Catalogue description Devon Record Office: SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Friends' records of the East

Division of Devon, including Exeter

Spiceland in Culmstock, Cullompton, Torquay, Colaton Raleigh

Topsham, Okehampton, Kingsbridge.

The records include the following:

Historical notes on Meetings in Devon

YEARLY AND HALF-YEARLY MEETINGS including Epistles from Yearly Meetings of London and Bristol, printed pamphlets, printed report, open letters

MEETINGS OF SUFFERINGS including MSS verses written in Exeter Sheriff's ward, epistles, minutes

QUARTERLY SELECT MEETINGS and QUARTERLY MEETINGS including Minutes, epistles etc.

MONTHLY MEETINGS including:

Minute Books of the East Division of Devon;

Papers of the East Division of Devon;

Removals and Settlement of Quakers;

Distraints for tithes and

Accounts of Monthly Meetings in the East Division.

PREPARATIVE MEETINGS Minutes and Accounts

TITLE DEEDS AND PAPERS:

Spiceland Meeting (in Culmstock parish)

Cullompton Meetings

Exeter Meetings, including Exeter Meeting House;

Colaton Raleigh and Okehampton.

REGISTERS

For other Society of Friends records see also 3408D-0

Society of Friends, Devon

In 1708 there were five divisions of the County each with its monthly meeting, but by 1785 these had been reduced to two - East and West Devon. The records of the East Devon Division have been deposited in the Devon Record Office and those of the West Devon Division in the Plymouth Record Office. Quakerism did not thrive in North Devon, no chapels were built, no monthly meetings were held, and no records remain of the local house meetings.

Originally the East Devon Monthly meeting comprised numerous preparative meetings in the Eastern half of Devon, but now includes only two: the Torquay one and the Exeter and Spiceland one (Spiceland in Uffculme having merged with Exeter in 1885 when its last remaining members moved to Exeter).

The Quakers had no clergy and the administration was conducted by a tiered system of meetings of the members. Each type of meeting produced its own records and all types of meetings are represented in this deposit. The Preparative Meeting was the local meeting for worship, all the other meetings (described below) being business ones. The Monthly Meeting was attended by the members of the Preparative Meetings in that district. The County Quarterly Meeting (which replaced the Yearly Devon County Meeting in 1676) was held at various places in rotation and was attended by the Elders from the Monthly Meetings of the County. The National Meetings, called Yearly Meetings, was attended by delegates from the Quarterly Meetings and produced a stream of advisory epistles and memorials.

Special national and local meetings called Meetings for Sufferings were held to note instances of "sufferings" for the faith, such as distraint of goods or imprisonment for non-payment of tithes and church rates, for refusing to attend church or to take off their hats in church, for arguing with the clergyman during the sermon, for refusing to do military service. When George Fox visited Exeter Prison in 1656 he found more than 21 Friends imprisoned there. The minutes of the Meetings for Sufferings at Exeter begin in 1682, and details of goods distrained were recorded until the mid-19th century.

The 17th and 18th centuries were a time of political and religious pamphleteering and about 50 pamphlets for and against the Quakers survive in this deposit.

Contact was maintained with Friends in America. Correspondence survives between one of the local meetings and the American Colonies concerning a Friend who had once resided in Devon. A printed report shows that £6825 was contributed by English Friends for the relief of Friends in America in 1783 and £500 was given for a Negro School in Philadelphia. Printed epistles of exhortation were addressed by the Friends of the one country to those of the other.

The records of the Exeter Meeting include bills and accounts for the new meeting house of 1835 seating 700 people, and also detailed specifications and plans for the present meeting house, built 1875-6.