Swarthmoor Hall is a mansion at Swarthmoor, in the Furness area of Cumbria, North West England. Furness was formerly part of Lancashire. The Hall was home to Thomas and Margaret Fell, the latter an important player in the founding of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) movement in the 17th century. It is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building. [1] It remains in use today as a Quaker retreat house.
Swarthmoor Hall was built by a lawyer named George Fell about 1568. It was inherited by his son Thomas, a lawyer and later a member of Parliament, Vice Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and an influential supporter of Parliament during the English Civil War. In 1634 Thomas married Margaret Askew and she moved into the Hall.
George Fox visited the Hall in 1652. Thomas Fell was travelling as a judge, but Fox had an audience with Margaret Fell, who became interested in his new doctrines. She arranged for him to preach in St Mary's Church in nearby Ulverston and at the Hall. During his time there, many people were convinced of the truth of his teachings.
When Thomas Fell returned home, he was persuaded by his wife and some others to listen to Fox, who successfully appealed to his pro-Parliamentary sentiments. Fell was never totally convinced by Fox's religious teachings, but he did allow his home to be used as a meeting house for the early Friends. Among those connected with the meeting were the missionary preachers Alice and Thomas Curwen, natives of nearby Baycliff, who were active in the Furness district, then in New England, Barbados and Nevis, and later in Huntingdonshire and other parts of England. The meeting continued to use the hall until 1691, when a meeting house was built nearby.
Thomas Fell died in 1658. Eleven years later George Fox married the widowed Margaret Fell, and when not travelling, occasionally lived at Swarthmoor. Fox died in London in 1691 and Margaret died at the Hall in 1702.
The London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends purchased the Hall in 1951 for £9,000 and it still belongs to the Religious Society of Friends.
The annual Swarthmore Lecture is one of a series of lectures, started in 1908, addressed to the Britain Yearly Meeting of the Friends. The Quaker-founded Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania was named after Swarthmoor Hall. Swarthmoor is one of the four houses (Swarthmoor, Firbank, Pendle, Briggflatts) at the Quaker Bootham School, a boarding-school in York, and it was one of the three houses at Great Ayton Friends' School.
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, performing hundreds of healings, and often being 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 Quaker Tapestry consists of 77 panels illustrating the history of Quakerism from the 17th century to the present day. The idea of Quaker Anne Wynn-Wilson, the tapestry has a permanent home at the Friends Meeting House at Kendal, Cumbria, England.
George Keith was a Scottish missionary born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to a Presbyterian family, he 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.
Swarthmore may refer to:
Swarthmoor is a small village near Ulverston, in Cumbria, England. Located on the Furness peninsula, it was historically part of Lancashire.
Margaret Fell or Margaret Fox was a founder of the Religious Society of Friends. Known popularly as the "mother of Quakerism," she is considered one of the Valiant Sixty early Quaker preachers and missionaries. Her daughters Isabel (Fell) Yeamans and Sarah Fell were also leading Quakers.
The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as the 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 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.
A testimony of equality is an act, usage, or course of conduct by a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) tending to assert or promote equality of persons, arising from the Friends' belief that all people are equal in the eyes of God. The word testimony describes the way that Friends testify or bear witness to their beliefs in their everyday life. A testimony is therefore not a belief, but is committed action arising out of Friends' religious experience. Testimony of equality has included Quakers' participating in actions that promote the equality of the sexes and races, as well as other classifications of people.
Bardsea is a village in the Low Furness area of Cumbria, England. It is two miles to the south-east of Ulverston on the northern coast of Morecambe Bay. It is in the historic county of Lancashire.
Quakers belong to a historically Christian (Protestant) set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of the various Quaker movements are generally united by a belief in the ability of each human being to experience and access the light within or to see "that of God in every one". Some profess the priesthood of all believers, a doctrine derived from 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 is not reliant on the existence of God. To differing extents, the movements making up the Religious Society of Friends/Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2007, there were about 359,000 adult Quakers worldwide. In 2017, there were 377,557 adult Quakers, 49 per cent of them being in Africa.
A Book of Discipline may refer to one of the various books issued by a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, setting out what it means to be a Quaker in that Yearly Meeting. The common name for this book varies from one Yearly Meeting to another and includes Book of Discipline, Faith and Practice, Christian Faith and Practice, Quaker Faith and Practice, Church Government and Handbook of Practice and Procedure. Each Book of Discipline is updated periodically by each Yearly Meeting according to the usual practice of decision making within the Religious Society of Friends.
Thomas Fell (1598–1658), was a lawyer, member of parliament and vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster.
Richard Farnworth or Farnsworth was an English Quaker writer of tracts.
Leonard Fell, was an English Quaker.
Thomas Lawson (1630–1691) was an English botanist and Quaker.
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.
William Meade (1628–1713) was a London merchant, and a prominent early Quaker, connected by marriage to George Fox.
Sarah Fell (1642–1714) was an English Quaker accountant and writer at Swarthmore Hall. She was the daughter of Margaret Fell and Thomas Fell, and the eventual stepdaughter of George Fox.
Isabel Yeamans (1637?-1704) was an English Quaker preacher, and daughter of Margaret Fell and step-daughter of George Fox, co-founders of the Religious Society of Friends.