Quaker Centre, Friends House, 173 Euston Rd, London NW1 2BJ

Quaker Library resource person: David Irwin
project initiator: Beverley Kemp
co-ordinator (Quaker Center): Amanda Woollsey
co-ordinator (West Euston Time Bank): Tony Bloor
workshop leader: Kim Morrissey


SUGGESTED READING:

FOUND POETRY BY THE PURPLE POETS
*TO ALL WOMEN!
various authors
PAMPHLET box 1/5
by the Purple Poets
performed 22.04.2010

Found Poetry Cycle
in progress: workshop material by the T.A.D.s
'TROUBLESOME PEOPLE'
conscious objectors' accounts from two world wars
various sources
(Third Age Drama/ Third Age Project)
under the direction of Gary Kielty


Found Poetry Cycle: February Workshop:
SWISS WOMEN'S MANIFESTO
PAMPHLET box 1/5
by the Fitzrovia Women Writers
reading: 22.04.1010

TO GERMAN WOMEN
Bernard Miller and Sue Hilton
reading: 22.04.2010


TO GERMAN WOMEN
rough translation (and correction of German text)
Katja Schmidt
reading: 22.04.2010


Found Poetry by Heather Spears
George Fox Peace Testimony 1660/1
reading: 22.04.1010


[in progress: Found Poetry by Gemma Jordan]
A C.O. IN PRISON
W.J. Chamberlain 1917
"A ZEPPELIN RAID"
PAMPHLET 223/2 13439
pages 44-48


Found Poetry by Barry Cole
THE COURTMARTIAL FRIEND
AND PRISON GUIDE
1917
PAMPHLET 223/3
pages 4-5



[in progress: Daniel Beard]
112 DAYS HARD LABOUR
Hubert W. Peet 1917
PAMPHLET 223/4 /38855
all pages 1-16


A QUAKER CONSCIENCE
Cyrus Guernsey Pringle
written in 1863
(reprinted in Atlantic Monthly)
PAMPHLET 223/5 /38958
all pages 1-16



FROM KINGSTON BARRACKS PRISON
printed in the Croydon Advertiser - Court Martial
Roderic Kendall Clark aged 32
1917
PAMPHLET 223/6 /38969
all pages 1-8


A CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR OF 1575
edited with an introduction and notes by
Albert Peel, (1920?)
PAMPHLET 239/6
[pre-Quaker, by S.B. Adventist]
possibly pages 20-27


PEACE PAMPHLETS
bound pamphlets
A. Ruth Fry
'State housekeeping'
pamphlet 15
051.54/15
pages 1-4


PAMPHLET
Volume 1, #44
published by the C.B.C.O.
6 Endsleigh Street
051.54 vol. 1 /44



FOUND POETRY BY MIRIAM HALAMY
"We do not close our eyes"
from THE BOY, THE BAYONET, AND THE BIBLE
B. McCall Barbour
PAMPHLET
BOX 242/2
pages 2-17


FOUND POETRY BY MIRIAM HALAMY
"Letters Home From Russia"
from A CRIMEAN WAR DIARY: SLEIGH RIDE TO  RUSSIA
"Sleigh Ride to Russia" (an account of the Quaker Mission to St. Petersburg by Robert Charleton, Henry Pease and Joseph Sturge in 1854 to present an address to Czar Nicholas to try to avert the outbreak of the Crimean War.) by Griselda Fox Mason, 1985, ISBN 0 900657 99 5

