Author Archives: Library of the Society of Friends
William Penn: commemorations and curios
30 July 2018 is the 300th anniversary of the death of William Penn. He is widely-known as the founder of the American colony of Pennsylvania in 1681, on land given to him by Charles II in payment of a debt … Continue reading
150 years of Friends and foreign missions
26th May 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Friends Foreign Mission Association in 1868. This put overseas mission and relief work on a permanent footing for the Society for the first time, and this … Continue reading
New images on display in the reading room: a quick tour
The Library reading room has had a make-over. Around the walls you’ll see a series of large panels displaying images selected from different parts of the collections. They give some insight into the breadth of material held by the Library, … Continue reading
Quaker Faith and Practice: the Quaker book of discipline from the “green dragon of the ancients” to the “red book”
At Yearly Meeting in 2018 Quakers in Britain will be considering whether to revise Quaker faith and practice – the book of discipline. This volume, found in every Quaker meeting and freely available online, is referred to for guidance on … Continue reading
Demystifying digitisation
In this blog post we want to tackle the big issue currently facing libraries, archives and museums: digitisation. It is something we are putting a lot of thought into here at Library of Society of Friends, and something we are … Continue reading
Conserving the Library’s tract volume collection
Our first Quaker Strongrooms blogpost of 2018 is from Ian Watson of Sussex Conservation Consortium, who’s been conserving some of the Library’s “tract volumes”. These are 650 bound volumes of 17th-19th century pamphlets (sometimes grandly described as Sammelbands) – one … Continue reading
A year in view: Quaker Strongrooms blog 2017
As the New Year approaches, here’s a quick look back at some Quaker Strongrooms blog highlights of 2017. The most popular post was Quaker women: resources for women’s history in the Library of the Society of Friends, published in March … Continue reading
Quakers and the Nobel Peace Prize – 70 year anniversary
Yesterday marked the the 70th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Friends Service Council and American Friends Service Committee, representing British and Americans Quakers more widely. The anniversary feels all the more special this … Continue reading
“In turbulent times”: sources on local Quakers and their meetings over the centuries
For Quaker Week 2017, our head of Library & Archives, Libby Adams, travelled to Penrith Meeting to give a talk on local Quakers living through “turbulent times” (this year’s Quaker Week theme). This blog post concentrates on Quaker stories from … Continue reading
From cupola, portico or archway: Quaker school magazines
We’ve touched on children’s magazines in a previous blog post about Quaker missionary periodicals. Another kind of publication concerning young people is the school magazine. Quaker schools generated a variety of these, some written by teachers, others by pupils, some … Continue reading
Quaker Strongrooms 