Quaker Inheritance, 1871-1961. A Portrait of Roger Clark of Street (review)

Abstract

54Quaker History requires the student to depend on technical evidence such as nails, tool marks, and paint ridges rather than style in determining the dates and periods of thenarchitectural evolution. (For a summary of this evolution see the reviewer's "New Discoveries at Old Arch Street," Friends Journal, April 1, 1969, pp. 216219 .) Though the survey was not conceived as a restoration project, its findings will be useful to all historians of American building techniques. Research on nails, roofing, fireproofing, and early nineteenth-century heating systems have a general applicability. The survey also includes artifacts. Found on the premises were several leather fire buckets of 1810. They were apparently never used, but if they had been needed water was available at the hydrant on the Arch Street front, still marked by its marble splash stone, which connected with the Pump House in Center Square. Modern building excavations in the City Hall area have disinterred the wooden pipes of the original municipal water system. The meetinghouse was an early customer, and we note wistfully the first bill, dated August, 1803 : "$5.00 per annum." The historically minded are, of course, aware that the Arch Street property served as a burial ground long before it became the site of a meetinghouse (patent executed by William Penn in 1701). Amongthe artifacts relating to this mortuary past are two funeral biers of carved mahogany. Most spectacular of all findings is a sleigh bier for winter use. To the modern observer it is suggestive of Hans Christian Andersen's "Snow Queen." To a Friend of the early nineteenth century it must have evoked a feeling far more poignant as it glided along the snow-lined streets, freighted with the body of some worthy of the facing bench, or sadder still, and more likely, that of a child struck down with fever. m a — - - , ----------------,, , ---- — — ----- _ ------ — — .. ------ . — . One hopes that these relics, some of which are unique, will some day appear display devoted to the cultural aspects of Quakerism. This large and valuable book was published in a limited edition of thirteen duplicated copies. Three were granted to the authors in partial compensation for their work. The remaining ten have been allocated as follows: Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (two copies), Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore College, the Quaker Collection at Haverford College, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia ), the Athenaeum (Philadelphia), Winterthur Museum in Delaware, and the Library of Congress at Washington, D.C. Moylan, PennsylvaniaEleanore Price Mather Quaker Inheritance, 1871-1961. A Portrait of Roger Clark of Street. By Percy Lovell. London: The Bannisdale Press. 1970. 282 pages. Roger Clark, for many years a leading figure of British Quakerism, well deserves this reasonably prompt and relatively complete portraiture. His Book Reviews55 contacts included an American side—he married Sarah Bancroft of Wilmington, Delaware—which will make this book of special interest to American Friends. The compiler, as his son-in-law, of course was in a position to recognize this as well as other facets of his many-sided interests, beginning with his life-long involvement with the family shoe business at Street, Somerset. His friendships included Laurence Housman and Jan Smuts. He had a considerable interest in art, drama, and music, in public welfare both local and national, in education especially Quaker schools, and in women's suffrage and other liberal causes of the period. He served the Society of Friends well, in offices up to Clerk of London Yearly Meeting, and on Meeting for Sufferings. He had contact with war relief, especially through his sister, Dr. Hilda Clark. He took a non-absolutist position towards World War II. The manner of compiling the portrait "based on his own writings and correspondence " is somewhat unorthodox for a biography, but here at least it seems effective. The chapters have each some unity but consist of many brief quotations from his letters and those of his family and friends. There are fifteen pages of pictures, also appendices, and an index. The readers who knew him will recognize as authentic the overall impression, including his sense of humour. The present and future generations of English Quakerism will be somewhat different when recorded...