Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre has announced that the 2014 Swarthmore Lecture will be given by Quaker author and academic Ben Pink Dandelion. Ben’s lecture will explore the theme of transformation, ending with a call for Quakers to return to a transforming and transformational faith. “I use the term ‘transforming’ to refer to how early Quakers…
by Jez Smith Gerald Hewitson, a Quaker based in Wales, is set to deliver the 2013 Swarthmore Lecture, A Journey to the Heart of the Quaker Experience. The lecture will be given during Britain Yearly Meeting at Friends House on 25/05/2013. Although the lecture will be delivered then, the Swarthmore Lecture is in the care…
The 1949 Swarthmore Lecture by Roger Cowan Wilson, reviewed by Jennifer Barraclough The joy of the Swarthmore Lectures is their continuing ability to illuminate, console and inform. Although Roger Cowan Wilson wrote about authority, leadership and concern in the context of Quaker relief work during and immediately after the Second World War, there is much…
The 1950 Swarthmore Lecture by Konrad Braun, reviewed by John Hall Written by a former Berlin Supreme Court judge who escaped from the Nazis and became a subsequent convert to Quakerism and a lecturer at Woodbrooke, potentially this is an ideal read, written as it was, only five years after the end of the war…
The 2000 Swarthmore Lecture by Tim Newell, reviewed by Ben Jarman. Introduction and content Tim Newell’s Swarthmore Lecture was delivered in 2000. Much has changed in prison and justice policy since then, and yet much of the confused thinking and practice, to which Newell offered an alternative, remain. If anything, the system’s contradictions are writ…
 The 1981 Swarthmore Lecture 1981 by Adam Curle, reviewed by John Hall. The Swarthmore Lectureship was “founded with a two-fold purpose: firstly, to interpret to the members of the Society of Friends their Message and Mission; and secondly, to bring before the public the spirit, the aims and the fundamental principles of the Friends.†Any…
The 2011 Swarthmore Lecture by Pam Lunn , reviewed by Jez Smith. Costing not less than everything: sustainability and spirituality in challenging times, the Swarthmore Lecture 2011. “The task may appear impossible We must take the first step.” Australia Yearly Meeting epistle 2011, paraphrasing Pablo Casals. When hundreds or thousands of Quakers gather for their Yearly…
The 1978 Swarthmore Lecture by John Ormerod Greenwood. Reviewed by Jay Clark. John Ormerod Greenwood, born in 1907, was an actor, playwright and producer, as well as a Quaker historian who completed a three volume series about Friends’ international work called ‘Quaker Encounters’. In this lecture, he says that being given an opportunity to talk…
The 1994 Swarthmore Lecture by Margaret Heathfield. Reviewed by Judith Roads. Being together was the Swarthmore lecture for 1994, given by Margaret Heathfield. She discussed a number of aspects to the general theme of what it means to be a Quaker in Britain Yearly Meeting. In the book of the lecture she first looks at…
Steps in a large room The 1985 Swarthmore Lecture by Christopher Holdsworth. Reviewed by Valerie Graves. It is about the Benedictine Rule. What have monks in common with Friends? Penn says a monastery can be within us. Background. Christopher Holdsworth was born into a Christian home: his mother was Anglican and his father a Quaker.…