1916, p. 36.

79 Esther Bright Clothier to R.O. Mennell, 11 and 20 June 1916, FSC Files, FHL. For a brief biography of this extremely interesting feminist and pacifist, see DQB, FHL.

80 Clothier to Mennell, 16 and 20 June 1916 and Mennell to Clothier, 19 June 1916, FSC Files, FHL.

81 Mennell to Clothier, 13 July 1916, ibid., FHL and FSC Minutes, 1:85Google Scholar. MPFYM, 1917, p. 170 lists 36 members on the FSC, 13 of these were women, including Esther Bright Clothier.

82 For discussion of the role of women in the early Society of Friends, see Braithwaite, William Charles, The Second Period of Quakerism (2nd ed.; Cambridge 1961), especially pp. 270–75Google Scholar. In 1918 Mary Jane Godlee became the first woman to preside as Clerk over London Yearly Meeting, see Robinson, Maude, “Lest we Forget” (London n.d.), p. 26.Google ScholarPubMed

83 For this and much of what follows, I am indebted to Dr. Jo Vellacott for generously sharing with me both her broad knowledge as a leading scholar of the modern peace movement and her deep understanding of the Society of Friends.

84 Jones, , Christian Socialist Revival, pp. 367–89Google Scholar provides the fullest discussion of the SQS, though his account stops in 1914 and says little about the importance of the peace testimony to the organization.

85 The Ploughshare, n.s. I/1 (Feb. 1916):35Google ScholarPubMed. Also see ibid. I (Nov. 1912):1. From November 1912 until November 1915, The Ploughshare was a quarterly journal; in February 1916 a larger and considerably more ambitious monthly series began.

86 “The Roots of War” ibid., 4 (Aug. 1913):47-48 and 12 (Nov. 1915):151. The events of the war years also led some older Friends, including Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin into socialism; see Greenwood, John Ormerod, Henry Hodgkin: The Road to Pendle Hill (Pendle Hill Pamphlet 229, 1980), p. 18.Google Scholar

87 See below, pp. 27-32.

88 Fussell, Paul, The Great War and Modern Memory (London 1975), p. 11Google Scholar and Ceadel, , Pacifism in Britain, p. 60.Google Scholar

89 Ibid. Also see Kennedy, , “Fighting about Peace,” pp. 11–14Google Scholar and Hound of Conscience, pp. 201-08.

90 For detailed examination of the problems between the FSC and NCF, see ibid., 197-215 and “Fighting about Peace,” pp. 3-22.

91 FSC Minutes, “Notes of Committee Meetings,” 2 Nov. 1916, 2:16Google Scholar and R.O. Mennell to Daisy Harland, 25 Oct. 1916, FSC Files, FHL.

92 See, for example, extract from the diary of NCF Chairman Clifford Allen, 1 Feb. 1919, Allen Papers. Also printed in Gilbert, Martin, ed., Plough My Own Furrow (London 1965), pp. 128–29.Google Scholar

93 The Friend, 19 May 1916, p. 367; Clifford Allen's diary, 1 Feb. 1919, Allen Papers and The Ploughshare, n.s. I/3 (April 1916):97Google ScholarPubMed. Edward Grubb, Henry T. Hodgkin and other middle-aged Friends who opposed the FSC's position did so, in part, because they believed that the young leaders of the Service Committee were so carried away by their own inspiration that they forgot the fragility and vulnerability of other, especially non-Quaker, war-resisters who believed they were being left to face their ordeal alone. Bertrand Russell had a similar view; see Russell to Edith Ellis, 11 Sept. 1917, FSC Files, FHL in which Russell noted: “To my mind, a duty of human kindness is involved … many of our [NCF] people have come with difficulty to pacifism, though the insights of their best moments; many … really need friendly support, or else they would feel deserted.” (Copyright, Res-Lib. 1981, used with permission).

94 Isichei, , “From Sect To Denomination,” pp. 175–76.Google Scholar

95 Milligan, , “T.E. Harvey,” 12/15Google Scholar. Also see Edward Grubb to Rufus Jones, 25 Feb. 1917, Box 11, RMJP.

96 Wilfrid G. Hinde to Grubb, 11 March 1917; Grubb to Edith Ellis, 14 and 22 March 1917 and Ellis to Grubb, 21 March 1917, FSC Files, FHL.

97 H. Peet to Ellis, 28 Feb. 1917; Russell Frayling to Ellis, 27 Feb. 1917; and Arthur Watts to H. Peet or E. Ellis, 18 Sept. 1916, ibid.

98 Quotes are by Clifford Allen from a typed extract of his letter of 21 Oct. 1916 in FSC Files, FHL and Allen to Catherine Marshall, 24 March 1917, Allen Papers.

99 Esther Bright Clothier to Ellis, 26 March 1917 FSC Files, FHL and FSC Minutes, Summary of FSC Meeting, 29 March, 2:48, ibid. Also Harrison Barrow to Ellis, 23 March 1917, ibid.; Bracher, S.V. to The Tribunal, 15 March 1917Google Scholar; and Brown, A. Barrett to The Tribunal, 22 March 1917.Google Scholar

100 “Notes of a subject for consideration at next M. for S.”, 20 April 1917, FSC Files, FHL. Also see Douglas Bishop to Edith Ellis, 25 April 1917, ibid.

