Friends will have recently received a forwarded email from Tabitha Driver and David Irwin, Librarians at Friends’ House. The message provides links to a treasure-house of Quaker – and non-Quaker – resources for us to explore while meeting houses and their libraries are closed.
The list is extensive, even daunting, and many sites are definitely for specialists and researchers. However, I have dabbled in some of them, and suggest the following if you are looking for informative and/or inspirational Quaker texts:
- Catalogue of old Quaker Writings http://www.qhpress.org/catalog/index.html
A selection of 17th 19th century Quaker writings available in print or online. - Quaker writings homepage maintained by Peter Sippel: http://www.qhpress.org/quakerpages/qwhp/qwhp.htm
“A diverse miscellany of Christian Quaker writings from all time periods, including multiple perspectives and different genres.” - Quaker Electronic Archive http://www.qis.net/~daruma/
Contains excepts on Quaker writings as well as general information on Quakerism. - Tract Association of Friends http://www.tractassociation.org/
Online Quaker tracts, pamphlets and longer works published by the Friends Tract Association of Philadelphia. - Pendle Hill pamphlets published as Kindle books, available from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pendle+hill+pamphlets
Some of these sites have a slightly out-of-date look and feel, and some of their links to resources are broken, but it’s worth persevering – you are sure to find a nugget here and there.
I also enjoyed browsing the photos of Quaker Meeting Houses taken by John Hall. They’re on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/qmh. Click ‘Albums’ for a county-by-county journey through our architecture past and present.
And just for fun, I typed “Quaker” into Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/), another site in the “Images online” section. The first page of results included an illustration of a 19th-century American nursery song, “Quaker courtship” (no connection with Friends!) and the above photo of a rather delicate butterfly from SE Asia, which has the common name “Quaker.” I thought it an aptly colourful illustration for this post.
Oxford Quakers 
