Quaker Strongrooms

Chinese translations

Posted on 01/11/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Work to add all the Library’s printed materials to our online catalogue continues, reaching into some less visited corners of the collections. In the angle of the reading room gallery sits a collection of Quaker texts translated into foreign languages for use in the mission field. Among them are various volumes of early 20th century Chinese books and pamphlets translated by one Isaac Mason (1870-1939).

Tracts translated into Chinese by Isaac Mason (Library ref. Box 177)

Early Quaker works had been translated into Latin, Dutch, French, Hebrew, Polish and even Arabic, for diffusion throughout Europe and the near East. In the 19th century many works began to be translated into Scandinavian languages, and the Society of Friends’ annual epistle appeared in German translated by the Recording Clerk himself. Isaac Mason was responsible for the earliest transmission of Quaker writings to a Chinese audience: his career as a missionary and translator is a fascinating one.

Isaac Mason in Sichuan. From: Davidson, Robert J. and Mason, Isaac, Life in West China: described by two residents in the province of Sz-chwan (1905) p. 211

Isaac was born in Holbeck, Leeds, in January 1870 and joined Quakers through his connection with the Great Wilson Street Sunday School and Adult School. He proved “headstrong and difficult”, a thorn in the side of the staff, but, on the point of being expelled, he came under the influence of Caroline Southall in the Adult School and became intensely loyal to her. She and other Leeds Quakers offered their service with the Friends Foreign Missionary Association (FFMA) in China. Mason volunteered too, but was only accepted a year later.

Esther Mason. In: Friends Foreign Mission Association Annual report (1909)

After a further year of working as an iron moulder in Leeds and studying in his free time, he moved to London, where he started work at the Barnet Grove branch of the Bedford Institute, became engaged to Esther L. Beckwith, and finally went out to join the FFMA in Chungking (Chongqing) in 1894. He and Esther settled in T’ung Ch’wan, Szechwan Province (Tongchuan District, Sichuan) and did pioneer work at She Hong and Suining. Together they passed safely through some turbulent times – local riots, the anti-missionary Boxer Uprising and the Revolution of 1911 (Xinhai Revolution).

Isaac Mason. In Friends Foreign Mission Association Annual report (1909)

Isaac Mason or Mei I-seng as he was known in China, mastered the language with unusual quickness. After 22 years in West China, he moved to Shanghai, where his interest in the production of Friends’ literature in Chinese flourished. He translated for the Christian Literature Society of China short lives of Quakers such as William Penn, John Bright, John Howard, Stephen Grellet and parts of John Woolman’s Journal. He also tackled Sir George Newman’s Health of the state, dozens of religious books and pamphlets and helped compile a Chinese dictionary of the Bible. Many of his pamphlets reflect his interest in Islam in China. Among the children’s books are The Swiss family Robinson, and Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare.

Like some other contemporary Christian missionaries Isaac Mason had a particular interest in Chinese Muslims, and he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1921. His election proposal stated that “Mr Mason has spent many years in China, travelled in the interior, investigated Chinese Mahommedanism, is the Secretary of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and is in every way eligible for election as a Fellow. He is the author of several books in Chinese and English” (proposed by Zwemer and seconded by Heawood, the RGS Librarian; thanks to the Royal Geographical Society Library for this information).

Davidson, Robert J. and Mason, Isaac, Life in West China: described by two residents in the province of Sz-chwan (1905). Title page

One of the bonuses of this Library’s retrospective cataloguing project has been the opportunity to provide better catalogue entries for foreign language publications – often poorly identified in the former card catalogue, or simply not catalogued at all. In adding this small collection of Chinese tracts to our online catalogue we faced considerable linguistic challenges. We did have help though – sometimes the original English titles were printed in English on the reverse of the title page, and occasional manuscript notes on the items themselves were invaluable. A few had explanatory notes from Isaac Mason himself.

The Library’s copy of War as it is, translated by Isaac Mason, with note by translator and accompanying letter to the Librarian, Norman Penney 23/3/1909

Though cheaply produced, the books and pamphlets are delightfully different from their English equivalents. In many of them, each “leaf” is in fact a single sheet printed on one side only (as was traditional in Chinese book production), to make two “pages” of text with bold black borders, then folded in half to make a double sided page.

Sheet printed on one side and folded to make double sided page

More on Isaac Mason and Quaker missionaries in China

Friends in China (Library of the Society of Friends online exhibition, 2008)

Tyzack, Charles Friends to China: the Davidson brothers and the Friends’ mission to China 1886-1939. York: Sessions, 1988

Davidson, Robert J. and Mason, Isaac Life in West China: described by two residents in the province of Sz-chwan. London: Headley Brothers, 1905

Obituary for Isaac Mason in The Friend, vol. 97, no. 14 (April 1939) p.276-7

Travel letters of Isaac Mason 1915. Unpublished journal letters of Isaac Mason to a group of Friends in Leeds and Peckham, 1915, describing a journey to China, including letters from United States, Japan, Shanghai and other Chinese cities. Library of the Society of Friends, Library reference Temp MSS 601

Posted in Highlights | Tagged China, Isaac mason, missions, printed works, Retrospective Cataloguing Project | 4 Comments

Quakers, relief and rescue in 1930s and 1940s Europe: a collaborative microfilming project with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Posted on 02/10/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Since 2006 the Library has been involved in a collaborative microfilming project with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). The Museum, based in Washington DC, is the most comprehensive institution of its type in the world.

Its primary mission is to advance and disseminate knowledge about the tragedy of the Holocaust, to preserve the memory of those who suffered, and to encourage its visitors to reflect upon the moral and spiritual questions raised by the events of the Holocaust as well as their own responsibilities as citizens of a democracy. The USHMM teaches millions each year about the dangers of unchecked hatred and the need to prevent genocide. It undertakes leadership training, education programmes, exhibitions and commemorations. As a memorial, it works against genocide through its Genocide Prevention Task Force, training foreign policy professionals.