101 Quoted in Braithwaite, William Charles, The Second Period of Quakerism, (London 1919), pp. 283–84Google Scholar. The Meeting for Sufferings was established in 1675 “to have oversight in all cases of suffering, whether by persecution or misforturne,” Hirst, , Quakers in Peace and War, p. 64n.Google Scholar

102 “Proceedings of the Meeting for Sufferings, Summary 1917-1918,” MPFTM, 1918, p. 45Google Scholar; The Friend, 11 May 1917, 320Google ScholarPubMed; and Tucker, , “English Quakers and World War I,” pp. 198–99, 201.Google Scholar

103 Thistlewaite, F., Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting (York 1977), p. 377Google Scholar; Alexander, Horace to Quaker History 70 (Spring 1981): 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; FSC Minutes, 6 Sept. 1917, 2:76Google Scholar; John P. Fletcher to Thompson Elliott, 16 August 1917, FSC Files; H.W. Peet to Dr. [Henrietta] Thomas, 18 Aug. 1917, ibid.; and H.W. Peet to members of FSC, 27 Aug. 1917, ibid, FHL.

104 Russell to Ellis, 11 Sept. 1917, ibid. (Copyright, Res-Lib. 1981, used with permission).

105 Wilfrid Littleboy to Edith Ellis, 27 Sept. 1917, ibid.; W.T. Newby to Ellis (extract), 2 Oct. 1917, ibid.; and The Friend, 2 Nov. 1917, 838–39.Google ScholarPubMed

106 Thistlewaite, , Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting, p. 48Google Scholar; MPYMF, 1918, pp. 30-33, 81-90; FSC Minutes, 5 April 1918, 3:4Google Scholar; Minutes of “Appeal” Committee, at the Yearly Meeting held in London, 24 May 1918, FSC Files, FHL; and FSC “Report to the Meeting for Sufferings,” n.d. ibid. This last document gives the total number of copies distributed as 421,000.

107 FSC Minutes and Files, 1918-1919, FHL, contain voluminous material on these projects. Also see The Tribunal (NCF newspaper), 10 and 24 Oct. 1918, 23 Jan. and 24 April 1919, 1 and 15 May 1919.

108 See Tucker, Leigh, “English Friends and Censorship, World War I,” Quaker History 71 (Fall 1982): 114–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Graham, , Conscription and Conscience, p. 163–67.Google Scholar

109 Jan Smuts to Gillette, Margaret Clark, 11 June 1918, in Selections from the Smuts Papers, eds. Hancock, W.K. and Poel, Jean Van Der, 4 vols. (Cambridge 1966), 3:835.Google Scholar

110 The Annual Monitor, 1919-1920 (London 1920)Google Scholar, a Quaker obituary listed the names of 108 Friends who died in the war, some of whom were with the FAU or Friends War Victims' Relief Committee. A total of 279 members and attenders of Quaker meetings were imprisioned as COs, 145 absolutists and 134 alternativists. See Robinson, , Lest We Forget, pp. 3, 16Google ScholarPubMed and The Friend, 9 Jan. 1920, 15.

111 “Friends and Enlistment,” Friends and the War, p. 130.Google ScholarPubMed

112 “The Life of the Society of Friends,” in The Peace Testimony of the Society of Friends [Reports of the Commissions prepared for the Conference of All Friends, August 1920] (London [1920]), p. 52.Google Scholar

113 After the war Anna Barlow noted that Germans were interested in Friends as much for the fact that young Quakers went to prison rather than fight as for the relief work they were doing. “Problems of Education,” All Friends Conference (AFC), Official Report (London 1920), p. 159Google Scholar. Also see Masterman, Lucy B., C.F.G. Masterman, A Biography (London 1939), p. 290Google Scholar and Tucker, , “English Quakers and World War I,” p. 266.Google Scholar

114 Peet, Hubert W., “Released!,” The Ploughshare 4 (May 1919):101.Google Scholar

115 MPYMF, 1919, p. 103 and The Ploughshare 4 (July 1919):174Google Scholar. For post-war Quaker relief and reconstruction activities see Stephens, D. Owen, With Quakers in France (London 1921)Google Scholar, and Greenwood, Friends and Relief, passim.

116 “Through Unity to Progress,” AFC, Official Report, pp. 31, 36 and John P. Fletcher, “Character and Basis of the Testimony,” ibid., p. 51. Also see Report of the Committee on War and the Social Order, MPYMF, 1916, pp. 103-04.

117 Braithwaite, William C., “The Conference: A Vision of Its Possibilities,” Conference of All Friends: A Guide and Souvenir (London 1920), p. 5.Google Scholar

118 “The Fundamental Basis” (Report of Comm. I), Peace Testimony, pp. 1–32. Also see Friends and War, A New Statement of the Quaker Position Adopted by the Conference of All Friends, 1920 (London 1931).Google Scholar

119 “The Implication of the Testimony in Personal Life and in Society” (Report of Comm. III), Peace Testimony, pp. 3–4.

120 “Capitalism and War” (Report of Comm. Ill, Appendix I), ibid., pp. 17-20. The SOS's view of social revolution seemed to be moderating in the post-war period, probably in reaction to events in the Soviet Union. For example, from March through October 1919 The Ploughshare was subtitled “A Quaker Organ of Social Revolution”; in November 1919 it became “A Journal of Hope.”

121 “The Life of the Society of Friends in View of Present Demand” (Report of Comm. V), Peace Testimony, p. 5 and Hodgkin, , “Character and Basis of the Testimony,” AFC, Official Report, pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

122 “Life of the Society of Friends” (Report of Comm. V), Peace Testimony, p. 52. For Quakers in the interwar peace movement see Ceadel, , Pacifism in Britain, pp. 62–315 passim.Google Scholar