Record of the Sufferings of Quakers in Cornwall
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RECORD OF THE SUFFERINGS OF QUAKERS IN CORNWALL RECORD OF THE SUFFERINGS OF QUAKERS IN CORNWALL 16554686 Transcribed and Edited by NORMAN PENNEY, LL.D. With Introduction by L. VIOLET HODGKIN (MBS. JOHN HOLDSWORTH) Author of A Quaker Saint of Cornwall Loveday Hambly and her Guests Published for the FRIENDS HISTORICAL SOCIETY London FRIENDS BOOK CENTRE, Friends House, Euston Road, N.W.I Philadelphia, Pa. ANNA W. HUTCHINSON, 304 Arch Street 1928 This volume is Supplement 14 to THE JOURNAL OF THE FRIENDS HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Journal, edited by Norman Penney, LL.D., F.S.A., is issued by the Society from Friends House, Euston Road, London, N.W.i, price s/- ($1.25) a year. Made and Printed in Great Britain Record of Sufferings of Friends in Cornwall is a folio volume.with a beautifully embossed brown leather cover, containing in manuscript a full account of the perse cution and sufferings endured by Quakers in Cornwall from 1655 to J792. Of these, the first thirty-one years are in the handwriting of Dr. Thomas Lower, son-in-law to George Fox, who was also the transcriber of a large portion of the latter's " Great Journal." After many wanderings and vicissitudes both Journal and Record have now found a home in, and are among the chief treasures of, the Library belonging to the Society of Friends, formerly lodged at Devonshire House, London,E.G.,and now at Friends House, Euston Road, N.W. Although usually kept in a safe, these and other precious Quaker manuscripts are occasionally shewn to visitors, in a glass case, and they are available for students. A collection of papers relating to " the introduction of Quakerism into the counties of England and Wales " was published in 1907 as a Supplement to The Journal of the Friends Historical Society, under the title : The First Pub lishers of Truth. In his introduction to this volume, my father, the late Thomas Hodgkin, who was one of the founders and the first president of the Friends Historical Society, says that by the publication of such papers the Society is " doing good service to the cause of historical research, chiefly but by no means exclusively in connection with the Society of Friends." vi INTRODUCTION The same remark applies to the present Record, never before printed, and only rarely quoted, in the two hundred and eighty years since its entries began. Hitherto, only students with ample leisure to spend in London, and gifted also with strong eyesight and much skill in deciphering handwriting, have been able to avail themselves of these curious and interesting details concerning the sufferings of the first Friends in the West. Now, thanks to Dr. Norman Penney, F.S.A., who has given both his time and his un rivalled knowledge of Quaker history to the laborious task of transcribing these crabbed and sometimes almost illegible entries, the whole of the Record (as far as Thomas Lower wrote it) becomes available to students all over the world. The raw material of history is to be found in these pages. Many clues can now be followed up at leisure; many questions answered; many problems worked out and solved at home. How interesting it would be, for example, to try to discover which of the many surnames mentioned in the follow ing pages have died out; and which (a much larger proportion) are still to be found in the West of England under the same or nearly allied forms. For instance, when buying a refill for an electric torch or a pair of garden scissors in the shop of a modern ironmonger, it still gives the purchaser a thrill to look up and see that the name over the door, in a narrow street, is " Deeble," though without any knowledge now of its Quaker ancestry. Several different families, both of Friends and of their persecutors, can be traced in the Record through several years, though, unfor tunately, the story is given here from one point of view only. The reader must imagine for himself the perplexity of these county justices and parish constables when confronted with such stubbornly conscientious law-breakers : simple, INTRODUCTION vh yet unterrified men and women who could be " dirted & hurted " or sent to languish for long months or years in gaol, but could not be prevented from meeting together to find God in the silence of their own homesteads, and who utterly refused to attend the divine worship in " the old Massehouse " or do even seemingly trivial actions that their conscience forbade. This Record also throws light on smaller historical pro blems, such as the value of money in the seventeenth century and the prices paid for the simple articles to be found in middle-class country homes. Pewter and brass seem to have been the usual materials for domestic utensils, though copper is occasionally mentioned. It is interesting to com pare the " 3 pewter platters & one pewter Pegger worth twelve shillings, "taken from John Ellis, and the "onebrasse crocke worth about !