The USHMM also collects archival material relating to the Holocaust from all over the world, and in 2006 it approached the Library of the Society of Friends to request access to British Quaker archive collections. It had already cooperated with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the main American Quaker organisation assisting refugees and war victims, which had provided a considerable quantity of lists, images and data to the Museum, including refugee case files 1933-1958 and records relating to humanitarian work in France.

Facing the second winter (London: Germany Emergency Committee, November 1934). With attached appeal dated May 1935

Substantial British Quaker work was done from 1933 onwards in relation to Nazi and Fascist Europe. This work included reporting on conditions inside Germany after the Nazi Party gained power in 1933, particularly in relation to political prisoners and their families, providing assistance to the prisoners and families, supporting the small community of German Quakers, assisting Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Poles and others suffering persecution, prosecution, imprisonment or exile for political, racial and religious reasons, and helping refugees and dependants arriving in Britain with employment, sponsorship, training, education, and re-emigration matters. In the UK there were also Quaker efforts for the welfare of those foreign refugees and UK residents who had been detained as “Enemy Aliens” soon after war was declared.

: This Quaker work was done principally by three committees – Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens (originally known as the Germany Emergency Committee), Friends Relief Service, and Friends Service Council (the international department of the Society of Friends in Britain at the time).; Germany Emergency Committee of the Society of Friends: wo finden sie eine Ruhestätte? (London: Germany Emergency Committee, December 1936); During World War II and its immediate aftermath British and American Quakers also assisted civilian populations in many areas of Europe and elsewhere. This work from 1933 into the post-war period was recognized by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 (see our online exhibition at http://www.quaker.org.uk/nobel-peace-prize-1947 ).

Refugees knitting at the Germany Emergency Committee workroom, ca. 1939 (Library ref. Box FRS/1992/9 Germany Emergency Committee photographs)

The Library’s collaborative project with USHMM began with a survey of our holdings and an inspection of large numbers of publications, minute books and file series by the USHMM’s British research assistant. This formed the basis of the ongoing microfilm project to produce master negatives (retained by the Library) and positive microfilm copies (sent to the USHMM for use in its library and research facilities). This long-term project has involved Library staff in the careful preparation of materials for microfilming, checking lists against records, page-counting, checking for filing-order and physical condition, as well as preparation of film titles, specific volume or file titles, headers and other markers.

Refugees at work in the Germany Emergency Committee workroom, ca. 1939 (Library ref. Box FRS/1992/9 Germany Emergency Committee photographs)

So far at least 20 volumes of minute books and pamphlets, and 14 boxes or part-boxes of archives have been microfilmed. There are approximately 9 boxes (4000-5000 images) still to be filmed.

Among series already microfilmed are –

Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens (Germany Emergency Committee) minutes, publications, administrative and correspondence files on conditions and individuals in Germany in the 1930s and assistance to refugees, internees and others during World War II.

Friends Service Council annual reports and internal correspondence files on British Quaker workers’ and local Quakers’ activities in assisting refugees and other victims of Nazism in (and from), China, Austria, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Scandinavia from around 1933 onwards.

Palestine Watching Committee and Friends Service Council Middle East files material on Palestine and the Middle East, reporting on the pre-war situation there, and undertaking assistance after World War II.

The project will not only make World War II Quaker materials more widely available for public research, but will help to educate people in the prevention of genocide and hatred. The Library looks forward to continuing its work with the USHMM. For more information about the project, please contact the Archivist (library@quaker.org.uk)

Posted in Projects | Tagged archives, Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens, Friends Service Council, refugees, relief work, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, World War II | 17 Comments

Artists inspired by worship

Posted on 02/09/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Linda Murgatroyd of the Quaker Arts Network writes about a selection of images of Quaker worship that she researched for the 2014 Quaker Arts Network calendar, Inspired by worship

My recent researches in the Library for visual representations of Quaker worship have caused me to reflect in new ways about what I know of our Quaker history, and what everyday Quakerism was really like at different times in the past. Looking at pictures of Quaker worship has offered a different lens.

I saw several paintings of Quaker worship in the Library during my visits, few of them well known or widely available. Diversity of style and period was an important criterion in the selection made by the calendar’s curating group (Penny Robbins, Anne McNeil and myself), as well as the quality of the pictures. About half of the pictures we chose were from the Library’s picture collection. Not all the paintings mentioned in this blog were used in the calendar.

Quaker Meeting, oil painting by Egbert van Heemskerk (Library ref. Pic F051)

Some of the earliest depictions of Quaker meetings for worship were by Egbert van Heemskerk (1634/5-1704), a Dutchman who painted scenes of ordinary life in the Rembrandt tradition. Heemskerk was not a Quaker, but something drew him to make several oil paintings of meetings for worship, mainly in the last two decades of the 17th century. Several of these are in the Library. These early meetings appear fairly chaotic: they are often in homes or taverns, and people from all social classes are standing or sitting wherever they can. All of them feature a woman standing and speaking – which of course was heretical in the view of most Christians of the day, but signalled Friends’ belief that all people could be in direct communion with God.

Quakers meeting after Egbert van Heemskerk, engraved by Marcel Lauron, 1690s (Library ref. Pic 88 AXL 70)

Several printmakers made satirical prints based on Heemskerk’s Quaker meeting paintings. They altered details and caricatured faces, adding lewd gestures or satirical verses. The Quaker Arts Network calendar includes an engraving based on Heemskerk by Marcel Lauron (famous for his “Cryes of London” prints). The verse below the image condemns women’s speaking in meeting, referring to “the cackling of the hen” and saying “In publick who can beare a Females tattle, Let me in bed heare my kinde mistress prattle.”

