Guide to Irish Quaker Records, 1654-1860 (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews53 England my grandparents allowed an engraving on their living-room wall. American Friends were a full generation behind their English counterparts in thus coming to terms with the "world." Especially has this been true in respect to music and the so-called "plain language." I attended Westtown School when the change was well under way. Our elders visibly belonged to the vanishing age, we children enthusiastically to the new. Fiction was still called "pernicious" and Shakespeare forbidden. My graduation essay, also a look backward, was entitled "Friendships of Quakers with Men of Letters." This included Ellwood and Milton, Bernard Barton with Charles Lamb and the Lake Poets, our own Whittier, who was my grandfather's friend, Caroline Fox and all the Victorians. With the picture-less era of drab, American readers will like to contrast Fritz Eichenberg's Art and Faith (second edition, 1952, Pendle Hill Pamphlet No. 68) with its invigorating wood engravings. On the cover is Old Noah, pressed upon by his beasts, reaching up to welcome his dove: "and in her mouth was an ohve leaf." Also as a new departure the Friends Journal for the 1st month 1, 1969, carried the unusual and ultramodern "Quaker Portrait," Peter Fingesten, sculptor. Frederick Nicholson's comments and quotations I find particularly enjoyable . Toward the end he cites the seventh query of the current London series: "Do you keep your mind open to new light from whatever quarter it may arise?" Pendle Hill, Wallingford, PennsylvaniaAnna Cox Brirton Guide to Irish Quaker Records, 1654-1860. By Olive C. Goodbody. Dublin Stationery Office for the Irish Manuscript Commission. 1967. 237 pages. $10.00. The publication of this guide is a significant event. It lists for the first time the wealth of material that is available to the researcher in Irish Quakerism. Olive Goodbody, however, has gone far beyond just listing records. She has sketched the growth of the Society in Ireland, the development of record keeping, and the kinds of records. These records range from the National Half-Yearly and Yearly Meeting minute books to such things as Burial Notes, Marriage Registers, and Testimonies of Disunion, as well as men's and women's minutes kept by the monthly meetings. There is a detailed fist of the meeting records that are now preserved in the Meetinghouse at 6 Eustace Street, Dublin. Considering from this distance the turmoil that has engulfed Ireland at times, the records seem amazingly complete. Another section of the book is concerned with the manuscript collections in the Historical Library, also at 6 Eustace Street. These collections consist mainly of family papers and letters. They are described at some length as are holdings such as diaries, genealogical material, school records, and legal documents. Among the latter are will abstracts, which form a supplement to Quaker Records, Dublin; Abstracts of Wills, by P. B. Eustace and O. C. Goodbody (1957). 54Quaker History B. G. Hutton has contributed two important appendices concerning Quaker records in Northern Ireland. The first lists the meeting records preserved at the Friends Meetinghouse at Lisburn, County Antrim. These include all the records of North Ireland monthly meetings now known to have existed. The second appendix gives details of the collection of Quaker material in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. For the countless individuals who have not had nor will not have the opportunity to examine these collections personally, Olive Goodbody has performed an enduring service. Indianapolis, IndianaWillard C. Heiss Etihu Bumtt: Crusader for Brother^d. By Peter Tolis. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books. 1968. 309 pages. 110.00. Elihu Burritt, like many reformers who rose to prominence in the first half of the nineteenth century, lacked a first rate education, and forged ahead on the basis of deep religious belief and a sincere desire to reform society. His most important efforts were made in the field of peace, and he spent several years in England developing an international peace movement. He was born at New Britain, Connecticut, in 1810, the eighth child in a family of ten. His father combined repairing shoes with a bit of farming; it was his wife, Elizabeth Hinsdale Burritt, who strongly influenced their children, especially her most famous...