SAS Open Journals

Editor, The

Meeting Records

Editors, The

It seems curious that whilst so much has been written 
respecting Hannah Lightfoot and George III., no attempt 
has been made (or if there has been it is many years since) 
to ascertain whether the Society of Friends could throw 
any light on the question. After the notorious trial 
which took place in 1866 (see the Annual Register of 1866), I 
in which forged documents purporting to be certificates 
of their marriage were produced, the subject went to 
sleep for some years. As it has again come to the front 
not only in these pages,2 but also in other publications,3 
the Friends' Historical Society has had reproduced, at 
the expense of one of its members, such contemporaneous 
information as it possesses, consisting of four pages 
of the Minute Book of the old Westminster Monthly 
Meeting containing references to the disownment of 
Hannah Lightfoot. These interesting reproductions are 
published by special permission of Westminster and 
Longford Monthly Meeting.
The subject was first brought before the Monthly 
Meeting4 early in 1755 (see first reproduction). At 
the following meeting the Friends under appointment 
were " Con1 to Visit Hannah Lightfoot & make report." 
In Third Month, the subject was minuted as continued, 
also in Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Months. In 
Ninth Month a short report appears (see second 
reproduction). Tenth Month's meeting continued the 
appointment, as also Eleventh Month. The next meeting 
desired the Friends appointed " to acquaint her that 
this Meetne Intends to give forth a Testimony of Denial 
against her." In First Month, 1756, it was stated that 
she could not be found (see third reproduction) ; next
1 Pp. 223-259. Rynes and Rynes v. Attorney General.
2 See THE JOURNAL, iv. 159; v. 54.
3 Gentleman's Magazine, June, 1907; Melville's Farmer George; 
Notes and Queries, Feb. 15, and April 4, 1908.
•» The first reproduction refers to a Quarterly Meeting. William 
Beck states, "At one Monthly Meeting in each quarter, all business, 
except that connected with marriage and other urgent affairs, was post­ 
poned, and a special character given to the proceedings." (London 
Friends' Meetings, pp. 186, 205, 227, 252, 292.) Evidently the Lightfoot 
defection was a matter of urgency.
Vol. v.—42. 93
94 EDITORS' NOTE.
month the subject was continued ; and in Third Month 
the minute of denial appeared (see fourth reproduction). 
In Fourth Month the final minute on the subject ran :— 
" Nath1 Might reports he delivr4 a Testimony of Denial 
against Hannah Light foot to the Six Weeks Meeting."
At a sitting of the Six Weeks Meeting (a committee 
of London and Middlesex Quarterly Meeting), held on 
the 23rd of Third Month, 1756, the minute of denial 
was handed in by James Marshman. In Seventh Month, 
we read, " The Dispersing the Testimony from West­ 
minster Monthly Meeting against Hannah Lightfoot 
being under our consideration, Benja Bourne is orderd 
to send a Copy thereof to each of the other five Monthly 
Meetings."
In addition to this, the Friends' Registers of Births 
show that Hannah Lightfoot was born on the I2th of 
Eighth Month (October), 1730, daughter of Matthew and 
Mary Lightfoot, of St. John's, Wapping. 5
The information contained in the Minutes shows :—
1. That she was married by a Priest (this probably 
means Church of England), in 1754.
2. That she, however, had gone away and could not 
be spoken with.
3. That her mother was not fully satisfied she was 
separated from her husband.
But there is no allusion in any way as to who her 
husband was.
' (Jlofe.
Owing to the increased number of illustrations to be 
included in the forthcoming Supplement, " Dr. Pole and 
his Drawings," it has been decided to raise the price of 
the Supplement to four shillings and sixpence (one dollar 
fifteen cents) on publication. The subscription price of 
three shillings (seventy-five cents) remains as before ; 
those who wish to avail themselves of this price should 
forward their orders at once to Norman Penney, Devon­ 
shire House, Bishopsgate, London, E.C., or to the American 
Agents of the Society.
s It will be observed that she was eight years older than George III.


