Guide to the Records of the Society of Friends (as filmed the AJCP), 1771-1936

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Summary

Collection number:

M693 - M707

Extent:

179 items

Language:

English

Preferred citation:

Acknowledgement of use of this material should refer to the location of the original material and to the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Items from this collection should include references to the location of the original material and to the AJCP nla.obj number, which serves as the online identifier for the digital copy.

Example: M Series: Journal of Capt. James Cook, 18 February 1770, British Library Add. MS 27885 (AJCP ref: http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1234)

Availability:

Available

Access conditions:

Available for reference.

Background

Content Summary:

Minutes, some original records and annual reports scattered throughout the official correspondence, miscellaneous and private papers held in the Friends House Library. Some journals and correspondence are primarily of religious interest, others such as those of Daniel Wheeler, James Backhouse, William Benson, Ann F. Jackson and E. Maria Bishop contain detailed descriptions of people and places. The collection has been divided and filmed in the following groups:

Selections from minutes of London Yearly Meeting 1834-1916, London Meeting for Sufferings 1828-1916, Continental Committee 1817-1905, and Australasian Committee 1903-1919. Most of the minutes are indexed.

Entries 1840-1872 from Testimonies Concerning Ministers Deceased for Daniel Wheeler, John Bell, Robert Lindsey, James Backhouse and Thomas Pierce.

Australasian material in the Casual Correspondence volume of the Epistles of the London Yearly Meeting, comprising official correspondence 1785-1881, mainly epistles, sent to and from the London Meeting and members of the Society in Van Diemen's Land, South Australia and Sydney.

Portfolio series of miscellaneous volumes including records of the Continental Committee, some official correspondence of James Backhouse and Daniel Wheeler, reports and minutes.

Manuscript Boxes, Small collections of correspondence, official and personal, accounts of visits, copies of minutes of meetings, newspaper cuttings, lists of members and printed pamphlets 1835-1934 including material about the Hobart Friends School, conscription and the Wellington Friends Hostel. Also includes correspondence, minutes and cuttings of Charles J. Holdsworth.

Items 1831-1922 relating to Australasia from manuscript boxes (lettered), including letters of George Washington Walker, list of Friends 1854, letters of Lucy F. Morland, and notes on the history of Friends in Australia and New Zealand.

Letters, papers and extracts from the journals 1832-1846 of Daniel Wheeler covering his travels in the South Seas.

Letterbooks, journal letter transcripts and an account book 1831-1868 of James Backhouse (1794-1869) of Van Diemen's Land.

Selections from the journals 1852-1861 of Robert Lindsey and his wife Sarah describing two visits to Australia and New Zealand.

Extracts from the journals 1866-1868 of William Benson including sketches of buildings, zoological specimens and maps.

Selections from the autobiography of Alfred Wright referring to his visits to Australia in 1874-1875 and 1890-1892.

Extracts from diaries 1880-1882 of Isaac Sharp describing his travels in Australia and New Zealand.

Collection of autographs of C.S. Gibson including 'Plants named after Friends'.

Correspondence 1887-1890 of Howard Hodgkin relating to economic conditions in Ireland and emigration to Australia.

Biographical / Historical:

The Society of Friends (commonly known as the Quakers) was founded in England by George Fox in the mid-seventeenth century. He argued that all humans were equal before God, and ranks, titles, consecrated buildings and ordained ministers were irrelevant to the individual seeking God. The movement became associated with quietism, pacifism, non-violence, sobriety in dress and manners, and concern for social reform. Partly on account of persecution, it soon spread to the British colonies in America and, on a smaller scale, to the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

The first Quaker to visit Australia and New Zealand was Sydney Parkinson, the artist on HMS Endeavour in 1769-1770. About 30 Quakers were transported or migrated to Australia before 1830. The numbers increased in the next twenty years, with 70 (excluding children) arriving in Van Diemen's Land, 90 in South Australia and 95 in New South Wales. During the gold rushes of the 1850s, almost 300 Quakers arrived in Victoria. In the same period, however, membership losses were significant, on account of deaths, disownments, individuals and families returning to England, and other reasons. In 1901 the number of members of Society of Friends meetings was a little over 500.

