Quakers in the World

William Penn

William Penn (October 14, 1644 – July 30, 1718) was an English founder and "Absolute Proprietor" of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future U.S. State of Pennsylvania. He was known as an early champion of democracy and religious freedom and famous for his good relations and his treaties with the Lenape Indians. Under his direction, Philadelphia was planned and developed.

Holy Experiment (Pennsylvania)

The "Holy Experiment" is how William Penn described his plans for Pennsylvania, which he founded in 1682. Penn planned to put all his Quaker principles into practice here, something that it was impossible to achieve in England at the time. Everyone would be able to live as they wished within the law, and worship as they chose.

Adam Curle: Radical Peacemaker

Adam Curle was a British academic and Quaker peace activist. Over a period of almost forty years, he undertook international mediation of conflicts in India/Pakistan, Nigeria/Biafra, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Croatia. In 2000, he was the recipient of the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award.

Elizabeth Fry

Elizabeth Fry was a Quaker philanthopist and prison reformer. She was particularly interested in women in prison and worked to improve conditions for women and children in Newgate Prison, London.

Quakers in the Chilterns

There have been Quakers in the Chilterns from the earliest days. By the time George Fox himself visited, in 1668, there were meetings in private houses in Amersham, Weston Turville (near Aylesbury), Chesham, High Wycombe and in Jordans in the old farmhouse.

QUNO: Quaker United Nations Office

Quakers/Friends have been active behind the scenes at the United Nations from the beginning, and in the League of Nations before that. Each of the two main UN centres - New York and Geneva – has a Quaker House, staffed by a small team. They listen, they contribute, and they facilitate quiet dialogue and solution building, especially with regard to peace, justice and human rights.

Anti-Slavery in Britain

Quakers were prominent in the abolition of the slave trade and in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. They remain active as individuals in efforts to alleviate modern forms of slavery.

Levi Coffin

Levi Coffin (October 28, 1798 – September 16, 1877) was an American Quaker, abolitionist, and businessman. Coffin was deeply involved in the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio and his home is often called "Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad". He was nicknamed "President of the Underground Railroad" because of the thousands of slaves that are reported to have passed through his care while escaping their masters.

Education in Africa

Kenya has over 200 Quaker secondary schools, and about 1000 primary ones. The first schools were founded early in the twentieth century. More recently several schools have been established in Rwanda and Burundi, and there is an education/rural development centre in Zimbabwe.

Friends Schools in Kenya from 1902 to independence in 1963

Missionary Friends from North America came to Kenya in 1902 and soon offered education to boys and girls alike. At first, this focused on reading the Bible, but later became much broader. Many Kenyans became teachers alongside the missionaries, and at independence in 1963 Kenyan Friends took over educational leadership.

Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP)

Alternatives to Violence (AVP) was initiated by Quakers in the United States but is now an international movement independent from Quakers. AVP is based on the belief that everyone has within them the creative power to transform violent situations. Local AVP groups work mainly through workshops. Many groups are working in prisons, the context in which AVP originated, but AVP is now used in many other settings, such as schools.

Crime and Justice in Africa

This article is intended to be an overview of Quaker action on Crime and Justice in Africa. If you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, please get in touch.

Crime and Justice in the Americas

Quakers in Canada and the United States are actively engaged in their respective criminal justice systems. Capital punishment remains a significant theme in the US, and was in Canada until it was abolished. Restorative justice and community support are central themes in current work.

Practitioners in Criminal Justice Systems

Many Quakers have worked within the criminal justice system, both as sentencers and as practitioners in prison systems.

Influence on Prison Design

The design of an institution is very important in determining what happens within it.

Commentators on Criminal Justice

There is a strong Quaker tradition of writing about criminal justice issues, though there are many diverging views.

Campaigning against Capital Punishment in Britain

Quakers have argued against capital punishment from very early on, and became effective campaigners in the 19th century.

Meeting for Sufferings

This is the key policy body for Friends in Britain. It began in the 1660s as a forum in which to document and work to alleviate the many sufferings being experienced by Friends and their families at that time, as well as to discuss other matters. The name has been retained, though the business in modern times is very different.

Anti-Slavery in North America

Quakers in Philadelphia stated that slavery was immoral in 1688. Slavery was finally abolished in the United States, in 1865. In that time Quakers gradually rooted out slavery within the Quaker community, andcampaigned for its general abolition. Many broke the law by assisting runaway slaves American Quakers, with many others, work against modern forms of slavery.

