It is fundamental to early Quaker belief that everyone has ‘that of God’ in them and has the capacity to lead a full spiritual life without the need for clergy leadership or specially consecrated buildings and rituals. Quakers originally had no liturgy, and though many of today’s 40,000 members of the Religious Society of Friends do hold services with singing, Bible readings, and preaching, others continue the original practice of unstructured worship to which anyone can contribute if they feel moved to read aloud or offer a thought or prayer.
Such meetings do not require a special building or room, and early gatherings were held in houses, barns, and out of doors. Every year, Friends from all over the world congregate at Firbank Fell, in Cumbria, to commemorate the open-air gathering of Whitsun Week 1652, when George Fox (1624-1691) – one of the leading lights of the movement – spoke for three hours from a rock that is now known as Fox’s Pulpit and marked by a plaque.
From there, Fox travelled to Swarthmoor Hall, near Ulverston, in Cumbria. The property was owned by Thomas Fell (1598-1658), who was the MP for Lancaster, an Assize Judge, and one-time Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Though Fell was not himself a Quaker, his wife Margaret (1614-1702, who was to marry George Fox in 1669) was the movement’s chief administrator and fundraiser, and is credited with being the driving force behind what was to become an organised national movement. Judge Fell would sit in an adjoining room during the Quaker meetings held at the hall to afford them some protection by his presence from prosecution and arrest by local magistrates. Swarthmoor Hall is today a listed building (Grade II) owned by British Quakers, and open to the public as one of the earliest surviving examples of a domestic meeting house.