The arrival in 1831 of two Quaker missionaries, James Backhouse and George Washington Walker, had a profound effect on the organisation and survival of the Society of Friends in Australia. They stayed in Australia for over five years, mainly in Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, but also visiting Moreton Bay, Norfolk Island, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. While they had a particular interest in investigating the treatment of convicts and Australian Aboriginals, they also preached, held meetings, distributed tracts, encouraged the formation of non-sectarian charities, and advocated the use of non-denominational schoolbooks. In Hobart they established the first Meeting for Discipline in 1833 and the first Yearly Meeting in 1834. In 1837 Backhouse bought a house in Hobart which served as a Meeting House for over forty years.

The Hobart Monthly Meeting was the parent meeting for the other Australian meetings. In Adelaide J.B. Hack organised the erection of a Meeting House in 1840, although a monthly meeting for Discipline was not established until 1843. In Melbourne a Meeting for Discipline was started in 1854 and a Meeting House opened in 1860. John Tawell erected a meeting house in Sydney in 1835, but it was sold a few years later. A new meeting house was opened in 1854, but the Sydney meeting struggled until Joseph Neave settled in Sydney in 1876. Meeting houses were erected in Brisbane in 1866 and Rockhampton in 1880. The secretaries of meetings maintained communications with the London Yearly Meeting and its committees. Members of particular families often held these positions for long periods: the Mather and Cotton families in Hobart, the Sayce family in Melbourne, the May family in Adelaide and the Hopkins family in Brisbane.

While Backhouse and Walker were in Australia, another English missionary, Daniel Wheeler, made brief visits to Hobart and Sydney. In the second half of the nineteenth century such visits became more frequent and strengthened the ties between the meetings in Australia and the London Meeting. Frederick Mackie and Robert Lindsey toured Australia and New Zealand in 1852-1855 and they were followed by Robert and Sarah Lindsey in 1861, Joseph Neave in 1867, William Benson in 1867-1868, Isaac Sharp in 1881-1882, William Jones in 1888-1889, Alfred Wright in 1891 and Maria Bishop in 1900-1903.

A major event in the history of the Society of Friends was the opening of the Friends' School in Hobart in 1887. A meeting of parents had appealed to the London Meeting for assistance in establishing a co-educational school open to both Friends and non-Friends. They received a positive response. Funds were raised, an English headmaster appointed, and textbooks and equipment were supplied from England. The School remained the responsibility of the London Meeting until 1923 and its reports, regular letters from the Hobart committee, and articles in The British Friend aroused considerable interest in England. With student boarders from all the Australian colonies, the Friends' School soon occupied an important place in Tasmanian educational life.

Intercolonial conferences of the Society of Friends were held in the 1880s and 1890s. In 1901 a conference recommended that an annual General Meeting for Australia be established and the proposal was approved by the London Yearly Meeting. The first meeting was held in Melbourne in 1902.

In New Zealand most Quakers lived in isolated communities and organisation was difficult. Regular meetings began in Nelson in 1840, but were discontinued after about 1860. A quarterly meeting was held in Auckland in 1870, but monthly meetings only began in 1885. Ann Fletcher Jackson and her husband Thomas arrived in New Zealand in 1879 and settled at Whangarei on the North Island. For nearly twenty years she travelled throughout the country encouraging the establishment of regular meetings. Annual meetings were started in Wellington in 1909, Auckland in 1910 and Dunedin in 1911. The first General Meeting for New Zealand was held in 1913. In 1909 the Society opened a hostel in Wellington to enable country children to attend secondary school and in 1920 it established a co-educational school at Whangarei.

References

William N. Oats. A question of survival: Quakers in Australia in the nineteenth century. Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1985.

Margaret West and Ruth Fawell. The story of New Zealand Quakerism 1842-1972. Auckland, Religious Society of Friends, 1973.

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:: Available for Access.
Conditions Governing Use:: Many of the records digitised as part of the AJCP are still in copyright. Readers wishing to publish or reproduce documents should seek permission, in the first instance, from the owner of the original material.