About Quakers
Who are Quakers?
The Religious Society of Friends ( also known as Quakers ) is a world-wide movement of around 300,000 members. Quakerism developed in England in the mid-1600's as a result of the vision of George Fox, the son of a weaver from what is now Fenny Drayton, in Leicestershire. Fox went through considerable mental turmoil during his teenage life and came to accept that the truth about Christianity could not be found in the local church or amongst the preachers.
"And when all my hopes in men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do, then, oh! Then I heard a voice which said, 'There is One, even Christ Jesus that can speak to thy condition.' And when I heard it my heart did leap for joy."
from The Journal of George Fox 1647
He was led by his belief to go out into the world and preach this message. Within a few short years Friends of Truth, as they were originally known, had spread to America and into Europe. Today about a half of all Quakers live in Bolivia, Guatemala and Kenya. Some 90,000 live in North America. The remainder are mainly in Britain (around 28,000) plus a small number of Meetings across Europe.
The name Quaker was a derogatory term applied to Fox by Judge Gervase Bennet when he appeared before before him for supposedly contravening the newly passed Blasphemy Act in 1650. He told the judge "I tremble and quake in the presence of the Lord" to which the judge mockingly replied "So, you are a quaker!" The term stuck.