English

Hannah Lightfoot

Records respecting John and Margaret Lynam in England and Maryland

Turner, G. Lyon

Presentations of Quakers in Episcopal Visitations, 1662-1679

Obituary and Editors' Notes

MEETING RECORDS. 71
•
3. Caleb Puseys 18 ye Same day where Mary Lawson 
was taken w* a Violent feavor & Ague, we 
Continued there till ye 6 th day then rode to
7. Philadelphia 18 Miles.
To be continued.
AT MEETING HOUSE, PARK STREET, NOTTINGHAM.
1. Derbyshire Q.M. Book, 1672-1761.
Contains some unique Derbyshire papers on Tithes, etc., also an 
autograph Testimony by Miles Hubbersty to young John Brocksopp, 
who copied many papers, and whose early death may be the reason there 
are no Q.M. minutes entered earlier than 1672. The minutes commence 
quite informally in 1672 ; there are several pages left vacant before them 
as though other entries of an earlier date had been intended.
2. Book of Denials, Disownments, etc., 1685-1820.
Includes disownment, in 1761, of Gilbert (Heathcote) Rodes, of 
Barlborough Hall, successor of Sir John Rodes, for worldliness.
3. Monyash M.M. Book, 1672-1735.
This^bookis described in THE JOURNAL, iii. 82.
4. Derbyshire Women's Q.M. Book, 1672-1761.
This contains only a bare record of collections and expenses, except a 
long paper at the beginning, apparently undated, from " Our County 
Women's Meeting in Lancashire, to be dispersed abroad among the 
women's meetings everywhere." It is followed by many names of 
Women Friends of Derbyshire, under date 25th 4 mo., 1689, among which 
occur those of Ellen Fretwell (died in Derby gaol, i693),MargaretLynam, 
Elizabeth Roads, Sarah Fearne, and about thirty-six others, four erased.
DERBYSHIRE Q.M. NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Q.M. LINCOLNSHIRE Q.M. 
—— 1761 —— 1761 —— 1865 .
DERBYSHIRE & NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Q.M.
1761-1865
I ___________
DERBYSHIRE, LINCOLNSHIRE & NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Q.M.
1865 to date.
18 Caleb Pusey lived near Chester, on the Delaware River, in Dela­ 
ware County, Pa. He wrote in defence of Friends and was a prominent 
person in the Colony. See The Friend (Phila.), xxix. 148.
GILBERT COPE.
The dates in the margin do not agree, in some instances, with the 
days of the week given in the text.—EDS.


