A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



The Society of Friends 



Lancashire does not bulk so largely in the general history of the Quaker 

 movement, either in the seventeenth century or to-day, as we should expect 

 in view of the close personal connexion between George Fox and the Swarth 

 Moor district. It would appear that Fox began his preaching in Lancashire. 

 In 1647 he travelled thither from Derbyshire 'to see a woman who had 

 fasted 22 days,' and passing on to Dukinfield and Manchester he stayed awhile 

 and ' declared truth among them,' 



This earliest effort would appear to have been resultless, and it was not 

 until five years later that he again entered the county. This time he came 

 from Westmorland, reached Ulverston, and so on to Swarth Moor, the place 

 which was to be a haven of rest for him throughout his life, and where he 

 met the noble-spirited woman who was destined later to be his wife. Mistress 

 Fell, then the wife of Judge Fell. The first society which he gathered round 

 him was at the house of Judge Fell, and that house continued to be a meeting- 

 place for the society for nearly forty years, until 1690, when a new meeting- 

 house was erected near it. The ' priest ' at Ulverston, Lampett, became a 

 persistent foe and persecutor of Fox. 



Making Swarth Moor his centre Fox itinerated in the district round, 

 speaking at Aldingham, at Rampside, where the ' priest,' Thomas Lawson, 

 became a convert, at Dalton, in the Isle of Walney, Baycliff, and Gleaston. 

 On a second visit some short unstated time after (still in 1652) he preached 

 in the streets at Lancaster, but met with a very rough reception. After 

 again an apparently brief intermission in Westmorland he reappeared at Ulver- 

 ston to dispute with the ' priests ' who were then assembled in great numbers 

 at what Fox calls a lecture, but which can surely only have been a classical 

 meeting. Both here and in Walney Island he was treated with great violence, 

 and returned to Swarth Moor only to find a warrant awaiting him. He was 

 tried at the sessions at Lancaster for blasphemy ('1652, 30th of the eighth 

 month' (October)); but although forty 'priests' under their mouthpieces 

 Marshal and 'Jackus' appeared against him he was dismissed. The result of 

 the proceedings was to raise up for Fox a following in Lancaster, including 

 the mayor himself, and Thomas Briggs, the latter of whom ranks with 

 Richard Hubberthorne as one of the two greatest Lancashire Quaker 

 preachers. 



From 1652 for a time Fox was absent from the county — perforce, as he 

 was in gaol at Carlisle. In his absence his cause was carried on by Thomas 

 Briggs, who appears as being mobbed in Warrington church in 1653, and 

 by Miles Halhead, the early Lancashire convert to whom was first given the 

 name of Quaker, and who in the same year was preaching and meeting similar 

 treatment at Stanley [.? Staveley] chapel and in the Furness district. 



It was not until 1657 that Fox reappeared at Swarth Moor and Lancaster 

 (where he visited the meetings of Friends), Liverpool, Manchester, and 

 Preston, and his stay was evidently brief, for we hear no more of him in the 

 county until 1660, when he was apprehended at Swarth Moor and committed 

 to Lancaster Gaol. His subsequent connexion with Lancashire (his long 

 imprisonment and trial at Lancaster in 1664-5, for refusing the Oath of 



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