Quakers

Alaska has a lot of oil. It also has a lot of seals, space and domestic abuse. It doesn’t have many Muslims: not enough mosques. It does though, have lots of Quakers. Indeed, as a percentage of the overall population, Alaska has more Quakers than any other US state.

Quakers are members of a church called the Religious Society who believe that every human has a light in them and that God is within each person. There are also, Nontheist Quakers whose leaning in spirituality does not involve a God, or Supreme Being. Instead they prefer to talk in soft tones about simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love and joy. Quakers are also, as it happens, very good at business. Money. Making money. Indeed there are whole dynasties of Quakers who have shaped the history of British business.

Lloyds Bank, famed for its black horse and ill-advised acquisition of Halifax, was founded by the seasoned Quaker, Sampson Lloyd, an iron manufacturer from Birmingham. Barclays Bank too, founded by John Freame, a solid Quaker. Why not Freame’s bank you mutter, as an aside. Indeed. The name Barclays only became associated with the bank when Freame’s son-in-law James Barclay became a partner. Allen & Hanbury meanwhile, made respiratory drugs. It made respiratory drugs so well, that Glaxo Laboratories, now the mighty GlaxoSmithKline, bought it. Anyway, Allen & Hanbury was founded by the Quaker, Silvanus Bevan, in one of the rooms where the famed poet Alexander Pope – he of the heroic couplet and sharp satirical verse – was born. Pope, for broader interest, is the second most quoted writer behind the Bard of Avon although neither Pope nor the Bard were Quakers. Too busy.

Then there was Cadbury, founded by John Cadbury – a Quaker – also in Birmingham. Terry’s, them of the chocolate orange: Quakers. Terry’s was actually founded by Robert Berry in York. Joseph Terry had moved to York and married a relative of Berry. When old man Berry died, Terry stepped in and quickly agreed a new partnership with George Berry. The business was renamed Terry & Berry. A few years later, Berry got bored with making chocolate nibbles and Terry became the sole owner. Hence it is his chocolate orange. Then there were the Frys, who also made chocolate down in Bristol and later merged with Cadbury, the Rowntrees who have kept dentists busy since the late nineteenth century, and finally, the Clarks, they of the sturdy loafer and polished brogue. All of them Quakers.

That is, in anyone’s book, a proper line up of very successful Quakers. So much so, you might now be thinking that your religious leaning is, perhaps, leaning the wrong way? Well, perhaps a bit more background before you decide to ditch which ever deity the prayers of lottery riches and naked revelling in hot tubs, are aimed at.

1642. The country was at war, with itself. The English civil war had left many people disillusioned with the Church of England. Things weren’t quite working for them and one man, in particular, took matters into his own hands – George Fox.

Fox was the son of a successful Leicestershire weaver and, in a whisper of his potential for founding a religious order, was dubbed by neighbours: ‘Righteous Christer’. He was a serious child who found no amusement in whoopee cushions. Throughout his life, he was obsessed with simplicity and humility. He refused fluffy towels and any other item of luxury. He spent some time as a shepherd, where you can imagine, these thoughts really took hold. By the age of nineteen, George was giving nights in the pub the poo-poo and starting to hear voices in his head. By 1643 with the English civil war tearing up the social fabric of the country Fox found himself in London, tormented, his mind a mess. He would shut himself in his room, or go on long walks muttering and waving his hands. His was stay in London that was a long way from that of the young Australian tourist, who develops a love of Shepherd’s Bush and watery ale. Fox soon returned to Drayton-in-the-Clay in Leicestershire where he would accost the local clergyman, Nathaniel Stephens, as he pruned his plums, engaging in deep discussions on religious matters. Stephens later described Fox as quite ‘mad’.

Over the next few years Fox travelled about, debating, arguing and shouting at people in pubs who told him to go outside as “the quiz is about to start”. He read the bible – a lot; he thought about the temptation of Christ – a lot; and he started to preach. And he was good. Like a modern day social media ‘influencer’, Fox started to attract a following, although his was, quite literally, a following. They would follow him around on his travels and called themselves the ‘Children of Light’ and Fox would urge them to live a life without sin. By the mid-sixteen-fifties, Fox was pulling in crowds of over a thousand people. Parliament soon grew suspicious and feared Fox’s principled band wanted to ‘do one’ on the government, and so they chose buried their liberal principles and locked him up at every opportunity. Persecution Fox and his followers would soon become the norm. He would though, continue to preach, and ruffle establishment feathers, until his death in 1691.

Toasted by many Quaker’s, his hard talk did however, alienate more moderates strands, who would lick their lips too quickly at mention of Fox’s puritan-like opposition to the arts and rejection of theological study. That said traditional Quakers still saw him as a pioneer and indeed, Walt Whitman, the American poet and essayist who stuck his beard into the discussion of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, wrote that Fox: “stands for something too—a thought—the thought that wakes in silent hours—perhaps the deepest, most eternal thought latent in the human soul. This is the thought of God, merged in the thoughts of moral right and the immortality of identity. Great, great is this thought—aye, greater than all else”

That’s Quakers then, described by earnest BBC presenter as ‘natural capitalists’ given their penchant for running banks and making shoes, but they are really just another group searching for structure and meaning in this rough and unpredictable world. For the Quaker, then, it’s less about gin and tonic, and more about emotional purity and the light of God.

Good people. Good luck to them all.