(Hofe0 Queriee*
MEETING HOUSE COURT (vi. 4, 
54). Referring to the above, I
should have said, till a few davs* j
ago, that there was no such locality 
" near London Bridge," unless 
the Old Jewry were called so, 
(which it manifestly isn't). A 
Meeting House Court existed there 
till a few years since, as I can 
testify.
However, the one about which 
the Editor seeks information, and 
which I have now traced, is in, or 
rather just out of Miles Lane, 
Arthur Street West. If my 
readers know Crooked Lane 1  
which is one of the straightest in 
London they will know that it 
leads from King William Street 
and Cannon Street into Arthur 
Street. Immediately opposite, 
through an archway, is a flight of 
steps which take the wayfarer into 
Miles Lane. In passing, I may 
remark that this Lane in all proba- 
bility took its name from Miles 
Coverdale, 2 the eminent translator
1 The name probably arose 
long before the Great Fire, when 
this lane used to curve round and 
over what is now the approach to 
the present London Bridge, into 
Fish Street Hill, where Edward 
the Black Prince had a mansion, 
close to the spot where the Monu- 
ment now stands. Fish Street 
Hill was for centuries the chief 
approach to Old London Bridge.
2 Mention has been made of 
Miles Coverdale. It is a remark- 
able fact that his remains were 
interred three times, once in a 
Moorfields church, where he had 
been Rector, and when that build- 
ing was demolished many years 
ago to make room in a growing 
neighbourhood, his body was
of the Bible, who was Rector of 
St. Magnus, a church hardly a 
stone's throw away on the eastern 
side of the bridge. On the 
west side of this little-known Lane 
is the tiny Court in question. It 
has just space enough for three 
tiny shops or stores. The houses, 
old and rather tumbledown, were 
probably one structure formerly, 
and are thought locally to have 
escaped the Great Fire, which, 
however, raged furiously close by. 
It is also said locally to have been 
a " Quakers' Meeting House." A 
tenant of the Lane, to whom I 
spoke, said he had been there fifty 
years, and the place was the same 
fifty years since as now. It was 
probably " the Quakers' Meeting 
House.'' The corner house, he 
added, leading to the Court, as I 
understood him, was at one time 
occupied by a Quaker hatter named 
Noble. I went up the little, old, 
dark staircase of one of the stores, 
almost sheds, as far as the second 
storey, and found it and its outlook 
desolate though, withal, interest- 
ing a veritable " bit of old 
London."
Subsequent search at the British 
Museum through several London 
Directories of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, beginning with 1738, an 
insignificant volume of less than 
100 pages, revealed no proof nor 
disproof of the above theory.
removed to the crypt of St. 
Magnus, London Bridge, where 
he had also filled the pulpit. 
Finally, when these vaults were 
cleared a few years since, his coffin 
was again removed with all the 
others, and deposited in a suburban 
cemetery.
98
NOTES AND QUERIES. 99
Many lists of " Quakers' Meeting 
Houses" appear from time to 
time, but there is no mention of 
this one unless the frequent men- 
tion of " Michael's Lane " gives 
the clue. St. Michael's Church, 
destroyed by the Fire, was close 
to Crooked Lane, and " Michael's 
Lane " may have existed as part of 
or side by side with the former.
On the evening of the very day 
on which I wrote the above, I 
most unexpectedly came upon a 
complete confirmation of my 
theory that Michael's Lane was 
the same as, or was in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of Miles 
Lane. This therefore also confirms 
my belief that the above-named 
Court contained a meeting-house 
of the Society of Friends. For 
Michael's Lane is given year after 
year in the old Directories in the 
lists of " Quakers' Meetings."
Three quarters of a century 
ago St. Michael's Church (which 
had replaced an earlier one des- 
troyed by the Great Fire) was 
demolished to make room for the 
approach to " new" London 
Bridge, which was opened by 
William IV. and Queen Adelaide 
in 1831. These alterations 
" necessitated the removal of 
all the houses," I read, " in the 
parish east of St. Michael's (or, 
Miles' Lane) " etc. " Various 
little courts and passages branched 
out of these two lanes " (Michael's 
and Crooked) and " these have 
all disappeared except two or 
three on the west side of Miles'
Lane."
I need not quote more. Much of 
additional interest I could have 
given about this locality in the 
earlier remarks, but such has no 
reference to our Society's connec-
tion with Meeting House Court. 
It appears certain that in early 
days Friends met for Divine 
Worship in this little cribbed and 
confined place. FREDERICK G. 
CASH.
THE FATHER OF BENJAMIN 