Anti-Slavery: Addressing Slavery Practised by Quakers Themselves

In the early days of Quakerism, there were Quaker slave owners and Quaker slave traders. As the unacceptability of slavery became clearer, the first step for Quakers was to root it out within their own communities.

Anti-Slavery: Quaker Administrative Structure, Network and Resources

Quakers in Britain quickly developed a strong network that linked meetings together. This network was a great source of strength in anti-slavery campaigning.

Anthony Benezet

Anthony Benezet (1713 – 1784) was an educational reformer and influential abolitionist who did much for the beginning of free education for African Americans.

Benjamin Lay

Benjamin Lay (1681-1759) was an important campaigner for abolition amongst the Quaker community in 18th century Philadelphia. His methods were often dramatic 'action statements' such as standing barefoot in the snow to illustrate the conditions under which slaves lived.

John Woolman

John Woolman is thought by many to be the central figure of 18th Century Quaker faith and social reform. He was an abolitionist, reformer, writer and minister and was very influential in the abolitionist movement in America.

Lucretia Mott

Lucretia Mott campaigned vigorously against slavery. She founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, and spoke publicly on many occasions, despite much opposition. She and her husband sheltered many runaway slaves in their home, and boycotted items produced by slave labour. She was also a strong proponent of women's rights, and co-organised the first women's rights convention in the US, in 1848.

Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre

Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre was founded in 1903, and is based in Birmingham, UK. It offers many opportunities for the study of Quakerism through courses, retreats, private study, and a postgraduate programme. Many groups, Quaker and non-Quaker, hire its peaceful facilities for meetings and events.

Pendle Hill

Pendle Hill was founded in 1931 and is based in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. It enables study of Quakerism and related topics. It offers a varied programme of courses and retreats and also opportunities for private study.

LEAP Confronting Conflict

LEAP confronts conflict in young adults through drama. Through taking a leap of creativity, a participant may leap into change. The Quaker community arts group, the Leaveners, began it in 1987, working on theatre projects. Since 1999 it has been an independent charity and the scope of its work has diversified.

Prison Chaplains in Britain

The historic Quaker concern for prisons continues today through the contribution of Quakers working within prison chaplaincy teams. At present, over ninety prisons in Britain benefit from a Quaker Prison Chaplain (QPC).

Learning from Experience Project

This is a current initiative by British Friends. When someone receives a sentence it affects many people besides the person convicted. The project is collecting some of their stories and aims to identify opportunities for improvement in the system.

LifeLines

There are many people on Death Row in the US. They spend many years awaiting execution. Many are abandoned by family and friends and have little contact with the outside world. LifeLines organises volunteers to write letters to them. British Quaker Jan Arriens began it, in 1988.

Alternatives to Violence (AVP) in British Prisons

AVP ‘s work is focussed on running experiential workshops to help people manage their violent feelings. In 1990 AVP started working in the UK, with support from Friends House, in London. In 1997 it became an independent organisation, AVP Britain, but there is still much Quaker involvement.

Margery Fry

The life and work of Margery Fry illustrates Quaker faith in action with clear impact. She brought together many strands of concern for offenders, victims and communities, seeking to join together in meeting needs and restoring equilibrium.

Amnesty International

Quakers were instrumental in setting up Amnesty International, in 1962. In 1961, Quaker Eric Baker wrote a newspaper article calling for the amnesty of all political prisoners. This began a campaign, involving many others, that culminated in the founding of Amnesty the following year.

Circles of Support and Accountability in Britain

‘Circles’ is an innovative and successful community contribution to enabling former sex offenders to live in the community without offending again. Mennonites in Canada initiated it, and Canadian Quakers became involved. British Quakers led its adoption in the UK.

Escaping Victimhood

Escaping Victimhood runs residential programmes designed to enable people traumatised by crime to move from being victims to being survivors, and so to reclaim their lives. It was initiated and nurtured by British Friends, led by Tim Newell.

Tim Newell

Tim Newell was a prison governor for 38 years and worked latterly in Grendon Prison – the therapeutic community prison for serious offenders. He has helped with the development of Circles of Support and Accountability in the UK, with restorative practice in prisons and with the provision of services for victims of serious crime, those bereaved by homicide through Escaping Victimhood.

Glebe House: Friends Therapeutic Community Trust

Glebe House in Cambridgeshire does internationally renowned specialist work with teenage males with sexual issues, often victims and/or offenders. Through a two to three year resident programme, many go on to become active and productive members of society. It was founded by East Anglian Quakers in the 1960s, and the trustees are Quakers to this day.