CRIMEAN WAR -- OTHER SOURCES--- JOSEPH STURGE (delegate, with Robert Charleton and Henry Pease, sent as the Quaker deputation to Tsar Nicholas). The Meeting for Sufferings approved Sturge's plan on January 17, 1854.  The journey took 13 days, and the delegates arrived in Saint Petersberg, the latter part of the journey being by sleigh,  on 2nd February 1854. website on Joseph Sturge http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/sturge.htm Selected Works of Joseph Sturge Sturge, Joseph, A Visit to the United States in 1841 (London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1842). Reprinted 1969: (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969) Sturge, Joseph and Thomas Harvey, The West Indies in 1837 (London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1838). Reprinted 1968: (London: Frank Cass and Co., 1968) Selected Secondary Works Fladeland, Betty, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Anti-Slavery Cooperation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972) Fladeland, Betty, '"Our Cause Being One and the Same": Abolitionists and Chartism', in Slavery and British Society, 1776-1846, ed. James Walvin (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), pp. 69-99. Hobhouse, Stephen, Joseph Sturge: His Life and Work (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1919) Paton, Diana, '"From His Own Lips": The Politics of Authenticity in "A Narrative of Events since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams, An Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica"', in Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Britain and its Colonies, 1760-1838, eds. Brycchan Carey, Markman Ellis, and Sara Salih (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 108-122 Tyrrell, Alex, Joseph Sturge and the Moral Radical Party in Early Victorian Britain (London: Christopher Helm, 1987) Williams, James, A Narrative of Events since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams, an Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica, ed. Diana Paton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001) JOSEPH STURGE http://www.sturgefamily.com/read/read.htm Reading Material There are a number of books about the Sturge and related families that may be of use to those researching their family history. A number are listed below and information about other books would be welcomed. "Reminiscences of My Life" (and Some Account of the Children of William and Charlotte Sturge and the Sturge Family of Bristol) by Elizabeth Sturge, 1928, Printed for Private Circulation. "The Sturges and Early Quakerism" by Elizabeth Sturge, 1930, Printed for Private Circulation. (To be re-published on this web site during 2002.) "Gaunts Earthcott to Frederick Road" (An account of the Sturges of Birmingham) by Sylvia Lloyd Lewin, 1980, Printed for Private Circulation. "Re-cognitions" (Reminiscences) Mary Sturge Gretton, 1951, (Hall The Printer Ltd., Oxford.) "Shining Way" (Reminiscences) by Rachel Graham Sturge, 1969. (privately printed) "Some Little Quakers in their Nursery" by M. Carta Sturge, 1906 & 1929 (J. Baker and Son / Simpkin Marshall Ltd.) "Five Daughters in Search of Learning" (The Sturge Family 1820 - 1944) by Margaret Goodbody, 1986. (privately printed) "Lecture on the Life, Labours and Character of the Late Joseph Sturge" by Handel Cossham, 1860. "Memoirs of Joseph Sturge" by Henry Richard, 1864 & 1865, "Joseph Sturge" by Alexandrina Peckover, c1890, (The Aberdeen University Press.) "Joseph Sturge" (his Life and Work) by Stephen Hobhouse, 1919, (J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.) "Joseph Sturge" (and the Moral Radical Party in Early Victorian Britain) by Alex Tyrrell, 1987, ISBN 0-74-703200-9 "Sophia Sturge" (A memoir) by William R. Hughes, 1940, (George Allen and Unwin Ltd.) "Sleigh Ride to Russia" (an account of the Quaker Mission to St. Petersburg by Robert Charleton, Henry Pease and Joseph Sturge in 1854 to present an address to Czar Nicholas to try to avert the outbreak of the Crimean War.) by Griselda Fox Mason, 1985, ISBN 0 900657 99 5 BOOKS ABOUT RELATED FAMILIES OR OF GENERAL INTEREST "From the King's Marshall" (The Marshall Family.) by Morris Pritchard, 1983, ISBN 0 85864 070 8 "Trooper to Dean" (a biography of the Very Rev. H. W. Blackburne) by Haidee Blackburne, 1955 (J. Arrowsmith Ltd., Bristol.) "Lasting Legacy" (a story of British Colonialism) by Sir Kenneth Blackburne, 1976, ISBN 0 85307 146 2 "Somerset Anthology" by Roger Clark, 1975, ISBN 0 900657 27 8 "Affectionate Cousins" (T. Sturge Moore and Marie Appia) by Sylvia Legge, 1980, ISBN 0-19-211761-0 "A Bristolian and the Third Reich" (memoirs 1933 - 1948) by Margaret Goodbody, 1991, Privately printed. "Gloucester Docks" (an illustrated history.) by Hugh Conway-Jones, 1984 & 1988, ISBN 0-86299-085-8 "100 Years of Phosphorus Making" 1851 to 1951 (Company History of Albright and Wilson) by R. E. Threlfall, (Albright and Wilson, 1951.) "100 Years of Phosphorus Making" 1851 to 1951 (Company History of Albright and Wilson) by R. E. Threlfall, (Albright and Wilson, 1951.) source: http://www.sturgefamily.com/read/read.htm

