Steven Davi­son is nerd­ing deep into Quak­er his­to­ry, specif­i­cal­ly the process in which younger mem­bers of Britain Year­ly Meet­ing start­ed for­mu­lat­ing a new kind of Quak­erism. Here’s his explana­to­ry intro­duc­tion and here is part 2:

Mean­while, mem­ber­ship dropped pre­cip­i­tous­ly, as meet­ings applied dis­ci­pline increas­ing­ly rig­or­ous­ly for walk­ing dis­or­der­ly in all man­ner of ways. In 1859, a prize of one hun­dred pounds was offered by an anony­mous British Friend for the essay that best explained this decline and that offered the most promis­ing solutions

The process was any­thing but overnight. As I under­stand the his­to­ry it would be anoth­er half cen­tu­ry from the prize to a yearly-meeting-wide shift. I don’t think many Friends in Eng­land appre­ci­ate just how Evan­gel­i­cal their year­ly meet­ing has become in these years; their refusal to rec­og­nize Amer­i­can Hick­sites led to the lat­ter’s shun­ning from the world Quak­er fam­i­ly and meant mod­ernist Quak­er respons­es would evolve on large­ly sep­a­rate paths.

I won­der if British Friend William Pol­lard will make an appear­ance in Steven’s posts. I’ve been fas­ci­nat­ed how Philadel­phia Hick­sites took to him despite the for­mal insti­tu­tion­al bar­ri­ers. [Update: Steven just dropped part three and there’s Pol­lard!]

The Rise of Lib­er­al Quak­erism — Part 2