John Lambert, George Fox and the origins of Quakerism in Yorkshire

Posted on June 30, 2024

Many people responded to the distress and turmoil of the English
Reformation in the 16th century and Civil Wars in the 17th by focusing on their
religion. Some supported one or another of the creeds and systems of church
government that were being debated and fought over. Some wanted to purify the
national church by removing its unbiblical elaborations. Others, of whom there
were many in Yorkshire, experienced the immediacy of divine revelation.
Compared with people living elsewhere in England, Yorkshire folk were
notoriously ready to reject whatever felt like arbitrarily imposed authority.
While perhaps hundreds of people elsewhere in England identified themselves
as Seekers, apparently thousands did so in Yorkshire in the late 1640s. These
people knew of one another. They travelled to hear radical preachers and they
met, often in secret, for discussions and in silent waiting for God to send them a
new prophet who would show them how He desired to be worshipped. Some of
the larger and more active groups of Seekers were shielded from persecution by
local magistrates who had served in the Parliamentary army under Major
General John Lambert during the English Civil Wars.

John Lambert (1619 ~ 1684) was a figure not unlike the first President of
the United States. Well educated and fastidious in his tastes and interests, he
was an ambitious, relatively wealthy, upper class land owner. He was also an
extremely able soldier and statesman and a supporter of religious tolerance and
popular rights. He should be remembered and honoured for framing the English
Commonwealth’s Instrument of Government, which was the first modern
written constitution for a democratic government. Its wording influenced the
writers of the United States’ Declaration of Independence. Perhaps the most
significant difference between George Washington and John Lambert was that
Washington’s cause triumphed. Lambert was imprisoned for life when the
British Monarchy was restored in 1660. It was probably a few years before 1620
when John Lambert’s father, Josias Lambert, built or permitted Airton Meeting
House to be built on his land in Malhamdale. Outwardly resembling a barn, but
with its entrance concealed from public view and no door or windows facing the
street, the Meeting House could have accommodated 100 people. Most probably
it was a Seeker meeting place.

After a restless youth of work, self-education and travel George Fox
would have been ready to begin his life’s task. As he travelled through parts of
England including Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire in the late
1640s, he met like-minded friends among whom his presence sparked the
formation of a few small proto- or early- Quaker meetings. Then, in 1651, he
went northwards into Yorkshire, where in little more than a year’s time the
religious movement that was to become known as Quakerism burst forth more
than half-formed and almost fully fledged. The enforced stillness of almost a
year’s imprisonment in Derby in 1650 gave him time to consider his next
moves. After his release, he visited religious Seekers in the southern and eastern
parts of Yorkshire. He was in Beverly in June 1651 and in Balby near Doncaster
that December. Among other like-minded Yorkshiremen, he met James Nayler,
who had served as quartermaster under Lambert in the recent English Civil
Wars, and Richard Farnsworth, a young man of about his own age who had had
religious experiences very similar to Fox’s. Farnsworth was an ardent and
effective preacher and a leading member of a group of about 20 Seekers centred
around Balby.

Fox and these Seekers were united in their readiness to proclaim the
validity and power of unmediated religious experience. Their first practical act
seems to have been an attempt to increase their numbers by visiting and
preaching to other religious dissenters. The Balby Seekers including Nayler and
Farnsworth were already in contact with Seekers and Grindletonians who lived
in Yorkshire’s West Riding, many within a 25 mile radius of Skipton. Nayler
probably urged that an attempt be made to recruit the support of John Lambert.
In the event, Farnsworth was Fox’s travelling companion in late spring and
early summer of 1652 when they walked westward from somewhere near
Bradford towards Skipton, where they would have met Seeker leaders who must
have been as interested to hear what Fox had to say as he was to preach to them.
Among them would have been Thomas Taylor, who farmed land at Carleton. He
was reputed to be “President of the Seekers”. His brother was leader of the
Westmorland Seekers. The Seekers William Watkinson of Scale House,
Rylstone and his brothers soon supported Quaker meetings in Airton, Bradley
and Knaresborough. The Tennants were a large extended family whose
members farmed at Scar House at the top of Wharfedale, and at Kilnsey, and on
Malham Moor, and who also owned property in Skipton. A few years
previously, James Tennant had set aside land at Scar House for Seeker
interments. This became an early Quaker burial place; Scar House was an
important centre of early Quakerism. Other members of the extended Tennant
family were Grindletonians, that is radical preachers who emphasised the
primacy of Spirit-led religion while remaining members of the Established
Church.