The Retreat, York, England

The Retreat was founded in 1792 by William Tuke, a Yorkshire Quaker, and opened in 1796. It remains to this day a Quaker organisation. It was the first establishment in England where mental illness was regarded as something from which a person could recover, and patients were treated with sympathy, respect and dignity. its work continues to this day.

William Tuke

William Tuke was born in York on 24 March 1732, into a leading Quaker family. He entered the family tea and coffee merchant business at an early age. He was able to devote much time to the pursuit of philanthropy. He is best remembered for founding The Retreat, in York, where he introduced humane and enlightened modes of treatment for the mentally ill.

Crime, Community and Justice Group (CCJG)

CCJG has two functions. One is to connect various Quaker activities, both local and central, and distil them into policy statements and discussion documents. These in turn can inform new initiatives. The other is to serve as a voice for British Quakers in wider networks of related organisations, and in responding to government consultations.

Restorative Justice in Practice

There are several ways that restorative work is put into practice in criminal justice systems in different countries, and many Quakers are involved in this. This article summarises key approaches. Mediation in various forms is a central tool.

Kindertransport

The Kindertransport scheme brought 10000 Jewish children to safety in Britain in 1938 and 1939, just before World War 2. British Quakers worked with British Jews to persuade Parliament to set up the scheme. German Quakers were largely responsible for arranging special trains and identifying the children and British Quakers and Jews found families to host them. Some went to Quaker families.

Friends Peace House, Kigali, Rwanda

Friends Peace House is in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. It was opened in 2000. Its fundamental purpose is to help rebuild Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. It aims to bring together all parts of Rwandan society in everything it does, so they can build peace together.

Restorative Justice work in Thames, New Zealand

Philip Macdiarmid writes about the restorative justice work of a small charity in Thames, New Zealand, in which he and his wife are closely involved.

Work on crime and justice through international Quaker organisations

There are three international agencies involved. Two work at the level of the UN, and the third works at the level of the European Union. The three agencies collaborate extensively in seeking to inform and influence international guidelines on crime and justice matters.

James Nayler

James Nayler was one of the most prominent early Quaker preachers, and was known for the power of his ministry and his charismatic effect on many followers. On his deathbed he uttered some words that inspire today’s James Nayler Foundation.

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad is a term used from about the 1840s to describe an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by fugitive slaves in the United States of America on their journey north to “Free States” or Canada. It spanned twenty-nine states, as well as Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Quakers played an active part in it, along with many others.

Kenya Friends Peace Teams: Resolving Conflict in Kenya After the 2007 Elections

After the violence surrounding the Kenyan elections of 2007, many Kenyans fled from their homes to refugee camps. Kenyan Quakers quickly set up a Friends Peace Team, led by Quaker Joseph Mamai. Early work concentrated on basic needs for food, water and shelter, but was soon followed by painstaking peace-building work: this eventually enabled many refugees to return to their homes in peace.

Involvement in the Middle East

The Quaker presence in the Middle East goes back to the 1860s, when the first Quakers from Maine, USA arrived in Lebanon and Palestine. A community of Friends grew around the schools in Ramallah and Brummana. The community has lived through many changes of rulers in that time, but has always striven to be a beacon of hope for the future.

Thomas Garrett

Thomas Garrett (1789-1871) was an abolitionist who helped 2,700 runaway slaves to reach to freedom. He worked on the underground railroad for forty years and was known at the "station master" at Wilmington, Delaware.

Economic Justice in Europe and the Middle East

The Quaker United Nations Office (Geneva) works on global issues of economic justice, and the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA), based in Brussels, works to influence the EU on aspects of this. In Britain there is a Quaker economics group. All these build on a history of concern with fair ways of doing business, good employment practices, and other issues.

Mary Brown

Mary Brown is a Quaker prison chaplain in Aylesbury. She spends a day a week working in a prison as part of a chaplaincy team. She describes her experience of her work, and what she has learned from it.

Sally Mason

Sally Mason is a ‘Quaker chaplaincy volunteer’ in Usk prison, in Wales, UK. She goes there with the Quaker prison chaplain every 3 or four weeks, along with two or three other Quakers. The main activity is participating in the Quaker meeting for Worship.

Ellen Moxley

Ellen Moxley is a peace activist and campaigner whose commitment to the principles of non-violence has taken her from Vietnam to Scotland in search of a more peaceful world. In 1999 she was one of three women who broke into and dismantled a Trident nuclear research facility. Their acquittal on the grounds that they were upholding international law was seen by many as a watershed moment.