Gracechurch Street Meeting (Library ref. Pic F072)

The painting of Gracechurch Street Meeting from the 1770s by an unknown artist forms a stark contrast with the earlier Heemskerk. This was a purpose-built meeting house, and by this time meetings were much more formal – women seated on separate benches from the men, with elders and ministers facing the other Friends. About as many women were elders or ministers as men. All are wearing headgear except the male Friend who has taken his hat off to minister. In the upper galleries are some visitors or attenders, whose dress is rather fancier and in brighter colours than the Quakers – though the Friends wear browns and pinks as well as the grey for which they came to be known. Light from above plays an important part in this picture; perhaps the new skylight planned for the Large Meeting House at Friends House is not such an innovation after all!

Earith Monthly Meeting, oil painting by Samuel Lucas (Library ref. Pic F066)

Some sixty years passed before the next painting in our calendar was made, this time of a meeting at Earith. It depicts a pastoral visit to Friends in East Anglia. The Friend standing to minister is one of the Yearly Meeting committee visitors. Many of the Friends portrayed are identifiable, including the local farmers on the front bench.

Yearly Meeting 1840, oil painting by Samuel Lucas (Library ref. Pic F035)

Lucas’s painting of London Yearly Meeting (1840) makes an interesting contrast with the depiction of the rural meeting at Earith. In Earith, everyone wears hats (except the person standing to speak), walking sticks and umbrellas abound, and women and men are seated on the same benches – though gathered at different ends . There are rather more men than women – presumably it would have been harder for women and children to travel the distance to monthly meeting (by horseback or on foot), though a few children are present. In the Yearly Meeting painting, only men are portrayed, as there were separate women’s and men’s yearly meetings until near the end of the nineteenth century. Dress is more formal than at Earith and about half the men are hatless.

Samuel Lucas (1805-1870), was a member of Hitchin Meeting. A brewer by trade, he was a keen amateur painter in watercolours and oils, exhibiting at the Royal Academy from time to time, and specialising in landscapes later in life. Samuel’s wife and children also painted, as did other members of his family.

The Chelsea Meeting, watercolour by Nelson Dawson (Library ref. Pic F128)

Nelson Dawson’s lovely little watercolour of “The Chelsea Meeting” was painted in 1891. It feels to me very like some meetings today. Everyone is seated, men and women together. This painting was of the meeting held at 48 Cheyne Walk, home of Caroline Stephen, whose influential book Quaker Strongholds opened the way for a Quakerism that goes beyond Christianity.

Nelson Ethelred Dawson (1859-1941) started life in Lincolnshire and trained as an architect but moved to London to study painting in 1885. He married Edith Robinson, a birthright Friend, and later joined the Society himself. He and Edith went on to become key figures in the Arts and Crafts Movement, specialising in jewellery and metalwork, and Nelson founded the Artificers Guild in 1901. He returned to painting a few years later, exhibiting widely, and was particularly noted for his maritime scenes. His work is represented in a number of museums and galleries around the country.

Centring down, acrylic by John Perkin (Library ref. Pic F234)

Finally, John Perkin’s painting “Centring Down”, currently hanging above the Library’s enquiry desk, was one of the inspirations for the whole calendar. John was a keen painter, mainly of landscapes and community scenes. In his last years he made about a dozen paintings of Quakers at worship. John had hoped to exhibit them together at Friends House, but died in 2012 before this was possible. The calendar includes three of these paintings, illustrating different aspects of Quaker meeting for worship.

Research for this calendar has taught me much and also raised new questions. It suggests that despite Quaker reservations about the arts, some Friends have been serious artists throughout our history. It’s interesting to reflect that despite disapproval in some quarters, it seems to have been acceptable for people to paint pictures of Quaker meetings for worship. It’s hard to know how closely the portrayals resembled actual meetings, especially as the early paintings are clearly composed and painted in the studio and designed to give particular messages about Quakers.

Making these images was often the artists’ particular ministry and their form of witness. Looked at in a different way, each of these pictures can draw us into stronger connection with Quakers past and present, and can help bring the spirit of worship into our everyday lives.

The Inspired by Worship calendar is on sale from the Quaker Arts Network http://www.quakerarts.net/ as well as from the Quaker Bookshop at Friends House.

Postscript: You can read about the recent conservation of two of the paintings discussed by Linda Murgatroyd in past issues of the Library newsletter: one of the Library’s four Heemskerk paintings in the Autumn/Winter 2011 issue and the Gracechurch Street Meeting painting in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of the former Library newsletter.

Posted in Guest posts | Tagged paintings, Quaker Arts Network, visual resources | 5 Comments

Howzat: some cricketing Quakers

Posted on 01/08/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

While summer and the cricket season are still in full swing, you may enjoy some of these photographs from the records of the Falcon Touring Club, a Quaker cricket team. Dating back to 1902, the club drew its members mainly from those who had attended Quaker schools.

The founders were three young Friends from York – Stephen Priestman, Thomas Twyman and I. Gray Wallis. It occurred to them that a week’s cricket tour would make an enjoyable holiday. Little could they have known that the team would continue to tour until the 1990s, with a special centenary reunion in 2002.

The records of the Falcons here in the Library include seven albums of photographs and some press cuttings, covering the period between 1907 and 1932, and seven score books covering the period between 1935 and 1983, with a few gaps.

It’s also possible to glean much about the club from the pages of The Friend – which for many years carried an annual report on their activities – and from the magazines produced by the old scholars’ associations of Quaker schools.

So what sort of organisation was it? And did it do more than just play cricket?

Each year the players came together, usually in August, to tour in the Herefordshire and Shropshire areas. The cricket was clearly memorable, but to many of the players it was the friendship and having a good time that was of greatest importance. An advertisement for new players in The Friend was entitled ‘Howzat for a holiday?’ and in 1927 the paper reported the club’s 25th anniversary.

The team clearly built up relationships with local Friends and members were keen to renew acquaintances each year – although there was at least one occasion when they were not allowed to return to the same lodgings! The Falcons’ archives include some correspondence on this.

