Rebecca Jones | |
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| Born | July 8, 1739 |
| Died | April 15, 1818 (aged 78) |
| Occupation | Quaker minister |
| Years active | 1758-1813 |
Rebecca Jones (July 8, 1739 - April 15, 1818) was a Quaker minister and educator. She is known for having helped maintain the tradition of female preaching and leadership among American Quakers, and helping create it in Britain. [1]
Jones was born July 8, 1739, in Philadelphia, to William Jones, a seaman, and Mary Porter, a school mistress. Shortly after her birth, William died on a voyage. Mary Jones supported Rebecca and her older brother, Daniel, by running a school for young girls at No. 8 Drinker's Alley. [2] [1] As a child, she was referred to as "Romping Becky." [3]
Although Jones was raised in the Anglican tradition, she showed an interest in the Quaker faith from twelve years old. At sixteen years of age, Jones began the conversion process after hearing minister Catherine Peyton preach. Despite ridicule and objection from family and friends, Jones became increasingly involved in the Quaker religion, becoming a regular speaker by 1758. Two years later, she became a minister. [1]
Jones took over the school in 1761, when Mary Jones became ill. After Mary's death, another Quaker minister, Hannah Cathrall, joined the school as a teacher. They taught girls and boys. By 1764, their Quaker students' tuitions were subsidized by the William Penn Charter School. Jones taught while travelling to preach through the 1760s and 1770s.
In 1783, Jones closed the school and applied for a certificate as a traveling minister. [2] [1] At the London Yearly Meeting, Jones and her colleagues successfully advocated for English Quaker women to gain the right to hold a women's yearly meeting. Between 1784 and 1788, Jones continued to travel England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, with English Quaker Christina Hustler. She visited many English schools, including Ackworth School.
In 1788, Jones returned to Philadelphia, where she opened a small shop where she sold material, thread, and other sundries. Jones continued to preach in the Delaware Valley and New England, and regularly visited District families. In 1799, she helped establish the Westtown Friends' Boarding School.
Jones never married, but had particularly close relationships with Quaker women on both sides of the Atlantic. Notably, Bernice Chattin became Jones's adopted daughter. Chattin lived with Jones beginning in the 1790s, and cared for her household while Jones traveled.
Jones fell ill Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. In 1813, she contracted Typhus, which she never fully recovered from. While this ended her traveling career, she was consulted for her expertise. She remained an invalid until her death in 1818.
Jones's life has been memorialized multiple times since her death. These include Memorials of Rebecca Jones, published by H. Longstreth around 1849, and The Life and Letters of Rebecca Jones, published by Friends Library Friends Library Publishing and updated in 2022. [4]
George Fox was an English Dissenter, who was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends. The son of a Leicestershire weaver, he lived in times of social upheaval and war. He rebelled against the religious and political authorities by proposing an unusual, uncompromising approach to the Christian faith. He travelled throughout Britain as a dissenting preacher, performed hundreds of healings, and was often persecuted by the disapproving authorities. In 1669, he married Margaret Fell, widow of a wealthy supporter, Thomas Fell; she was a leading Friend. His ministry expanded and he made tours of North America and the Low Countries. He was arrested and jailed numerous times for his beliefs. He spent his final decade working in London to organise the expanding Quaker movement. Despite disdain from some Anglicans and Puritans, he was viewed with respect by the Quaker convert William Penn and the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as Britain Yearly Meeting, is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting", or "Yearly Meeting Gathering" are usually the names given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organisation is commonly known by.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Ulverston. Members are informally known as Quakers, as they were said "to tremble in the way of the Lord". The movement in its early days faced strong opposition and persecution, but it continued to expand across the British Isles and then in the Americas and Africa.
Dorothy Ripley (1767–1831) was a British evangelist, who went to America in 1801 and died in 1831 in Virginia. She was a Quaker by confession, but had been raised a Methodist. She traveled thousands of miles in the United States and Britain as an effective evangelist on the camp meeting circuit. She ministered to many of the disenfranchised, including the Oneida people, men and women in prison, and African slaves in the Southern United States. She self-published six times; three of her books received a second printing. Ripley crossed the Atlantic Ocean at least nine times, mostly traveling alone. At her death a newspaper obituary termed her "perhaps the most extraordinary woman in the world."
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members of these movements are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.
Jane Fenn Hoskens (1694–1764) Is the author of The Life and Spiritual Sufferings of That Faithful Servant of Christ Jane Hoskens, a Public Preacher among the People Called Quakers (1771).
Thomas Story (1670?–1742) was an English Quaker convert and friend of William Penn, whose writings were very influential to Quakers. In 1698, he visited colonial America, lectured to Quakers there, and held positions in the Pennsylvania colony.
Mary Morris Knowles (1733–1807), was an English Quaker poet and abolitionist. She spoke out in favour of choosing her own spouse, argued on behalf of scientific education for women, helped develop a new form of needle painting, confronted Samuel Johnson, defied James Boswell, and supported abolition of the slave trade and slavery. She published several works under her maiden name, Morris.
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Mary Dudley born Mary Stokes was a British Quaker minister. Despite having four step children and five of her own children, Dudley, preached throughout Britain and Ireland. She was recognised as a role model because the freedom granted to her, as a woman, allowed her to achieve more.
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Hannah Jenkins Barnard was a Quaker minister from Dutchess County, New York. Early in her career, she was active throughout New York and then New England. She was considered an "eloquent speaker" and was esteemed among fellow Quakers. She became interested in traveling across the Atlantic Ocean to speak at meetings in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Because she was a woman, it took two years before she received approval for the trip.
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