Restorative Practice in Schools

In the early 2000’s the use of Restorative Justice as a way of addressing youth crime began to attract the interest of some educationalists. Both youth justice professionals and the police encouraged this interest, as a way of reducing the use of exclusion. They were motivated by research showing the high correlation between youth street crime and youngsters out of school.

AVP in Kenya

AVP activity started in Kenya in 2003 and has been growing steadily. AVP teams have worked in slums, in prisons, in schools, with church communities and with refugees. Since the post-election violence in 2007, AVP approaches have been extensively used in rebuilding communities.

Paul Funnell

Paul Funnell recounts his experience of being a Quaker Prison Chaplain in a low security all male prison in the UK. The prison prepares offenders near the end of their sentences, for the outside world. In his two and a half years, he believes he really helped five offenders, whom he met and worked with regularly during that time.

Lisa Shend'ge

Lisa Shend'ge recounts her experience as a magistrate in England. She describes herself as a 68-year-old Quaker and a "jobbing adjudicator". She is a magistrate or Justice of the Peace (JP) and also performs a whole host of other judicial roles.

Maureen Miller

Maureen Miller was a Quaker Prison Chaplain in Lancashire for ten years from 1995. She used AVP (Alternatives to Violence) workshops with much success. She found kindness and wisdom amongst the prisoners, as well as many problems, and values the experience of working with them very much.

Yvonne Dixon

Yvonne Dixon has been a Quaker Prison Chaplain in Grendon prison since 2006. Working in this therapeutic community with men who have committed serious crime, her beliefs have been challenged and strengthened in this difficult but rewarding environment. She values particularly the support of Quaker friends and volunteers.

Economic Justice

The world is a very unequal place, in economic terms. Quakers have no easy answers to the challenges this poses. They contribute to thinking and action on aspects of economic justice such as equitable terms of trade, proper employment conditions, and fair recognition of intellectual property rights. Two Quaker agencies -QUNO at the UN and QCEA in the EU - do much work on economic justice issues.

Economic Justice in the Americas

This article is intended to describe Quaker work on economic justice in the Americas. It will include an account of the ongoing work in Canada with indigenous peoples, along with other activities, past and present. if you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, please get in touch.

Economic Justice in Africa

This article is intended to describe Quaker work on economic justice in Africa. if you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, please get in touch.

Economic Justice in Asia-West Pacific

This article is intended to describe Quaker work on economic justice in the Asia-West Pacific region. It will include an account of the work that Quaker Service Australia has done in Cambodia, and the work with indigenous peoples in New Zealand and Australia, along with other activities, past and present. if you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, please contact us.

Maggie Hunt

Maggie Hunt is a Quaker prison chaplain (QPC) and has worked in two very different prisons. She describes it as a joy, a privilege, a challenge and a frustration.

Virginia Membrey

Virginia Membrey is a chaplain in Shepton Mallet prison. She describes it as one of the most rewarding and challenging experiences of her life.

Business in Europe and the Middle East

This article is intended to describe Quaker thought and action about business, in Europe and the Middle East. The UK story will be an important part of this, as will the international work done at the Quaker UN office in Geneva and at the Quaker Council for European Affairs. If you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, especially about non-UK activities, please contact us.

Business in the Americas

This article is intended to describe Quaker thought and action about business, in the Americas. The story of the early Quaker merchants in Philadelphia will be an important part of this, as will the later philanthropy and work on business education and business ethics If you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions, please contact us.

Business in Africa

Business activities amongst Friends in Africa are mainly of two kinds - raising funds for Quaker work, and micro-finance. A third emerging area of work is capacity building for entrepreneurship, growing out of the first two. In Kenya several yearly meetings have business ventures, and Friends United Meeting (Africa) has recently set up a not-for-profit farm. There are micro-finance and other small loan schemes in Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Mozambique.

Business in Asia - West Pacific

This article is intended to describe Quaker thought and action about business, in the Asia - West Pacific region. If you would like to help to write this, or contribute suggestions about other business activities, please contact us.

Elizabeth Heyrick

Elizabeth Heyrick was influential both in Britain and in the United States in the campaign for the Abolition of Slavery. She was also a feminist and philanthopist.

Anne Knight

Anne Knight was an abolitionist and a feminist. She campagned for universal suffrage.

