Quaker Elizabeth Rawlinson-Mills spoke on BBC Radio 4's Prayer for the Day from 12th to 16th May. You can hear her simple and moving ministry here.
Michael Portillo recently visited Swarthmore Hall, home to Thomas and Margaret Fell, who were important players in the founding Quakerism in the 17th century. Designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building, it remains in use today as a Quaker retreat. You can watch his BBC programme here.
Quakerism informs the life of Oscar-winning actor Dame Judi Dench:
“It’s very quiet, which is what I am not, and it makes you create your own form of Quakerism.
‘’ It consists of sitting in silence with a lot of other people. That suits me very well, because I often don’t give myself the time to get all the drawers organised inside my head.
‘’ It’s a strength I can’t do without.”
According to BBC News, Yorkshire 'York would be a different city without Quaker Joseph Rowntree'
From Fruit Pastilles to parks, chocolate entrepreneur and philanthropist Joseph Rowntree, who died 100 years ago this week, has an enduring legacy.
In York, the Rowntree name has been given to a park, theatre, caravan site and school.
Joseph Rowntree also endowed three trusts which campaign and research into poverty, housing conditions, and education and political reform: The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust.
You can read the full text of the BBC News article here.
Quakers:
- are a simple church without priests, creeds or sacraments
- use our faith and values to work for practical change on issues like equality, justice, and peace
- grow spiritually through stillness and connection with others in meetings for worship
Despite being quite a small community in the UK, there are six Quaker MPs working to make positive change in the world:
Steffan Aquarone, Lib Dem North Norfolk; Ruth Cadbury, Labour, Brentford & Isleworth; Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party, Bristol Central; Josh Fenton-Glynn, Labour, Calder Valley; Catherine West, Labour, Hornsey & Friern Barnet; Yuan Yang: Labour, Earley & Woodley
Quakers believe that everyone is equal before God.
We have formally supported, and have lobbied Government to legislate on, same sex marriage since 2009. This was enacted four years later.
Britpop band Blur frontman Damon Albarn,was born into a Quaker family:
‘I think [the Quaker heritage] gives you an understanding of what the Spirit is, and for someone who is constantly searching to identify and connect with the Spirit around the whole world through music, to have an understanding when you start that journey, [of] what it is you are looking for... Even though, as we all know, you can only feel the Spirit when it reveals itself’.
In 1903 Quaker Lizzie Magie created and patented the board game that was later called Monopoly.
The aim was to show that one person owning all the property put everyone else out of business.
The hymn Dear Lord and Father of mankind, often sung at weddings and funerals, is part of a long poem by Quaker John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) a poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. The opening stanza still resonates today:
Dear Lord and Father of mankind, Forgive our foolish ways! Reclothe us in our rightful mind, In purer lives Thy service find, In deeper reverence, praise.
Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a Quaker from Northern Ireland, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1997 as a graduate student. This discovery earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees. However, in 2018 she was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics and donated the full prize of £2.3 million to 'fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers', with the funds administered by the Institute of Physics.
Quakers in the News
6 April 2025
Quaker MP detained and barred from entry to Israel
Quaker MP and former Financial Times journalist Yuan Yang was one of two British parliamentarians detained and barred from entry to Israel recently, despite having been clearance for entry by Israel before travelling. Yang said she had understood the risks of travelling the region but “I did not anticipate the risks of detention and deportation by a British ally”. She said: “If my experience has proved anything, it is that what we say in this chamber matters.”
Police raid Westminster Quaker Meeting House
More than 20 Metropolitan Police officers, some equipped with tasers, forced their way into Westminster Quaker Meeting House on Thursday 27th March and arrested six women who had met to discuss peaceful protests about climate change and Gaza.
Quakers support the right to nonviolent public protest and we act from a deep moral imperative to stand up against injustice and for our planet. Many Quakers have taken nonviolent direct action over the centuries from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage and prison reform.
Read more here: here.