WEST. In Woodfall's Public 
Advertiser, i/th October, 1776, 
we read : 
"On the 5thof this Month died 
at Warborough in Oxfordshire, 
Mr. John West, Father of Mr. 
West, the Historical Painter. He 
was born at Long Crandon in 
Buckinghamshire in 1690, and in 
1715 he went to Pennsylvania in 
America, where he had three 
brothers settled, who went there 
with William Penn. He married, 
and raised a family of ten children 
in that Province ; and in 1764 he 
returned to England to visit his 
native Land, and see his youngest 
Son (the Painter), who at that 
Time was settled in London. . . 
He was one of the People called 
Quakers, a Man of a pious, humane 
Mind, impressed with a due 
Sense of Religion without Bigotry 
or Superstition. He was just, 
charitable and upright in all his 
Dealings with Men, beloved and 
respected by them when living, 
and at his Death lamented by all 
who had the Happiness of his 
Acquaintance."
THE FAMILY OF BENJAMIN WEST, 
THE ARTIST, P.R.A. Benjamin 
West's father, John West, born 
10 mo. 28, 1690, at Long Crandon, 
Bucks (Upperside Mo. Mtg.), was 
a son of Thomas and Rachel 
(Gilpin) West and a grandson of 
Thomas Gilpin (my ancestor), the 
Cromwellian soldier and Quaker
IOO NOTES AND QUERIES.
minister of Warborough, Oxford- 
shire (Piety Promoted; First Pub- 
Ushers of Truth, 215-217; Gilpin 
Memoirs}. John West came to 
Pennsylvania in 1715 and married 
Sarah Pearson (daughter of 
Thomas, from Cheshire), by 
whom he had nine or ten children, 
of whom the youngest was 
Benjamin, born in 1738. John 
West's portrait appears in (i) 
his son's picture of the West 
family; (2) in the painting 
and engraving of Penn's treaty 
with the Indians; and in (3) a book 
of West's early sketches owned 
by the Historical Society of Penn- 
sylvania. John West left in 
England a son, Thomas, who 
was brought up there and never 
came to Pennsylvania. Thomas 
figures in the picture of the 
West Family and Penn's Treaty 
with the Indians. He was a 
Friend and resided in Reading.
Query : What do the registers 
and minutes of Upper Side Mo. 
Meeting show as to John West's 
first marriage, his removal to 
Pennsylvania, and the birth and
w
death of his son, Thomas ?  
ALBERT COOK MYERS.
[A search has been made in 
the Registers and Minute Books 
of Upperside M.M., but without 
the discovery of further informa- 
tion. EDS.]
11 REPENTANCE BEYOND THE 
GRAVE. "   From Nottingham 
Monthly Meeting Minute Book, 
date 2 v<ii., 1760, I copied the 
following : 
"The Friends that was 
appointed to speak to Mary 
Jerrom reported that they had 
a suitable opportunity with her 
and that she still maintained her
erroneous opinion of there being 
a State of Repentance beyond 
the Grave or Time, Saying that 
ye souls in misery submitting 
themselves or repenting may be 
restored to Mercy, and the Divils 
also in time, for she could not 
think that the Almighty could 
be so cruel or unjust to punish 
the Wicked Everlastingly with- 
out End for crimes committed 
in this short space of life. Her 
mother, at the same time, 
vindicated her daughter's opinion, 
recommending to the Friends 
Hartley's book which she had by 
her, in favour of those opinions."
Do you know anything of 
" Hartley's book " ?   EMILY 
MANNERS.
[This was, probably, Thomas 
Hartley, Rector of Winwick, 
Northants (c. 1707-1784), a con- 
vert to Swedenborgianism. He 
revised the translation by William 
Cookworthy of Swedenborg's 
De Coelo et de Inferno, which 
was published in 1778 (see Smith's 
Catalogue, i. 448). Samuel Scott, 
the Quaker Minister, of Hertford, 
writes of Hartley in his Diary, 
" A man of unaffected piety, great 
sincerity, and exquisite sensibility. 
He lived some years in Hartford, 
and left a sweet savour behind 
him, both among rich and poor " 
(quoted in White's Life and 
Writings of Emanuel Sweden- 
borg, 1867, ii. 592).
We cannot say which book by 
Hartley is referred to; his 
collaboration with Cookworthy 
was of a later date than that of 
the Nottingham M.M. Minute. 
 EDS.]
BlNGLEY, YORKS, AND THE
QUAKER FAMILY OF LISTER (vi. 
54). It is somewhat remarkable
NOTES AND QUERIES. 101
that in the Chronicles, etc., of Bing- 
ley, referred to in the last JOURNAL, 
there is no allusion to the Quaker 
family of Lister, from which Lord 
Lister is lineally descended, and 
of which family there are a number 
of entries in the Friends' registers 
of Knaresborough Monthly Meet- 
ing, including births from 1700, 
marriages from 1715, and burials 
at Crossflats, near Bingley, from 
1736. Some members of this 
family resided at Gilstead in Bing- 
ley, and the status was that of 
yeoman, tanner, maltster, etc.
Thomas Story alludes in his 
folio Journal of i/473 under date 
1738 to attending
1 ' On the 18th of the Fifth Month, 
being the First of the week . . . 