One year the weather was good in Ross on Wye – it was a lovely ground and a good wicket. An elderly Friend, then a widower, spontaneously invited the whole team to lunch, without a word of warning to his housekeeper.

But the weather wasn’t always good and this is recorded in the score books, where the description varied from “wonderful” to “bloody awful”. Despite bad weather at Ross on Wye in 1963, the team enjoyed themselves in other ways. Some of them were “beginning to bat like golfers” and “assisted by a large lunch at the Royal Hotel” they were all out for 99. Later that day they had their Annual Dinner at the Axe and Cleaver in Much Birch, six miles south of Hereford.

In 1976 the team was based at The Farm in Shobdon and took an interest in local history, visiting local churches and castles and the historic meeting house at Almeley. They also played snooker, bar billiards and darts!

The records may be of interest to family historians, especially the score records which record players’ names and give a full picture of the games played. The photograph albums contain some local press cuttings which include names, but these cover only part of the years the club was in existence. It would be a relatively easy job to check local papers for the areas during August.

Not all of the club’s members were Friends, but it was clearly held in high esteem. In 1938 The Friend had this to say:

It is stated on good authority that whilst the team do not claim to be a branch of the Society’s extension work, they have a reputation in the area of the Western Quarterly Meeting where they play, of being “keen, good cricketers, surprisingly punctual and still more surprisingly sober for a touring team”. Perhaps that is why one of their old opponents, a recently retired Test Match selector, told the Captain this year that: “This Quakerism is an excellent thing”

Posted in Highlights | Tagged archives, cricket, Falcon Cricket Club, sport | Leave a comment

Readers’ stories: 18th century London – a foreign country

Posted on 17/06/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

The third in our series of readers’ stories comes from Esther Sahle who is currently researching early modern Quaker merchants for a PhD at London School of Economics.

I have been asked to write about my experience of using the Library of the Society of Friends. I could give a very short answer to this…it’s great. It’s everything you could wish for as a researcher, a friendly, peaceful place. I’m working towards a PhD about early modern Quaker merchants, and in the three years that I’ve been doing research, I have received more support here than at any other institution. I’ve been visiting the Library regularly and it’s always been a very pleasant experience.

I knew very little about Quakers when I started. Visiting the Library changed this very quickly. It appears to contain copies of everything ever written by and about Quakers, from the 17^th century until today. And it’s so easily accessible. There are friendly and expert staff who appear to know everything about Quaker history. It’s great to be able to ask a librarian about literature on a certain subject and, from off the top of their head, be directed to relevant resources. The cherry on top is that when you need a break from reading, the café at Friends House does excellent cappuccinos.

The Library is a place that provides knowledge and wisdom on everything to do with Quaker history. However, it does much more than that. Quakers formed an important part of society in early modern London. Even though small in numbers, the community played an important part in the social and economic development of the city. The manuscripts held by the Library on the lives and businesses of London Quakers allow the reader to view early modern London through the prism of Quaker experience. I traced the lives and activities of merchants from the late 17^th to 18^th centuries. From the minutes of Quaker meetings, I followed how young Friends moved from other parts of the UK to London, in order to take up apprenticeships with city merchants; how they later got married to women whose families resided in Pennsylvania or Barbados; how they took their young children on daytrips to the countryside; how their careers developed; and how they appeared as officers in their meetings, and after them their places were taken over by their sons and grandsons.

I saw how communities dealt with fraud and theft. An enlightening case is that of George Roberts of Ratcliff Monthly Meeting, who in 1729 lured several respectable citizens into investing in his laboratory in Southwark, where he planned to turn base metals into gold. The investors lost their money and Roberts was disowned for falsely pretending to have skills in alchemy. No comment was made on the fact that alchemy in general might not work.

: Testimony of George Roberts by Ratcliff Monthly Meeting, 7mo 1729 (11 b 6 copies of some disownments)

During my research, I found that I recognized addresses, places and family names, and found that their concerns were similar to ours today. They worried about their families, current affairs, and the challenges of an increasingly materialistic society. They were sometimes bored at work, as indicated by the doodles on the margins of the 17^th century manuscripts. But they also lived in a world in which alchemy was a possibility. This reveals their London, however familiar, simultaneously to be like a foreign country, with a distinct culture, which is hard for us to understand. The manuscripts held at the Library provide us with the opportunity to get as close to this place as possible. The handwriting we read in 2013 consists of ink applied to paper by individuals, 300 years ago. It puts us in touch with them, with the London of 1700. We see the differences, but also the astonishing amount of similarities, between their lives, and ours. Between the London of then, and of today. And thereby, the Library becomes not just a source of academic knowledge, but an immediate access point to our own past and the roots of our own culture and identity.

Posted in Readers' stories | Tagged Quaker merchants, research | 2 Comments

A life of Quaker service in England and Germany from World War I to II: cataloguing the papers of Dorothy Henkel (1886-1983)

Posted on 10/06/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

We’re pleased to present a guest blog post from Hannah Ratford, who recently spent two weeks at the Library as part of her archives and records management training.

As part of the M.A. course in Archives and Records Management at University College London, students are required to undertake a two-week cataloguing placement. Having requested that I complete my placement at a religious archive, I was fortunate to have been placed with the Library of the Society of Friends. Upon arrival I was provided with a collection consisting of five boxes and was set the task of arranging, appraising and cataloguing the material inside. I soon discovered that I had been handed an interesting collection consisting of the personal papers of Dorothy Henkel, a member of the Society of Friends.

Photograph of Dorothy Henkel (TEMP MSS 1003/1/1/8)

Photograph of Dorothy Henkel with the family dog, no date (TEMP MSS 1003/1/1/8)

Dorothy Henkel, daughter of the professional German musician, Karl Henkel, and English mother, Rose Henkel, was born on the 24^th March 1886. Dorothy was raised in London and became fluent in English, French and German languages. The collection contains items relating to Dorothy’s younger years and family life, including notebooks, diaries, poems and letters regarding her parents’ silver anniversary in 1910, which indicate a sense of reminiscence by Dorothy of her youth.