WE DID NOT FIGHT
editor, Julian Bell, various authors
051.57 BEL
pages 157 -175

ON TWO FRONTS
Catchpool
051.57CAT
pages 84-87


OUR FAITH AND THE CAUSES OF WAR
J. Russell Smith 1920
PAMPHLET
BOX 242/5
pages 1-13


FRIENDS AND WAR
A New Statement of The Quaker Position
adopted by the conference of all friends 1920
PAMPHLET - box 415/19
pages 14-21


SOME THOUGHTS FROM A PRISON CELL
Robert O. Mennell 1917
PAMPHLET, Box 425/5
all pages 1-4


QUAKER FAITH AND PRACTICE
Britain: Yearly Meeting, 1994
Chapter 24 OUR PEACE TESTIMONY (also CHAPTER 18)
BOOK


ON TWO FRONTS
Letters of a Conscientious Objector (First World War)
Corder Catchpool
introduction by George Lansbury
Headley Brothers 1918 third edition 1940
BOOK
051.57


PEACE CLASSICS
Volume 4
William Penn
Address to the American Indians
November 1682
page 36-38
BOUND PAMPHLETS BOOK 051.54


VARIOUS PUBLICATIONS
from Central Board for Conscientious Objectors
C.B.C.O.
6 Endsleigh Street
Telephone EUston 5501
(also Dick Shepherd House)


PEACE PAMPHLETS
A.R. Fry (A. Ruth Fry) various dates to 1944
BOOK 051.54 /13232




THESE STRANGE CRIMINALS
An anthology of Prison Memoirs
by Conscientious Objectors
from the Great War to the Cold War
edited by Peter Brock
U of T Press 2004
BOOK 051.599
[All Contributors' extracts from this book are marked TSC CONTRIBUTOR]

TSC CONTRIBUTOR: STEPHEN HOBHOUSE
A HUMAN DOG KENNEL
Stephen Hobhouse
Exeter Prison 1917
[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Stephen Hobhouse's aunt is Kate Courtney]
Stephen Hobhouse, page 18

Nearly every feature of prison life seems deliberately arranged to destroy a man's sense of his own personality, his power of choice and initiative, his possessive instincts, his concept of himself as a being designed to love and serve his fellow-man. His very name is blotted out and he becomes a number; A.3.21 and D.2.65 were two of my designations. He and his fellows are elaborately counted, when-ever moved from one location to another, in the characteristic machine-like way; - '15 men correct,' '38 men, correct'; so the warder has to report many times in the day. He is continually, of course, under lock and key, ignored except as an object for spying.

The only articles I could call absolutely my own were my spectacles, my wife's letters, four small photographs, and two books - the Weymouth New Testament and Fellowship Hymn-Book - which are allowed to Quakers. Otherwise everything is on loan.

page 18-19
On a large printed card, which forms one of the chief features of the cell-landscape, there is written: - 'Rule 1. Prisoners must serve silence. Rule 2. They must not communicate, or attempt to do so, with one another.' Two other keystones of the system, which appear lower down, read to the effect that no prisoner must 'leave his cell or other appointed location without permission'; and that no prisoner ma, 'without express authority, hand to, or receive from, another prisoner any article whatever.' Even apart from the specific mental injuries caused b the enforced silence, it is clear how completely these rules destroy the healthy, normal activities of human intercourse. Designed to prevent collusion and conspiracy among the prisoners, and to make it difficult for them to corrupt one another, they succeed in making courtesy, friendliness, and acts of goodwill either an impossibility or a crime.

