Quakers in Britain have committed to making practical reparations for the transatlantic slave trade. In November, as part of an event organised by London Quakers to explore what reparations might look like, the Library welcomed Friends into the reading room to ..read more

The Swarthmore Manuscripts, our famous collection of early Quaker letters, have been described as the “jewel in the crown” of the Library’s collection.  But did you know they are only one part of a larger collection known as the Swarthmore Documents?  The Swarthmore Documents are a 17th century collection of well over a thousand manuscript papers that belonged to the early Quaker leader Margaret Fell. The collection, with letters describing the legal struggles, personal lives and theological wranglings of early Friends, is now in multiple parts, most of which are held in the Library ..read more

George Fox (1624-1691) was born in Leicestershire and is one of the founding figures of Quakerism. Our Library & Archive collections hold many portraits of George Fox, most produced throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. None of the portraits can be authenticated as being made during Fox’s life. Most critics do not think he would have the time or patience to have sat for a portrait. Quakers focussed on concrete forms of expression in writing and preaching. They were avid and prolific publishers of Christian doctrine who travelled extensively. Regardless, portraits of George Fox were made ..read more

by Melissa Atkinson For the last few years, I have had the privilege of being involved with a new museum project at Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. This regeneration project encompassed renovating the castle and its grounds with a new heritage centre, galleries and a museum focusing on the history of faith in Britain. In August 2014, one of the Project Curators contacted me about the development of the new Faith Museum. It would be the first museum in England to explore a history of faith and belief in the British Isles from prehistory to the present day, using personal hist ..read more

Library moodboard We took the decision in 2020 to try to use the closure of the Library of the Society of Friends due to the pandemic as a positive opportunity, and use the time to carry out some long overdue refurbishment work on our reading room. While there was some necessary maintenance work such as painting and upgrading window blinds, we also thought about how to futureproof use of the room and expand the potential for holding events, creating an ambitious programme of work. We want to share the story so far. The last major refurbishment of the Library was in 1993. At that time the room ..read more

Normally around this time of year we would be on a stall at the annual History Day run by the Institute of Historical Research at UCL, which gives researchers a chance to meet staff from libraries, archives, museums, and publishers, and gives us all a chance to eat free sweets and collect postcards, bookmarks and other freebies from the different stalls! This year the event has moved online and there is a programme of online talks which you can check out here: https://historycollections.blogs.sas.ac.uk/programme/. History Day has teamed up with this year’s Being Human festival; Britain’s festi ..read more

Jill, project archivist for FAU-FRS cataloguing project I joined Friends House Library in January 2020 as Project Archivist.  Over the next 2 years I will be working on a Wellcome Trust Funded project to catalogue the World War Two archives of Friends Ambulance Unit (1939-47) and Friends Relief Service (1943-48) to make them more accessible to researchers. Through this blog I’ll be giving updates about the project’s progress, as well as sharing stories about interesting records I discover along the way. I decided that the first collection to be tackled should be the Friends Ambulance Un ..read more

Friends Relief Service pamphlet c.1945 This year there are several anniversaries coming up, but some of the most poignant, and perhaps relevant in today’s world, are the 75th anniversaries of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. These anniversaries remind us of the world’s horror in 1945 when the full extent of the Nazis’ persecution of Jews and others was revealed, and help us reflect on what conditions in society had made these crimes possible.   Earlier this year we were pleased to contribute to an episode of BBC’s Songs of Praise, which commemorated the liberation of Auschwit ..read more

Since March is Women’s History Month, we’re taking the opportunity to highlight some blogposts that have appeared here on Quaker Strongrooms over the years, in case you missed them. And over on Facebook we’ll be bringing you some glimpses of women’s history highlights from the Library collections during the coming weeks. Last year we blogged about the position of women within the Society of Friends, the role of separate women’s meetings, and the struggle for women to have a voice in the Society: https://quakerstrongrooms.org/2019/06/18/respected-friend-women-and-equality-in-the-society-of-frie ..read more

We hope you enjoyed our blog post back in October exploring some of the many works of fiction in our collections. Returning to the theme, we’d like to focus this time on drama. You might not necessarily think of theatre when you think of our collections at Friends House Library. Our collections do, however, include fascinating items that reflect the changing attitudes of the Society of Friends to the dramatic arts from the 17th century to the present. During the early days of Quakerism theatres were closed, having been banned at the start of the civil war in 1642. Although some were reopened i ..read more