Poem by Dorothy Henkel (TEMP MSS 1003/1/4/1)

Poem by Dorothy Henkel, “By the Brook”, 1897 (TEMP MSS 1003/1/4/1)

The collection also includes concert programmes and correspondence relating to World War I Prisoners of War held in Knockaloe Camp on the Isle of Man. They relate to the relief work carried out by Dorothy’s father, who provided prisoners with sheet music. Perhaps inspired by her father’s work, and following the devastation of the War and the loss of her fiancé in the subsequent flu epidemic, Dorothy attended a meeting held in Albert Hall with her parents in 1920 to consider the relief of famine in Germany. Upon enquiring as to how she could help, Dorothy was advised to go to the Quakers. Two days after this instruction she had an interview and was informed that assistance was required in Frankfurt am Main. Dorothy leapt at the opportunity presented to her, as whilst in Frankfurt she would be able to stay with her Aunt Sophie.

From June 1920, Dorothy worked in Frankfurt through the years of German hyperinflation, assisting in a new relief project known as “the Depot” with Friends’ Emergency and War Victims Relief Committee. This project supplied rationed quantities to a selected group at prices lower than those offered by shops. Her relief work alongside the Quakers eventually led her to apply for membership into the Society of Friends. Papers in the collection include her certificate of membership and letters of congratulation from her contemporaries upon her acceptance into the Society in 1925.

Deutschmarks, 1922-1923 (TEMP MSS 1003/7)

Deutschmarks issued during hyperinflation in Germany, 1922-1923 (TEMP MSS 1003/7)

Following the end of the Depot project, Dorothy continued with her relief work and became involved in a scheme that placed impoverished children with families in Alsace for six weeks hospitality so that they could feel the benefit of better food. During this time, Dorothy began to witness the effects of the Nuremberg Laws on Jewish communities and individuals, and to assist those who were seeking to emigrate to escape persecution. By 1935, Dorothy had returned to London and was involved with Quaker work helping refugees seeking to come to Britain. The collection contains correspondence concerning this work. Around this time, Dorothy was requested by Helen Dixon to assist her in opening a Rest Home, where people who had suffered under the Nazi regime could find rest and refreshment. This home was set up in the Frankfurter Hof in Falkenstein, Taunus, with Dorothy focusing in particular on this work for the use of her memoirs (Dorothy Henkel, Memoirs, Frankfurt am Main, 1983 (092 [Biog.20/4]).

In 1939, Dorothy and her parents returned to Germany to visit family. During this period, World War II broke out, and the family was forced to stay in Germany for the entirety of the war. During this time, both of Dorothy’s parents died within eight weeks of each other. Following the end of the war, Dorothy remained in Germany for a while, eventually travelling back to England in the 1950s. She still travelled regularly to Frankfurt, continuing with her relief work and taking part in a project to support a Neighbourhood Centre in Bockenheim.

Violin music written by Karl Henkel, 1915 (TEMP MSS 1/3/1)

Dorothy spent her last years in a nursing home in Frankfurt due to an accident. Here, she completed the task of writing her memoirs, the notes of which are included in the collection, before her death in 1983.

Photographs and concert programmes for prisoners of war camp performances, 1915-1919 (TEMP MSS 1003/2/1-2)

The collection (Temp MSS 1003) is an example of how personal papers can provide a good sense of a person and their life. In this instance, I was presented with a woman who survived both World War I and II, the Great Depression and the Nazi regime, and yet suffered great personal loss with the death of members of her family. Despite the death of loved ones, she continued with her relief work, determined to improve the lives of others who were suffering under oppressive regimes. She was heavily involved in her role as an elder in the Society of Friends, and reflects upon the importance of her Quaker work throughout her memoirs. The collection is a fascinating insight into the life of a woman who dedicated her life to others.

Oil painting of Dorothy Henkel by Mathilde Battenburg (1878-1936) (Pic F 041). On display in the Library reading room.

Posted in Guest posts | Tagged cataloguing, Dorothy Henkel papers, manuscripts, personal papers, refugees, relief work, World War I | 5 Comments

A glimpse into the strongrooms

Posted on 13/05/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Way back in May 2012, commenting on the blog’s very first post, a reader asked “how about a picture of what the strongrooms look like today?” Perhaps rashly, we promised a peek.

One year on, at last we have some snaps for you – a glimpse into the subterranean vaults where the Society of Friends’ archives, manuscripts, rare books and museum objects are stored. They’re not pretty, but they are cool and solid with a stable temperature and humidity. Formerly four separate rooms, they have now been reorganised into three areas, joined by a long corridor, retaining only two of the original barred metal internal doors. The massive original main door is no longer in use, but is too heavy to remove: it remains as a splendid visual reminder of the value the Society of Friends sets on its historic collections. In recent years modern fire-proof security doors have been installed and the lift shaft from the earlier book hoist incorporated into the strongroom area.

We can’t bring you the real-life atmosphere of the strongrooms – cool, silent (though the rumble of a tube train is occasionally detected), with that unmistakable smell of paper and leather. And they are tricky to photograph since there’s not much space for the long shot. Here though is our offering – a gallery of images from underground.

Note: the gallery is best viewed on the website, so if you’re reading this post in an email, or on a phone, click on the title link at the top of the email to go to the full web version. To view an image at full size in a gallery, click on it; to close the gallery down again and go back to the blogpost, click the x in the top left hand corner.

