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…
The 1944 Swarthmore Lecture by W Russell Brain, reviewed by John Hall Walter Russell Brain (1895-1966) joined the Friends’ Ambulance Unit in 1915 but did not become a Quaker until 1931, by which time he had been elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, specialising in neurology. Knighted in 1952, he was made…
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 2012 Swarthmore Lecture by Rachel Brett, reviewed by Mark Hoda After attending the Quaker United Nations Summer School in 2001, I remember feeling really uplifted by all the behind the scenes diplomatic conciliation that the Quaker United Nations office (QUNO) in Geneva facilitates. Students who attend QUNO’s annual summer school hear scores of diplomats, officials…
The 1913 Swarthmore Lecture by Joshua Rowntree, reviewed by John Hall The name of Joshua Rowntree is not as familiar to twenty-first century Friends as other historical members of his clan. However, as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth, Joshua Rowntree (1844-1915) was well known to his contemporaries in the Society. He was the…
The 1948 Lecture by Edmond Privat, reviewed by John Hall: The Swarthmore Lecture that wasn’t The 1948 Yearly Meeting was held for the first time in Scotland: in Edinburgh. The Swarthmore Lecture was to be given by the Swiss Quaker, Edmond Privat (1889-1962) who was an ardent pacifist, human-rights activist, writer and journalist.  He was…
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…
Rachel Brett is set to deliver the annual Swarthmore Lecture as part of Quakers’ Britain Yearly Meeting assembly in 05/2012. Rachel Brett will speak about Quaker processes and ways of working and how they have been applied to the United Nations sphere. She will particularly talk about this work in the context of human rights,…
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…