TSC CONTRIBUTOR: E. WILLIAMSON MASON (not a Quaker)
Durham Prison
page 30
Prison either makes or blasts a man. It either makes him self-reliant or else it stuns him into a coma .. The sepulchral silence or reverberating noises of a prison ward seems to wrap one in an inpenetrable clak that suffocates. The banging of iron doors and gates, the jingling of keys, the heavy assured tread of the officers as they walk along the galleries, the jangling of food tins, the clanking of the rope mill, all, all, have a deadening effect upon the brain. The dull monotony, the weary repetition of commands, the regular meal times, the same rotation of food and the systematic working if all departments, work their depressing ravages upon prisoner and warder alike.

TSC CONTRIBUTOR: HUBERT W. PEET (Quaker)
1886-1951
page 38 (letter to his children)
I expect it is difficult for you to understand why I am not at home with you all. I would be if I could, but I am not allowed to. Someday you will understand all about it.

page 39
'To prison' and 'to isolate' are practically identical terms.


page 39
5.30 a.m. - Get up, wash, make bed, put plank bedstead and mattress (the latter is supplied after 14 days) against wall, sweep out cell. 6.00 a.m. - Warder opens door. Put slops out. Ward Officer walks round to note any applications to see the Governor, doctor or chaplain or any small complaints. Door closed while cleaners empty tins, leave clean water, etc, outside. Begin work in cell, for everyone has canvas task to perform during the day. 7 a.m. - Breakfast served. 8 a.m. - Half an hour's exercise. 12 noon. - Dinner served. 1.30 p.m. - Dinner tins, slops, etc. collected. 4 p.m. - Supper served. 8 p.m. - Lights out. On Wednesday and Saturday morning there is 'Chapel' before exercise. On Sunday prisoners do not rise till seven, and go to Chapel twice, at 10.30 and 3. Of course, no work is done on this day.

page 40

The menu is practically nothing but bread and porridge. It is served for the first seven days, but for the rest of the time I was on the 'B' diet, which is as follows: - Breakfast - A pint of gruel and 8 oz. of bread. Supper. - The same quantity of bread and a pint of porridge. Dinner. - 6 oz. of bread and nominally 8 oz. of potatoes, but owning to the war shortage, rice or haricots are sometimes substituted for part of the latter. In addition is served on Sunday 4 oz. of cold preserved meat, i.e., a small slice of pressed beef. On Monday, 20 oz. of haricots with 2 oz. of crude fat bacon ('beans in candle grease'). On Tuesday and Friday, 1 pint of soup - usually thick and good, and meat has been found in it. On Wednesday and Saturday, 10 oz. of suet pudding made with brown flour - good if received still hot; and on Thursday, 4 oz. of cooked eat without bone, but not without fat or gristle. As a rule the porridge could not e bettered, and the wholemeal bread though [dense] is thoroughly good. One would welcome the opportunity of tasting it with butter. The only condiment is salt, sugar not being tasted in the ordinary way till 'C' diet is reached, after a four month's imprisonment, when cocoa is served.

page 41

A prison cell is about 7 feet wide, 11 feet 6 inches long, and 9 feet high. Its furniture consists of stool, table (sometimes fixed by the frosted window through which light is received at night, and sometimes movable), a plank bed, with mattress, two sheets, two blankets, rug and pillow; mug, spoon, tin knife (which bends if used on a crust); slate and slate pencil; and a set of pots, pans and bush. At Wormwood Scrubs the floor is of boards, but in the older prison [i.e. Wandsworth] my cold feet were a perpetual reminder that I was living on tiles. In such a winter as we have been having this fact was perhaps the greatest physical hardship of imprisonment, bearing in mind that often I was only absent from the cell for half-an-hour out of the twenty-four. Those who wish to reproduce the test are advised to try working, sleeping and eating in their scullery.