Bronwen Gray

Bronwen Gray is Resident Quaker at The Retreat, in York, England. The Retreat is a Quaker foundation, working on mental health. She describes her role.

Friends Schools in Kenya from independence in 1963 to the present day

At Kenyan independence in 1963, Friends mission schools became part of the state system, though Quakers still have an important role. Many new Friends schools have grown up. A rich discussion is developing between them, focusing on the Quaker ethos and teaching quality. The new Quaker Education Council has been set up to progress this

Brummana School, Lebanon

Brummana High school was founded in 1873. It pioneered a unique multi-faith co-educational approach in Lebanon adapting the English Quaker boarding school model. The curriculum is international. Students work in the community, and support charities. The school motto is "I Serve", and many alumni testify to its enduring effect on their lives.

Meeting for Worship in Usk prison

Meeting for Worship is currently held weekly at Usk prison in a pleasant ante-room adjoining the Chaplain’s office. Sally Mason describes a typical meeting. All prisoner names have been changed.

Quaker Schools in Rwanda

Quakerism came to Rwanda in 1986, just 8 years before the genocide. Quakers and their schools are playing a crucial role in rebuilding Rwanda. There are 4 secondary schools, 5 primary schools, and 4 nursery schools, with about 6500 students between them. The students and teachers come from all ethnic and religious backgrounds and learn to live and work together.

Bob Johnson

Bob Johnson is a psychiatrist who has spent much of his professional life working with disturbed and dangerous prisoners, and researching the impact of different approaches. He believes that they can all be reached, and that none of them is untreatable. He challenges much current practice on account of this.

Scott Bader Commonwealth

This is a Quaker founded common trusteeship company set up by Ernest Bader. He and his family had built up an international chemical business, which they made over to a new charity in 1951. His aim was to preserve the gift of his company for the benefit of its present and future staff in perpetuity. All staff are now members of the Commonwealth and take part in democratic decision-making. The charity owns the company as a social rather than a financial investment.

INACOS – combating HIV/AIDS in Rwanda

INACOS (Initiative des Amis Combattant la SIDA) is the Friends Church HIV and AIDS programme in Rwanda. It was founded in 2002 by Quakers Fidele Nsengiyumva and his wife Antoinette Runiga, both HIV positive themselves.

Fidele Nsengiyumva

Fidele has been living with HIV himself since 2002. He founded, and still leads, INACOS, the Friends programme in Rwanda. It works to help everyone affected by HIV and AIDS. In 2008 he helped establish a global advocacy committee, on behalf of Friends worldwide.

Aboriginal Affairs Committee in Canada (QAAC)

The Canadian Friends Service Committee set this up in 1974, in response to an armed confrontation between the Ojibway people and the Canadian government. The initial aim was to enable concerns to be heard and resolved in a nonviolent way. Since then QAAC has worked on many other issues to do with the human rights of indigenous peoples in Canada.

Bayard Rustin

Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a black Civil Rights activist, a close associate of Martin Luther King, and an advocate of gay and lesbian rights, and a Quaker.

Ruth Rittenhouse Morris

Ruth Rittenhouse Morris (1933-2001) was a Canadian Friend who was one of the world’s leading advocates for prison abolition.

Thomas Clarkson

Thomas Clarkson, although not a Quaker, was greatly influenced by them in his work for the abolition of the slave trade. He was a member of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade

QUNO and Human Rights

One facet of the work of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) is to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights through the United Nations.

Peace Curricula in Kenya

Kenyan Friends’ first peace education manual, ‘Mulembe’, was produced in 2000. It was primarily intended for church leaders. In 2009, work began on a peace curriculum for secondary schools, with implementation in Friends schools beginning in 2011. A primary school peace curriculum is also under development.

The Phoenix Restorative Justice Programme, South Africa

Phoenix runs a programme of restorative projects/activities in the ten prisons of Zululand, South Africa. The programme has strong Quaker roots.

Barns Hostel School

The school was opened in 1940, near Peebles in Scotland. It was a residential school for boys who had been evacuated from large cities and sent to safer places. Most evacuees were billeted with families, but this was too difficult in some cases. Scottish Friends established Barns to cater for these children.

David Wills

David Wills ‘(1903 – 1981) lifelong focus was young people who were troublesome to others, or to themselves, or both. He played a key part in several experimental therapeutic communities, and wrote a number of books describing his experiences and his developing ideas.