London & Middlesex Quarterly Meeting records

Inside the Braithwaite Cabinet

Posted in Collection care | Tagged architecture, strongrooms | 3 Comments

Commonplace books: collections of precious gems

Posted on 29/04/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Have you ever kept a scrapbook, jotted things of interest in a notebook, or clipped extracts from webpages? Then you have been “commonplacing”. For centuries, writers, philosophers, theologians, scholars, poets, artists and others have gathered together passages from prose, quotations, proverbs, ideas and memoranda into commonplace books, often organised under headings for ready reference.

Why are these commonplace books so called? The idea of loci communes or “common places” where knowledge could be organised, dates back to classical antiquity. It owes a debt to Aristotelian topoi (topics), and to Cicero, who urged lawyers to collect information on general topics and principles to be recalled as needed.

In mediaeval times, students and scholars were encouraged to keep them as aides-memoires, storing information and organising it methodically for use in their studies. By the 17th century, commonplacing had become a recognised practice taught in universities, a popular study technique persisting until the early 20th century.

The Library has in its collections commonplace books dating from the 17th to the 20th century. They are treasure troves of knowledge, preserving quotations, letters, prayers, anecdotes, verses, maxims and medicinal recipes. As personal selections, they reveal the interests, personalities and concerns of their compilers. They range in size from small notebooks to larger leather bound volumes, and in type (spiritual, theological, genealogical, artistic, literary, medical and more: often a combination of these). Unlike journals or notebooks, they anthologise the works of other authors, occasionally preserving the only copy of an original text. Matching transcriptions to their original source would be a research project in itself.

The commonplace books of John Catchpool (1777-1847), Sarah Robson (1799-1885) and Lucy Violet Holdsworth (1869-1954) are just three examples of the widely differing commonplace books held by the Library.

Commonplace books of John Catchpool (MS BOX Y3/1-4)

Title page, John Catchpool’s commonplace book, volume 1, 1777-1797 (MS BOX Y3/1)

The four commonplace books of John Catchpool, Doncaster Quaker, and later baker and corn dealer of Winchmore Hill, London, are primarily theological and include transcriptions of the religious experiences and thoughts of early Friends. Volume one begins with a transcription of The Messiah by Alexander Pope (1688-1744),

“Ye Nymphs of Solyma, begin the Song, To heavenly Themes, sublimer Strains belong. The mossy fountains, and the sylvan Shades, The dreams of Pindus and the Aonian Maids, Delight no more…”

The volumes also contain carefully transcribed poems and visions, “A Poem on the Death of that faithfull and laborious Minister of the Gospel, Benjamin Kidd” and “The Prediction of Christopher Love, Minister at London, who was beheaded on Tower Hill in the Time of Oliver Cromwell, Government of England”; transcriptions of dreams and visions by Friends such as Samuel Fothergill and John Oxley, amongst others; and hymns and songs such as “A hymn composed by Catherine Evans when imprisoned at Malta in the year 1661” and “Religion the highest and happiest End of Man in a petitioning Song to the Divine Being”.

There are also a number of “Reflections” on society. “Reflections occasioned by being at Scarborough Spaw in the Summer of 1768 by Mary Miles” provides a rather vivid picture of Scarborough in the 18th century:

“Being at Scarborough my Mind was affected with various Reflections and Considerations from observing how many both of the Gentry and common people spent their Time in outward amusements, Plays, assemblies, Music and Dress…and divers of the lower Class pursuing Smuggling and other Wickedness, even to the committing two Murders while I was in that place…”

At the back of volume one, there are recipes for lotions and potions to relieve various illnesses, including “A Receipt against the Plague…” and “Receipt for the Tooth ach”.

“A Receipe against the Plague…”, John Catchpool’s commonplace book

“A Receipt against the Plague taken out of the London Magazine for August 1743 Page 405”, John Catchpool’s commonplace book, volume 1, 1777-1797 (MS BOX Y3/1, p. 347)

Commonplace book of Sarah Robson, 1815-1885 (MS BOX R5/5)

Cover, Sarah Robson’s commonplace book, 1815-1885 (MS BOX R5/5)

Sarah Robson was a founder of the Women’s First-Day School, Huddersfield, and the wife of Isaac Robson (1800-1885), a tea dealer of Liverpool. Her commonplace book is beautifully written. In it she records hymns and poems on the subject of death, including “The affusions of a mother’s [Ann Alexander] heart. Composed while sitting by the precious remains of a beloved child who departed this life at school at Broughton, Lincolnshire, the 18th of 9th month 1810 of typhus fever aged 9 years and 3 months”, and accounts of religious visits to America:

“Lines composed by A. A., whilst on a religious engagement in America to her sister Mabel; written on a small piece of the bark of the birch tree with this direction: To be presented to Mabel Tuke on the day of her union with John Hipsley to bring into view her absent sister A.A. who had this bark taken from the white birch tree when walking on the banks of Kennebeck River, in the Eastern parts of New England 2nd 5th mo. 1804”.

There are interesting accounts of Friends, for example, “An account of some remarkable visions of John Adams of Yorkshire”. At the end of the volume someone else has written a version of the Golden Rule: “To do unto all men, as we would that they, in similar circumstances, should do unto us constitutes the great principle of virtue” and “The deceitfulness of riches or the cares of this life have choked the seeds of virtue in many a promising youth”.

“Rule 1st”, Sarah Robson’s commonplace book, 1815-1885 (MS BOX R5/5, reverse p. 1)

Commonplace book of Lucy Violet Holdsworth, 1916-1925 (TEMP MSS 37/3)

Cuttings and inserts, Lucy Violet Holdsworth’s commonplace book, 1916-1925 (TEMP MSS 37/3)

Lucy Violet Holdsworth, author and Swarthmore lecturer, inscribed her book:

“I should like this book to be offered to the Friends’ Reference Library, after my death, in case they may care to have it. L. Violet Holdsworth September 1925”

It contains transcriptions of early manuscripts, epistles, testimonies and private letters (many held by the Library), which she had made for The Romance of the inward light (1932).