a Yearly Meeting for Worship at 
Bingley which was very large, 
consisting of many Hundreds of 
People; and the Truths of 
the Gospel being largely opened 
unto them, and no publick Minister 
there besides myself, I was very 
much spent as to my natural
strength, and now of great 
Age ; but the Lord being pleased
to restore the Strength of my Mind, 
and being Kindly entertained, in 
Company with many Friends, 
by our friend, William Lister, at 
his House there, my strength, 
through the goodness of God, was 
soon recovered; for the Lord 
sanctifies every Blessing to the 
ends proposed in it.
1 ' On the 2nd (of the Fifth Month) 
I went to Carleton, accompanied 
by William Lister the younger/ 1 
etc.
Two members at least of the 
Lister family of Bingley settled 
in the parish of Saviour's, South- 
wark, and Aldersgate Street, as
3 Page 739.
tobacconists, one of \vhom, viz., 
Joseph Lister of Southwark, son 
of Thomas Lister, of Bingley, 
maltster, was the father of John 
Lister apparently, the father of 
Joseph Jackson Lister, F.R.S., 
and grandfather to Lord Lister. 
For further particulars of the 
Lister family, we must refer to 
Family Fragments, 4 by William 
Beck, and Burke's Peerage,* the 
latter of which, however, gives no 
earlier details of descent before 
the above-named John Lister of 
Stoke Xewington. JOSEPH J. 
GREEN.
EARLY NEEDLEWORK (v. 175 ; 
vi. 4, 55). I should rather doubt 
the identity of the fair worker of 
the Hannah Penn sampler with 
the only daughter of Richard 
Penn, inasmuch as the majority, 
certainly, if not all the many 
samplers I have seen (and there 
are Quaker samplers owned by my 
family dating from 1660) were 
worked by girls in their teens or 
even earlier, whereas Hannah Penn
would be about twenty-four at 
the date of the sampler. Of course 
it is not impossible, but as an 
example of juvenile work, when the 
late Elizabeth (Sanderson) Han- 
bury, widow of Cornelius Hanbury, 
died at Richmond, Surrey, in 1901, 
aged io8J, she left a sampler 
behind her, worked in 1800 or 1801, 
when aged eight! JOSEPH J. 
GREEN.
Sarah A. Storrs, of Virginia 
Water, Surrey, has recently pre- 
sented to D. some beautiful speci- 
mens of needlework said to 
have been produced by Quaker
4 1897, PP- 39-43- etc.
5 1904, p. 971.
102 OBITUARY.
prisoners in York Castle at the end 
of the seventeenth century. These 
consist of three strips of linen, 
io£ Inches long by £ inch wide, 
with two rows of very fine stitch- 
ing and a buttonhole at each 
end ; also two strips in miniature, 
measuring only i-J inches long by 
inch wide.
Norman Pennev, the Society's
W v
Librarian at Devonshire House, 
has just been honoured by election 
as a Fellow of the Society of 
Antiquaries [of London], one of the 
oldest of the learned societies. . 
Fellows of the Society of Anti- 
quaries are entitled to use 
the letters F.S.A. The Friend 
(Lond.), 25th June, 1909.
ANNALS OF THE PEMBERTON 
FAMILY. In the Friends' Miscel­ 
lany, edited by John and Isaac 
Comly, Byberry, published in 
Philadelphia, 1835, vol. vii., no. i, 
it states that Phineas Pemberton 
wrote a narrative describing the 
early sufferings of James Harrison, 
his wife and also himself, in 
England on account of their 
religious principles. James Pem- 
berton lent this book but could not 
recollect to whom, and it was 
consequently lost. Some time 
previously his brother, John 
Pemberton, read the narrative, and 
made a few extracts, which are 
given in this account. Has the 
original ever been found and 
published ? ROBERT MUSCHAMP, 
Myrtle Cottage, Radcliffe, Lanes.
On the 3ist of Fifth Month, the death of Frederick 
Goodall Cash, of Birmingham, took place at Middles- 
brough, Yorks. Ten days previously our friend was elected 
President of the Friends' Historical Society. He left 
the North at an early hour to attend the Annual Meeting 
on the 20th, and he afterwards expressed to several of 
his friends his pleasure at the result of the election. 
F. G. Cash had special knowledge of ancient London, and 
was greatly interested in historical and topographical 
research. A brief account, with portrait, appears in 
The Friend (Lond.), for i8th June.
Thompson Wigham died at his residence in Carlisle 
on the 23rd ultimo, aged seventy-four years. T. Wigham 
took much interest in antiquarian research, and had 
extensive knowledge of local history.


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Meeting Records

Hannah Lightfoot

Records respecting John and Margaret Lynam in England and Maryland

Presentations of Quakers in Episcopal Visitations, 1662-1679

Obituary and Editors' Notes

Meeting Records

Notes and Queries

Notes on the American Descendants of John Reckless, of Nottingham

Obituary - John Handley

Needy Friends in the West of England

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4,299