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.
George Keith was a Scottish religious leader, a Presbyterian turned Quaker turned Anglican. He was born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to a Presbyterian family and received an M.A. from the University of Aberdeen. Keith joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the 1660s, accompanying George Fox, William Penn, and Robert Barclay on a mission to the Netherlands and Germany in 1677.
Thomas Ellwood was an English religious writer. He is remembered for his relationship with poet John Milton, and some of his writing has proved durable as well.
Edward Burrough (1634–1663) was an early English Quaker leader and controversialist. He is regarded as one of the Valiant Sixty, who were early Quaker preachers and missionaries.
The Religious Society of Friends began as a proto-evangelical Christian movement in England in the mid-17th century in Lancashire. 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.
Jacob Gottschalk (Godtschalk) Henricks van der Heggen was the first person to serve as a Mennonite bishop in America.
Francis Howgill was a prominent early member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England. He preached and wrote on the teachings of the Friends and is considered one of the Valiant Sixty, men and women who were early proponents of Friends' beliefs and suffered for them.
The Quaker movement began in England in the 17th Century. Small Quaker groups were planted in various places across Europe during this early period. Quakers in Europe outside Britain and Ireland are not now very numerous although new groups have started in the former Soviet Union and satellite countries. By far the largest national grouping of Quakers in Europe is in Britain.
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.
William Penn was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era. Penn was an advocate of democracy and religious freedom known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements in the state.
The 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery was the first protest against enslavement of Africans made by a religious body in the Thirteen Colonies. Francis Daniel Pastorius authored the petition; he and three other Quakers living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, signed it on behalf of the Germantown Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Clearly a highly controversial document, Friends forwarded it up the hierarchical chain of their administrative structure—monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings—without either approving or rejecting it. The petition effectively disappeared for 150 years into Philadelphia Yearly Meeting's capacious archives; but upon rediscovery in 1844 by Philadelphia antiquarian Nathan Kite, latter-day abolitionists published it in 1844 in The Friend, in support of their antislavery agitation.
William Caton (1636–1665) was an early English Quaker itinerant preacher and writer.
Rev. John Cooke was a post-Restoration Church of England clergyman.
Benjamin Furly was an English Quaker merchant and friend of John Locke.
Edward Browne, FRS was a British physician, and president of the College of Physicians.
Rebecca Travers was a prominent London Quaker in the earliest development period of that religious movement. Her funeral oration was delivered by William Penn.
Alice Curwen was an English Quaker missionary, who wrote an autobiography published along with correspondence as part of A Relation of the Labour, Travail and Suffering of that Faithful Servant of the Lord, Alice Curwen (1680). Her maiden name and parentage are unknown. She came from Baycliff in the Furness district of Lancashire, and spent part of her life as a missionary and social activist in New England and the Caribbean.
The Light upon the Candlestick is an anonymous mystical tract published in Holland in 1662. Translated into English in 1663, it became a popular text among English Quakers.
Gulielma Maria Posthuma Penn was the first wife of William Penn, the notable Quaker writer, religious thinker and founder of Pennsylvania.
Lilias Skene or Lillias Skein was a Scottish Quaker preacher, prophet and poet.
