“He is a Quaker, and he acted like one throughout. He was completely nonviolent and always acted that way and spoke that way.†This is what lawyer April Downs told the Huffington Post after her client Casey Webber was found not guilty of charges that could have led to a sentence of up to 80…
Quaker values are at the heart of what it means to be British, it was claimed by a Conservative politician in a Westminster Hall debate last month. Tony Baldry, the member of parliament for north Oxfordshire, was taking part in a debate about teaching British values when he drew on the Quaker faith for inspiration.…
The issue of funeral poverty has been highlighted by Quaker Social Action this month as they raised the issue of high funeral costs on BBC Radio 4’s consumer programme, You and Yours. Speaking on the programme, funeral poverty campaigner Heather Kennedy said: “There’s this Victorian legacy of shame around not being able to give someone…
In case you’ve ever wondered who to thank for the Glastonbury Festival, it seems that as well as Michael Eavis and his family, it’s the Quakers to whom you should be grateful. In the build up to the 2014 event The Guardian ran an article with festival organiser Michael Eavis answering questions from famous people.…
A Quaker cake is set for TV fame today as it appears in the BBC television programme, The Great British Bake Off. Tottenham Cake was invented by a Quaker baker, Henry Chalkley. A regular sponge cake, the Quaker Tottenham Cake’s stand-out feature is its lurid pink icing. The icing traditionally features mulberries from the burial…
Putting aside all the media coverage Quakers have received over same-sex marriage, the recent revelation about the nation’s favourite churches and every article that can’t help mentioning which banks were formed by Quakers, Quakers continue to pull in media coverage nationally and locally and often in passing. For example, there was a long feature in…
Two Quaker meeting houses have made it onto a list of the UK’s favourite churches. The list was chosen by a range of well-known people across the country including prime minister David Cameron, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, mayor of London Boris Johnson and Britain Yearly Meeting recording clerk Paul Parker. The list was produced by…
Quakers have been recognised among the 100 most influential global actors in armed violence reduction in a new list published by Action on Armed Violence. Andrew Tomlinson and Jonathan Woolley, the directors of the Quaker United Nations Office in New York and Geneva, have been jointly named in the list, under the section of NGO…
Quakers have joined churches from across Britain and Ireland to send a joint letter to David Cameron, the UK’s prime minister, asking for an apology to poor people for misrepresenting them. The letter, signed among others by Paul Parker, recording clerk of Quakers in Britain, states that the government has been giving out misleading and…
The American lobbying arm of the Quakers, the Friends Committee for National Legislation has been revealed as one of 500 organisations and people on the pro-weapons National Rifle Association’s so-called “enemy list“. According to the FCNL website “Friends seek peaceful and nonviolent solutions to personal and societal problems at all levels. The seeds of war…