The pages are interspersed with news cuttings and leaflets concerning Quaker meeting houses, letters, articles for The Friend and Quakeriana, and a booklet entitled, “The Arrest of George Fox at Armscote Manor House in the Year 1673”. She made pencil sketches of Derwentwater (September 1931), Wayside Cottage, Cheshire (August 1930), Pendle Hill (6 September 1930), “Fox’s Pulpit”, Sedbergh (8 August 1930) and “St John’s from London”.

“John Hodgkin under Fox’s pulpit at Fairbank 8.8.30”, Lucy Violet Holdsworth’s commonplace book, 1916-1925 (TEMP MSS 37/3)

Commonplacing is like making a collection of precious gems, or gathering flowers for a garland – a very personal selection of inspiring and fruitful resources. What kind of things would you include in your commonplace book?

Posted in Highlights | Tagged archives, commonplace books, personal papers | 2 Comments

Playing with shadows: silhouette portraits and how to make them

Posted on 15/04/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

Richard Dykes Alexander (1788-1866)
by Samuel Metford
(Pic. Vol. II)

Silhouettes – solid profile images – have long been a popular form of portraiture, though the name itself only dates back a couple of hundred years. The side or profile view of a subject, whether on coins and medals or cut from paper, provides an instantly recognisable likeness. Visitors to the Library in 2011 saw a selection of fine silhouettes from our collections in the reading room display, “The Face of Quakerism”, curated by Joanna Clark, our former picture librarian. In this blogpost we bring some of our silhouettes to a wider audience, and, at the end, instructions on how you can “do it yourself”!

From the late 18^th century, the art of cutting paper profiles became something of a craze. Known as “shades”, “black profiles”, “shadow portraits” or “scissor-types”, the name that caught on was “silhouette” (derived from the austerity measures of the French finance minister, Etienne de Silhouette, whose surname had become synonymous with anything done cheaply). Whether as amateur pastime or professional portraiture, silhouettes were both cheap and immensely popular, dwindling only in popularity after the late 1850s, when photography became more affordable.

Quakers and silhouettes

By 1800 the “scissors art” or cutting of silhouettes was already a popular hobby among Quakers. One of the most prolific and notable of the earlier silhouettists was Thomas Pole (1759-1823), who was born in Philadelphia but practised as a physician in England. A generation later, Samuel Metford of Glastonbury (1810-96) became the first Quaker to practise as a professional silhouette artist. He too had learned the art when in America on business, and from the 1830s to 1860s he travelled as a “profilist” around Britain, often using the local Quaker meeting as his source of custom. The Library holds quite a few of his elegant silhouette portraits, and his work is highly respected among modern collectors.

Thomas and Elizabeth Pole by Thomas Pole
(Pic. Vol. II, p. 34)

Joshua Metford (1755-1833) by Samuel Metford (F.187)

Elizabeth Heyrick (1769-1931)
(MS VOL 239/237)

The Sturge Family, ca. 1820. From William R. Hughes, Sophia Sturge: a memoir (London, 1940) (092.4 STU/HUG)

The making of silhouettes – or “scissors art”

The traditional method of creating silhouette portraits is to cut them from lightweight black cardboard, and mount them on a pale (usually white) background. However, silhouettes can also be “hollow cut”, where the figure is cut away from the paper thereby leaving a negative image. The paper outline is then backed with a contrasting colour of paper or fabric.

The traditional silhouette portrait artist or “profilist” could cut the likeness of a person, freehand, within a few minutes. However, by the 1820s some English profilists favoured the aid of a camera obscura, which casts a shadow of the person on paper, to provide an outline. This life-sized outline served as the artist’s cartoon or draft. The finished miniature silhouette could then be made using a reducing instrument known as a pantograph. Skilled artists would add detail afterwards – pastels might be used to create light and shade, and occasionally scraps of fabric were added to create a realistic bonnet or collar. Artists would talk of “taking” a silhouette in much the same way that photographers “take” a photograph.

English Pantograph, 19th century

Silhouette cutting: do it yourself

In the interests of historical research we decided to have a go at making silhouettes ourselves. The results were … interesting!

If you’d like to try it yourself, here’s how we did it (takes about 15-20 minutes):

Materials

1 A3 sheet white paper
1 A4 sheet black paper or light card
1 A4 sheet white/cream paper for mounting the silhouette
1 photocopier (there was no pantograph to hand) with A4 paper
2B pencil
Torch or bright lamp
Glue stick
Blu-tack
Embroidery scissors

Instructions

1. Sit or stand the subject sideways next to a smooth wall surface in a dark room. Position the torch or bright lamp 3 or 4 metres away so that the sitter’s shadow falls sharply on the wall. Position the A3 sheet of white paper where shadow falls, and fix it with Blu-tack.

2. Adjust the sitter so that her/his head and neck shadow lies within the area of the paper. At this point, reduce any other light in the room, if you haven’t already. Standing beside the sitter, draw round the shadow as quickly and carefully as possible.

3. Take the drawing on the A3 sheet and photocopy it to reduce the image size onto A4 (or smaller if you like).

4. Lightly glue the outer margins of your A4 photocopy on the reverse, with a blob in the middle of the paper and position it on top of the A4 sheet of black paper or light card. Carefully cut around the profile (through both white and black paper), taking particular care to cut smoothly around the nose, lips and chin.

5. Discard outer pieces, peel off the white paper and voilà, one beautiful silhouette ready for mounting!

Posted in Highlights | Tagged silhouettes, visual resources | 14 Comments

The Macaroni Jester – an antidote to melancholy

Posted on 01/04/2013 by Library of the Society of Friends

To mark April Fool’s Day, we’re not going to spin a yarn about Quakers and kilts or how George Fox invented porridge while in jail. Instead, here’s part of the true tale of an 18th century joke book recently added to our online catalogue. It may read like a shaggy dog story, but – believe us – there was plenty more that could have been said.

