scholarly journals Faith in Numbers—Re-quantifying the English Quaker Population during the Long Eighteenth Century

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Fincham
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Population Model ◽  
Population Estimates ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
First Time ◽  
Religious Society Of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends was traditionally disinclined to define “membership” in pursuit of the Quaker mission to create a worldwide church. As a result, for almost two centuries before the first census of 1847, there are no records of the numbers within the Society. By the time of the census, Victorian Friends were seeking an explanation of what they generally perceived as a decline. The first, and still most widely accepted attempt to address this question, was John Stephenson Rowntree’s Quakerism, Past and Present, who grounded his 1857 essay on estimates extrapolated from summaries of Quaker records of marriages, births and deaths. This paper re-examines for the first time the assumptions made by Rowntree, and deploys both more recent demographic estimates and findings from the detailed Births, Marriages and Deaths records for over 33,000 Quakers in London from 1650 to 1809 to create an alternative population model charting stock and flows in the Quaker population of England by decade from 1650 to 1809. The paper seeks to reconcile such population estimates with accepted trends in English Quakerism across the period of the long eighteenth century.

Quakers

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard C. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
Religious Society Of Friends

Although the Toleration Act (1689) eased the position of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in many ways, the path towards full tolerance and acceptance remained rough. Their refusal to take oaths of allegiance meant that another expedient to demonstrate loyalty had to be found. Likewise, the refusal to pay tithes or to serve in the militia were also areas of contention. In an attempt to distance themselves from radical seventeenth-century associations, they sought to develop frameworks to provide for the internal regulation of the behaviour of their members. A number of popular customs, such as drinking and gambling, were regarded as inappropriate and there was a growing emphasis on the importance of marrying within the community. Although the enforcement of this code had an impact on the size of the membership, from the middle of the eighteenth century, Friends were increasingly involved in ‘respectable’ business and often did well within this context.

BRITISH PERCEPTIONS OF FLORENCE IN THE LONG EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 837-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROSEMARY SWEET
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Republican Period ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
First Time

ABSTRACTStudies of the Grand Tour conventionally focus upon the art and antiquities of Italy rather than the urban environment in which the tourists found themselves, and they generally stop short in the 1790s. This article examines the perceptions and representations of Florence amongst British visitors over the course of the long eighteenth century up to c. 1820 in order to establish continuity between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It considers why it was that British travellers appeared to be particularly attracted to Florence: initially they responded to congenial and pleasant surroundings, the availability of home comforts, and a sparkling social life. In the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Florence acquired new meanings for the British, who began to identify and admire a civilization which had been based upon mercantile wealth and liberty: the foundations for the Victorian celebration of Florence were laid. But the experience of Florence as a city had also changed: it was no longer simply the showcase of the Medici dukes. As a consequence the buildings, monuments, and paintings of the republican period, as well as the history which they embodied, came into focus for the first time.

A Description of the Qualifications Necessary to a Gospel Minister-Quaker Ministry in the Eighteenth Century

1989 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 329-341
Author(s):  
David J. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Short Duration ◽  
National Level ◽  
Church Discipline ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
The Church ◽  
Religious Society Of Friends

In 1750 Samuel Bownas, then aged about seventy-four, published A Description of the Qualifications necessary to A Gospel Minister, a manual of advice to ministers and elders in the Religious Society of Friends. In 1738 the church discipline of the Society was codified and made available to Friends’ meetings, first in manuscript form and then from 1783 in print, providing rules and advice covering aspects of Quaker life from administration at national level to personal conduct.In the earliest days of the Society the appearance in print of such advice would have been considered superfluous. A Friend received his call to minister directly from the Spirit once he was in a receptive state as a result of turning to the light, then found the direction of his particular ministry. This call bore no relation to the education or status of the recipient, it was not recognized by any external rite, it could be of short duration, and it could take varied forms.

Liberty, Property and Popular Politics

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
British History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
The University

Few scholars can claim to have shaped the historical study of the long eighteenth century more profoundly than Professor H. T. Dickinson, who, until his retirement in 2006, held the Sir Richard Lodge Chair of British History at the University of Edinburgh. This volume, based on contributions from Dickinson's students, friends and colleagues from around the world, offers a range of perspectives on eighteenth-century Britain and provides a tribute to a remarkable scholarly career. Dickinson's work and career provides the ideal lens through which to take a detailed snapshot of current research in a number of areas. The book includes contributions from scholars working in intellectual history, political and parliamentary history, ecclesiastical and naval history; discussions of major themes such as Jacobitism, the French Revolution, popular radicalism and conservatism; and essays on prominent individuals in English and Scottish history, including Edmund Burke, Thomas Muir, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence. The result is a uniquely rich and detailed collection with an impressive breadth of coverage.

Reframing the Sciences of the Long Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Giuliano Pancaldi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Past Half

Here I survey a sample of the essays and reviews on the sciences of the long eighteenth century published in this journal since it was founded in 1969. The connecting thread is some historiographic reflections on the role that disciplines—in both the sciences we study and the fields we practice—have played in the development of the history of science over the past half century. I argue that, as far as disciplines are concerned, we now find ourselves a bit closer to a situation described in our studies of the long eighteenth century than we were fifty years ago. This should both favor our understanding of that period and, hopefully, make the historical studies that explore it more relevant to present-day developments and science policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled “Looking Backward, Looking Forward: HSNS at 50,” edited by Erika Lorraine Milam.

Gender, Class and a Naming Process in the English Long Eighteenth Century: Leicestershire c. 1680-1836

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Dave Postles
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Society ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

During the 'long eighteenth century', a novel practice of naming was introduced into England which had a long precedent in some parts of continental Europe. Associated at first with aristocratic status, two 'forenames' were selectively adopted at various levels of English society. How that process occurred is illustrated here through a selective sample of Leicestershire parishes as it varied by the intersections of gender and class.

Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric C. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Great Awakening ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Baptist Church ◽  
Southern Culture ◽  
Single Person ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Lower South

Oliver Hart was arguably the most important evangelical leader of the pre-Revolutionary South. For thirty years the pastor of the Charleston Baptist Church, Hart’s energetic ministry breathed new life into that congregation and the struggling Baptist cause in the region. As the founder of the Charleston Baptist Association, Hart did more than any single person to lay the foundations for the institutional life of the Baptist South, while also working extensively with evangelicals of all denominations to spread the revivalism of the Great Awakening across the lower South. One reason for Hart’s extensive influence is the uneasy compromise he made with white Southern culture, most apparent in his willingness to sanctify rather than challenge the institution of slavery, as his more radical evangelical predecessors had done. While this capitulation gained Hart and his fellow Baptists access to Southern culture, it would also sow the seeds of disunion in the larger American denomination Hart worked so hard to construct. Oliver Hart and the Rise of Baptist America is the first modern biography of Oliver Hart, at the same time interweaving the story of the remarkable transformation of America’s Baptists across the long eighteenth century. It provides perhaps the most complete narrative of the early development of one of America’s largest, most influential, and most understudied religious groups.

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