& ios," from Thomas Mounce, with the " one brasse kitle or cauldron & one pewter flagon," which are included in the long list of valuables taken from Love- day Hambly at different times. Probably, as a good farmer, the loss of even these household treasures moved her less than that of the valuable live-stock repeatedly taken from her farm. The modern reader, however, can hear of these losses calmly, but would give much for a sight of the " 17 printed mapps " taken from her house on another occasion. Very significant also of the way in which this stalwart woman thought things out for herself is the fact that already, in these early days, she refused to share in any preparations for war. In 1665 there were taken from " Loveday Hambly of ye prish Caled S* Austell for one servitures wages [margin: for not maintaineinge arms for a souldyer] two brasse Crocks worth about a6- for 14* de- maunded for his pay & nothinge restored againe." In earlier years she and other Friends had already suffered for the viii INTRODUCTION same cause, as did another Cornish widow, Katharine Gye, of Calstock, two years later; though the unlawfulness of all war was not yet a Quaker tenet, and was not enjoined by the leaders of the Society until much later. A frequent cause of punishment was the crime of " settinge open shopp windows on y* day Caled Xmas day ". A certain Elizabeth Hill, who suffered for this, also lost " a paire of brasse skales & 2 paire of stockings to ye value of 7s because shee did not come to theire Church." And what shall be said of Thomas Evans who had taken from him " five paires of shooes & one odd shooe w1* hee had lately before bought " ? or of Anne Newman whose " two petty Coates " were apparently worth five pounds ; while Penelope Lanhadren's " petty-coate " was only valued at twelve shillings ? A sidelight is cast on early nineteenth century etiquette by the fact, mentioned by the Editor in a note, that a former transcriber has modestly described all these " petty Coates " merely by the generic name of " garments."1 Entries such as the above are full of unconscious humour to us who read them through the mellowing atmosphere of nearly three hundred years. Romance, too, in plenty is to be found in other sufferings, especially in the stories of the wedded couples, who were imprisoned in " close nasty rooms " for " refuseinge to be marryed accordinge to y* rites & Ceremonyes of y« Church of Englande." There is also a memorable tale of an unfortunate " white- smyth " the phrase sounds strange to modern ears whose " shopp " was plundered because " an Idle young fellow haveinge scarsly Cloaths to weare through his Idle- nesse " had turned Informer, so as to "finde an easy way to gett money." 1 Page 70. For other instances of "modesty, "see pp. 82,98, n6[ED.]. INTRODUCTION ix These and many other entries will make the following carefully edited pages a fascinating quarry for all those to dig in who love either the county of Cornwall or the history of the early Quakers. This Record is now published by the Friends Historical Society in the hope that it may provide material from which many students may produce further and more detailed studies hereafter, concerning this little knot of people who lived at this particular time in this corner of the West. L. VIOLET HOLDSWORTH Bareppa House, near Falmouth March, 1928 (preface volume into which was written the manuscript here reduced to print is a large folio, measuring 17^ inches by 12^ inches, bound in brown leather and containing 220 pages. It went out of use at about the close of the eighteenth century, and was disregarded for many years. It is known that it rested in a wooden box in the Friends' Meeting House at St. Austell for fifty-one years prior to its removal, at the instigation of Francis Williams Dymond, in July, 1902, to the headquarters of the Society of Friends at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate, London, where it was placed on deposit, remaining the property of the Quarterly Meeting of Devon and Cornwall. It was then described as " an old and mutilated book; no body living seems to know anything about it." Shortly after the arrival of the volume repairs were advised, and, under the skilful handling of the noted London bookbinder, Joseph Zaehnsdorf, it was "taken to pieces and each sheet carefully sized, pressed, and replaced in the old covers," mutilated sheets being inlaid and repaired, at the cost of £8 ios., the amount being met by F.