Guide to the Quaker Archives
Introduction
Quakerism came early to Yorkshire. It was there that the message of its charismatic founder George Fox (1624-91) first took root, and from there that the early converts to Quakerism spread out across the country. It was also the site of the first settled Meetings, and the source of early forms of Quaker organisation and discipline. By the end of 1653 the main areas of Quaker convincement were Westmorland, Cumberland, north Lancashire, Durham, and Yorkshire.
Quakers (more formally, the Society of Friends) have always been careful to preserve records of their activities. Special Collections in Leeds University Library is the main repository for Yorkshire Quaker archives. It holds in particular:
- Two substantial collections of original documents stretching from the 17th to the 20th century. These are known respectively as the Carlton Hill collection (which broadly covers the Leeds, Bradford, Settle and Knaresborough areas) and the Clifford Street collection (which covers mainly the York and Thirsk areas, but also includes records for Yorkshire as a whole).
- 'Digest' (i.e. summary) registers of Quaker births, marriages, and burials for the whole of Yorkshire up to 1837, together with various other microfilmed and photocopied sets of registers.
Contents of the archives
The Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives (which have come to the Library from meeting houses in Leeds and York respectively) principally contain minute books and other business records (e.g. lists of members) generated by the various different levels of Quaker meetings.
There are four hierarchical levels of Quaker meetings:
- Yearly Meeting (i.e. the national body), scarcely represented here
- Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting (QM, known since 1967 as Yorkshire General Meeting)
- Monthly Meetings (MM)
- Preparative, or local, Meetings (PM).
Monthly meetings, in particular, have geographical 'catchment' areas which change in the course of time. This can make it difficult to identify the archive most relevant to a particular enquiry. There are maps showing the extent of relevant Yorkshire monthly meetings before 1853, 1854-1923 and since 1924 (PDF).
The records of quarterly and monthly meetings held in the Clifford Street and Carlton Hill archives are as follows:
- Yorkshire QM records, 17th-20th century (Clifford Street)
- Brighouse MM records, 17th-20th century (includes Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield, and Leeds up to 1923) (Carlton Hill)
- Knaresborough MM records, 17th century-1853 (Carlton Hill and Clifford Street)
- Leeds MM, from 1924 (Carlton Hill)
- Settle MM records, 17th-20th century (Carlton Hill)
- Thirsk MM records, 17th century-1827 (Clifford Street)
- York MM records, 17th-20th century (Clifford Street)
The records of many different preparative and other local meetings are also held in the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives. Some of these meetings, like Leeds, have the same name as the monthly meetings. The same item of business is sometimes dealt with by all three of the hierarchical levels within Yorkshire, moving from PM to MM to QM, so you may need to look at three different sets of records.
It should be noted that Special Collections contains numerous individual Quaker-related manuscripts held separately from the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives. Examples are Quaker marriage certificates, letters and diaries, and silhouette portraits. Please enquire for further details.
Records of births, marriages and burials
Following the Non-Parochial Registers Act 1840, Quakers, along with other nonconformist bodies, had to surrender their registers of births, marriages and burials to the Registrar-General in London. These registers are now held as part of the National Archives (Public Record Office), at class RG 6. However, summary or 'digest' registers were prepared by Quakers before the surrender of the originals, and these are available for consultation. Note that some of the original registers had already been lost before 1840, and so there are gaps in the record. For one reason or another, a small number of original registers remained in the possession of the Society of Friends.
The principal holdings at Leeds are as follows:
(1) Digest registers
- A complete set of digest registers of Quaker births, marriages, and burials for the whole of Yorkshire, from the 17th century up to 1837.
- A complete set of microfilms of the same digest registers for the whole of England and Wales (these are kept not in Special Collections but in the main Brotherton Library, as microfilm 2459).
(2) Original registers
- A set of photocopies of original register entries relating to Leeds, dating from the mid-17th century to 1837 in the case of births and burials, and to 1774 in the case of marriages (Carlton Hill RG 6)
- Registers of marriages for the period from 1837, for Brighouse, Knaresborough, Leeds and Settle MMs (in Carlton Hill) and for York MM (in Clifford Street)
- Registers of births and burials, 1776-93 (contemporary copies), for Yorkshire QM, i.e. the whole of Yorkshire, together with indexes, 1776-1837 (Clifford Street I.1 to I.4)
- Bentham PM births, marriages and burials, 1652-1835 (Carlton Hill D 7)
- Bolland PM births, marriages and burials, 1654-1780 (Carlton Hill H 25)
- Bradford PM births, marriages and burials, c.1650-1926 (Carlton Hill N 46-48)
- Settle MM births and burials, 1759-75, and marriages, 1655-1852 (Carlton Hill D 6, D 12)
Searching the archives
There are several ways of searching for information held in the Quaker archives at Leeds.
- Searching the main library catalogue. There are 'author' entries in the catalogue under the names of the relevant Quaker body, e.g. Settle Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends, or Leeds Beeston Hill Friends Adult School. Alternatively, records for Quaker-related material may be found through a more informal Keyword search, e.g. for the words Skipton Quaker.
- Consulting the detailed handlists to the contents of the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives. Both handlists contain indexes, mainly of place names and topics. Both Handlists are now available online: The Carlton Hill (PDF) and Clifford Street (PDF).
- Searching the Quaker archives database, which has been compiled from indexes of (mainly) personal names occurring within some of the most important documents in the Carlton Hill archive. There is no corresponding database for the Clifford Street archives, but many volumes have original handwritten indexes. Typescript indexes to other Carlton Hill documents are also available.
- Consulting the website of the Yorkshire Quaker Heritage Project. A search of the YQHP location register (but not the name index) may well bring up records for documents held in the Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives. The YQHP printed research guide is available for consultation within the Special Collections department at Leeds.
Consulting the archives
The Carlton Hill and Clifford Street archives can be consulted by bona fide researchers in the same way as other parts of Special Collections. For more information please see using Special Collections.
We are unable to undertake original research for you, but we will try to answer queries about the contents of the archives. We ask you to make personal visits wherever possible.
Please note that the archives remain the property of the Society of Friends. If you wish to look at current legal documents or any material that is less than fifty years old you must obtain written permission from a Friend Custodian. Please contact Special Collections for the names of the Friend Custodians.