page 41

The clothing consists of grey cloth collarless suit, liberally sprinkled with broad arrows; underclothing - the latter is always clean, but thee is only one size for everybody, and button a garment is liberal fare - stockings and shoes. Usually, little capes are available for extra warmth during exercise in cold weather. All garments are dated, and one day I noted a cape that had been in use for 21 years! I have also seen a man with his trousers turned up at least eight inches to make them fit.

page 45
It will be good one day in the future again to live in a room in which there is not a peephole in the door. The prisoner never knows when he is being watched, and however innocent his action it is unpleasant to feel that complete privacy can never be relied on. During the evening officers wear silent felt slippers, and their visits are only known by the slight click of the shield over the whole as he moves it to look through.

TSC: CONTRIBUTOR: ALEXANDER (ALEX) BRYAN
page 186-187
To my surprise, I had not been there long when I was informed that I was to be transferred to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, which was for first offenders. Apparently, I had been send to Wandsworth in error, for it had been officially agreed that no matter how many times a CO received a prison sentence for refusing military service he should be treated as a first offender.

TSC: CONTRIBUTOR: PETER BROCK
page 190
When nearly sixty years later, I wrote my account, I issued it at first only in thirty-five copies, 'for private circulation' - primarily for friends and family.

EXCERPTS:

HISTORIC PEACE TESTIMONIES:


PEACE TESTIMONY OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 1660/1
from a Declaration from the Harmless and Innocent People of God, called Quakers,
presented to Charles 11, 1660 (eleventh month = January 1661)

We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fighting with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretence whatever; this is our testimony to the whole world. The Spirit of Christ by which we are guided is not changeable, so s one to command us from a thing as evil, and gain to move unto it; and we certainly know, and testify to the word, that the Spirit of Christ, which leads us into all truth will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons, neither for the kingdom of Christ nor for the kingdoms of the world.

FULL TEXT:
source: http://www.quaker.org/peaceweb/pdecla07.html




FRIENDS PEACE TESTIMONY 1938
excerpts from minutes of Special Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
held 18 -20 November 1938 at Friends House, London

Peace is not a state of tranquility, but a constant struggle. The supporting hand of God will not make our lives smooth for us, but it will lead us forward, and in the perplexities of our lives to-day we shall know His Peace that passeth understanding


THE QUAKER PEACE TESTIMONY RESTATED  1958
by Richard K. Ullman 24.05.1958
Church Army Press, Cowly, Oxford

page 7
Reconciliation rather than absence of was is its ultimate aim; and it is beautifully confident that all technical and political activity with such concern for reconciliation all-round testifies to the glory of God in the world even though it fail in the temporal sense of failure. A pacifist action may suffer defeat, a true witness to the Spirit is never defeated because it conquers even through the cross.

page 7
beyond dispute, non-violence is always preferable to violence, especially because it gives the survivor a chance of a change of heart, a chance of which the dead are deprived.

page 10
Personally I am convinced that whatever way we turn, we cannot help taking risks, and ought not to shirk them; and that whatever risks we take, we can never escape the need of making some compromise; and that with the greatest effort for personal and corporate integrity, as human beings alive in this physical world of ours, we are inevitably involved in some ambiguities.

page 11
Our testimony is no testimony of prevention, reduction resistance, opposition and protest: it is a tremendously positive response to the prompting of love, goodness, purity and truth. It is no method of taking away the occasions of war, but a testimony to that life and power which takes away, actually has taken away, the occasions of all war because, in the words used by George Fox, "it has brought us unto the covenant of peace which was before wars and strifes were."



PEACE TESTIMONY OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS  1987
from a Statement on Peace
issued by New Zealand Quakers 1987

We actively oppose all that leads to violence among people and nations, and violence to other species and to our planet. Refusal to fight with weapons is not surrender. We are not passive when threatened by the greedy, the cruel, the tyrant, the unjust. We will struggle to remove the causes of impasse and confrontation by every means of nonviolent resistance available. We must start with our own hearts and minds. Together, let us reject the clamour of fear and listen to the whisperings of hope.