The Macaroni Jester, being, a select series of original stories – witty repartees – comical and original bulls – entertaining anecdotes &c. … by a gentleman of the world, and never before published to the world. To which are added Brown’s Quaker sermon and grace, was published around 1768 in Philadelphia, probably by Robert Jackson. Jackson was a Scottish printer who had worked in Dublin (where he had heated disputes with fellow printers over his “piratical editions”, and went bankrupt) before emigrating to America and building up a successful printing business publishing all kinds of books, including the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common sense – a bestseller if ever there was one.

The Macaroni Jester (ca. 1768)

What, or who, on earth was a Macaroni Jester? Dismiss from your mind that image of a motley fool standing in a steaming pile of pasta, and conjure up an amusing fellow – elegant, sharp and mercilessly satirical. Macaronis were self-identified witty sophisticates, eventually lampooned for excessively foppish fashions and manners, personifications of an 18th century craze that spawned songs, plays and above all cartoons.

The Macaroni. A Real Character at the Late Masquerade, by Philip Dawe (Printed for John Bowles 1773). Copy in Lewis Walpole Library. Via Wikimedia Commons

Although our small volume includes a ditty on “The Origin of Macaronies”, there’s little else of the Macaroni in it: the word has been used simply as a synonym for humour, satire and above all absurdity.

The jokes in the body of The Macaroni Jester poke fun at many stock figures, among them Quakers, but the real reason for the book’s presence in the Library was probably “Brown’s Quaker sermon and grace”, on the final two leaves (pages 97-100). Ironically, those very pages are missing from our copy (being the vulnerable outer leaves they probably simply became detached long ago). Instead, there are two additions to the original book. Inside the front board is pasted in a small satirical print, entitled The Quakers meeting; inside the back is pasted in a copy of “The Quakers [sic] grace” cut from a different work. Comparison with other copies shows that neither of these additions were part of the book as originally printed.

Our copy of The Macaroni Jester was purchased for 5 shillings from James Tregaskis, the London bookseller, at an unknown date, accessioned in 1933, and rebound in quarter leather. Did Tregaskis sell the print and “The Quakers grace” along with the deficient copy of The Macaroni Jester, or were they already combined by a previous owner? It’s a mystery, but the interest for our researchers lies in the two pasted-in additions.

The first of these, The Quakers meeting, is an eighteenth century satirical print, showing a group of Quaker men and women in their meeting house. Up in the gallery behind them a speaker is in full flow: their eyes are rolled up to him. In the foreground another open-mouthed figure raises his hands apparently in shock or religious transport. At each side stand shadowy broad-brimmed figures, looking particularly sinister. The artist has endowed his Quaker subjects with a horrible mixture of religious enthusiasm and absurdity. Another copy of this print is pasted into volume VI of the Gibson Manuscripts (Library reference MS Vol. 339/279).

The Quakers Meeting. Print pasted inside front board of The Macaroni Jester

As for the “Quakers grace”, the second addition to our book, and its missing companion, “Brown’s Quaker sermon” – far from being the latest witticisms, these were hoary old chestnuts (still, the old ones are the best, or so they say). Their supposed author, Tom Brown “of facetious memory”, famed for his wit and licentious lifestyle, had died in 1704, decades before our Macaroni Jester saw the light of day. Both sermon and grace were included in various posthumous collections of his works from 1708 onwards, apart and together. They were also published together anonymously as Azarias: a sermon held forth in a Quakers meeting, immediately after Aminadab’s vision. With a prayer for rooting out the church and university, and blessing tripe and custard (London, 1710) (not held by the Library, but available online here). The satirical “sermon” addressed to the “dear brethren and loving sisters” at a Quaker meeting, is an absurd sophistical argument based on an amorous encounter between one Azarias of Twittenham and a Quakeress called Ruth. The “grace”, a thanksgiving prayer before a meal, is a satire on Quaker language with heavy gluttonous overtones (“bless this tripe and this loin of veal”), ending in a final bawdy double entendre.

The Quakers Grace. Pasted into The Macaroni Jester

The crude “Quaker sermon and grace” may or may not have been written by Tom Brown, but Brown certainly didn’t omit the Quakers from his many satirical observations of contemporary London life (for example, see the modern reprint, Amusements serious and comical and other works (1927) – featuring his visit to a Quaker meeting in the company of an imaginary Indian). For Brown, just as for his contemporaries Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, religion was as likely a target for mockery as politics or manners.

We have to confess that the witty repartees and comical and original bulls purveyed by The Macaroni Jester failed to tickle us in the way they might have amused an eighteenth century reader. Nor was there rolling in the aisles after reading the “Quaker sermon and grace”. Humour does not always translate well between eras and cultures. Nevertheless, viewing another society through a contemporary satirical lens may afford invaluable historical and literary insights for the modern reader.

At all events, whether you’ve played an April fool prank yourself this year, or been the victim of one, we hope you will agree that laughter is an excellent thing, and that humour is, as a former owner of our little book opined, a fine “antidote against melancholy”.

A former owner’s inscription on the flyleaf of our Macaroni Jester: “A good jest well told is an antidote against melancholly. 3d Oct 1815 [or 1814], Ogilvey”

Posted in Highlights | Tagged food, rare books, satire, visual resources | 3 Comments

Quaker Strongrooms

Chinese translations

More on Isaac Mason and Quaker missionaries in China

Quakers, relief and rescue in 1930s and 1940s Europe: a collaborative microfilming project with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Artists inspired by worship

Howzat: some cricketing Quakers

Readers’ stories: 18th century London – a foreign country

A life of Quaker service in England and Germany from World War I to II: cataloguing the papers of Dorothy Henkel (1886-1983)

A glimpse into the strongrooms

Commonplace books: collections of precious gems

Playing with shadows: silhouette portraits and how to make them

The Macaroni Jester – an antidote to melancholy

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