Quakers and the American Women’s Suffrage Movement

The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the USA is widely considered to date from the First Women’s Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York State in 1848. This meeting was instigated by five women who had been closely involved in the abolition of slavery, all but one of whom were Quakers. In 1920, it was the actions and treatment of another Quaker woman – Alice Paul – which led at last to the passing of a Women’s Suffrage Bill by the US Congress.

Ann Preston

Ann Preston (1813-1872) was a pioneering American woman doctor and founder of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Hospital. She was a tireless and effective campaigner for the rights of women to become doctors.

Cyrus Pringle

Cyrus Pringle was a Quaker botanist for most of his adult life. However as a young man he was caught up in the American Civil War, and refused to fight because of his Quaker principles. He suffered greatly for this.

Grindstone Island: Quaker Peace Education Centre

From 1963 to 1976, Canadian Friends Service Committee operated a Peace Education Centre on Grindstone Island, on Big Rideau Lake, south of Ottawa. The aim was to explore how nonviolence could be practised in hostile, threatening situations.

Mary Fisher

Mary Fisher was one of the first Quaker missionaries – the Valiant Sixty. As well as preaching in England she made two journeys overseas, one to Boston, in North America, and the other to Turkey, where she visited the Ottoman Emperor, Sultan Mehmet IV.

Quakers in the Sanctuary Movement

Between 1980 and 1991, nearly one million Central Americans fled political repression and violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua and sought asylum in the US. For much of that time, however, asylum was refused. Founded in 1980 by two Quakers and a Presbyterian minister from Tucson Arizona, the Sanctuary Movement provided legal, financial and material aid to these refugees.

Quakers and Business Group

The Quakers & Business Group was set up in 2002, ‘to promote Quaker principles particularly in the context of business and the workplace’

Mission to Australia: James Backhouse and George Washington Walker

These nineteenth century Quaker missionaries travelled extensively throughout Australia, where they reported on conditions in the penal colonies and aboriginal settlements. Their six-year mission helped Quakerism take root in Australia. Australian Friends’ annual Backhouse lecture commemorates James Backhouse.

Ham Sok-Hon

Ham Sok-Hon (1901-1989) was a Korean Quaker, twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by American Friends. His commitment to non-violence earned him the name, ‘the Gandhi of Korea.’

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge

Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, (1952- ) is perhaps the only Quaker and pacifist to have found themselves second in command of their country’s defence forces. She is a longstanding member of the ANC, and served as an MP and later in the Ministries of Defence and Health. She currently campaigns against the sex-trafficking of women.

Nitobe Inazo

Nitobe Inazo (1862 - 1933) , 'Bridge Across the Pacific', was a Japanese Quaker who became the first Under Secretary General for the League of Nations.

Horace Alexander

Horace Alexander (1889-1989) was a Quaker who contributed significantly to the peaceful transfer of power from the British to the independent governments of India and Pakistan, and afterwards worked to limit the terrible communal violence that followed.

Agatha Harrison

Agatha Harrison (1885 – 1954) was a Quaker and a close friend of Gandhi. She contributed significantly to the peaceful transfer of power from the British to the independent governments of India and Pakistan.

Friends Industrial Mission, Pemba, Zanzibar

In 1890 Britain took over the protectorate of Zanzibar, where slavery was widespread. In 1897 British Quakers established an industrial mission on Pemba Island, which lasted in various forms until 1963. They met with many difficulties, but are credited with liberating about 1000 slaves, and for providing education and employment for many.

Friends School Ramallah

The school founded by the Friends in Ramallah in 1889 has played an important role in Palestinian education for over 120 years. Nowadays only a few students are Quakers but the life of the school is firmly based on Quaker principles.

Quakers and Whaling

Quakers dominated the whaling industry in Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts, for 150 years. They employed many black sailors and escaped slaves, and made vast fortunes. Whale oil was the main fuel for lamps, until the development of oilfields in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Rowntree

Joseph Rowntree (1836 – 1925) played an important part in building up the Rowntree family business, and later used his personal wealth to set up four charitable trusts. Throughout his lifetime he was concerned with the welfare of his employees and wider social issues, and the trusts take forward these concerns.

Joseph Elder

Joseph Elder is an academic and lifelong Quaker peace activist with experience of mediating conflicts in Kashmir, Vietnam, Korea and Sri Lanka. He is currently professor of Sociology and Languages and Cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin, USA.

Richard Gregg

Richard Gregg was a Quaker Lawyer, a leading American theorist on non-violence and one of the first people to introduce Gandhi’s teachings on non-violence to the Western world. He described the tactics of non-violence as “moral jiu-jitsu.”