When Fox and Farnsworth first arrived in Skipton, plans for a
midsummer yearly meeting of Seekers to be held near Sedbergh must have been
well advanced. George Fox was invited to attend a private meeting of the
Seeker leaders to be held in the home of Gervase Benson before or at the start of
their larger gathering. Permission for him to address the entire Seeker yearly
meeting may have been conditional on his persuading its leaders of the
appropriateness of his message. He then spoke to large crowds in the church, in
the church yard, and on Firbank Fell. The result was similar to what had
happened about six months previously when he met with the Balby Seekers.
Many, apparently including most of the Seeker leaders, accepted Fox’s message.
Fox and his friends united with the more numerous Seekers who brought with
them functioning systems of meetings and communication.

However, we are getting ahead of the story and must go back a few weeks
to ask what happened after Fox and Farnsworth met leading Seekers in Skipton?
Who or what attracted them to continue walking westward? During the 16th
century Reformation, almost all church livings – the rights to receive church
tithes and dues and to appoint parish priests – were confiscated by Henry VIII
and sold to whomever would pay a good price for them. Exceptionally,
Grindleton parish, 16 miles west of Skipton, retained the right to appoint its
own priest. Although the congregation and its priests were members of the
Established Church, they rejected many of its rituals. Grindletonian preachers
were repeatedly reprimanded by church authorities for not wearing surplices,
not using the sign of the cross when baptising infants, for preaching elsewhere
than in their own churches without being licenced to do so, and for allowing lay
women and men to preach and to pray aloud. Grindletonianism was widely
influential in West Yorkshire. If Fox and Farnsworth had hoped to persuade the
Grindletonians to leave the Established Church and to join with them in creating
a new religious movement, they were disappointed. After failing in this
endeavour, George Fox climbed nearby Pendle Hill, perhaps following the
example of Old Testament prophets who communed with God on hilltops. Later
that evening while in his room in an inn, he understood that his call was not to
the Grindletonians who were unwilling to leave the Established Church, but to
the Seekers assembling in Sedbergh, by whom he had already been invited to
speak. These Seekers were a great people waiting to be gathered.

Upon leaving Pendle Hill, Fox and Farnsworth probably went directly
towards James Tennant’s home, Scar House, at the northern end of Wharfedale.
The easiest walking route would have first brought them 14 miles from
Grindleton to the purpose-built Meeting House in Airton. Most probably John
Lambert was then in residence in Calton and almost certainly George Fox
would have attempted to speak with him. Perhaps Fox brought a letter of
introduction penned by James Nayler. He may not have persuaded Lambert to
become a Quaker, but it was probably Fox’s influence that ensured the Lambert
family’s protection and their permission for Friends to use the Airton Meeting
House for almost half a century before it was purchased from them by William
and Alice Ellis in 1700. While on his way to Sedbergh in June 1652, George
Fox may have preached in Airton Meeting House. Two years later, in 1654,
William Watkinson of Scale House, Rylstone, was convicted for riding his horse
to a Quaker meeting on a Sunday. He must have ridden the 5 miles to Airton, as
there was not then another Quaker meeting at a convenient distance. These
incidents date the beginnings of Quakerism in the Yorkshire Dales.

The points mentioned here are substantiated in two books, Hidden in
Plain Sight and Roots of Radicalism, which may be purchased from the
Resident Friend at Airton Meeting House. All income from their sales helps to
maintain this interesting and historically significant building.

Laurel Phillipson
June 2024