Whatever happened to the Quakers of Antrim?

THERE’S something irresistibly intriguing about an old, locked gate...

Many Antrim folk will have routinely passed one as they travel out of town towards Muckamore.

Never noticed it? Well, glance to your right as you pass Belmont Heights and there it is. A 10 foot wall, centuries old, and an ornate archway - the entrance barred by a set of rusting iron gates.

Many a curious traveller has peered inside to see what secrets lie beyond, and are greeted by a rather overgrown plot of land with a handful of aged headstones, the inscriptions largely wiped clean by the passage of time.

Above the gates, a much more modern addition explains the significance of this tiny walled time capsule - a slightly incongruous blue sign that reads ‘1701: Moylinny Quaker’s Cemetery, burial place to the Reford Family’.

Who knew that the ‘Society of Friends’ once had a thriving community in Antrim area?

Furthermore, whatever became of them?

That’s a question that researcher Ross Chapman set to answer when he began the arduous task of digging into the archives two decades ago.

And he discovered that the Quakers’ association with the town dates back to the Society’s very earliest years.

In 1653 William Edmundson, who had served as a solider under Oliver Cromwell, settled with his wife in Antrim and opened a shop here.

He had travelled to England to buy supplies, and it was during that trip that he met with George Fox and James Nayler, the leaders of the Quaker movement.

Their radical message of ‘primitive Christianity revived’ resonated with him and he spread the word when he returned home.

A short time later the Edmundson family were on the move again, setting up a new home in Lurgan, but the seeds they had planted began to blossom.

By 1669 a Friends meeting was established in the town - one of around a dozen across Ulster.

For almost half a century they met for worship in the home of one of their members, often hosted by Lewis Reford or William Wilkinson.

Things were put onto a more formal footing in 1701 when Thomas Wilkinson advised a meeting that Lord Massereene was willing to allow the Friends a site to build a meeting house.

It was situated up a laneway at 21 Church Street and it was finally built six-years-later.

But they still had a problem to solve.

As Quakers do not practice water baptism, they were barred from using churchyards, so they had to find their own burial ground. The Reford family, who farmed near Antrim, agreed to give them the plot that still stands today on the Belfast Road.

It is not certain how many people were buried there, as Quakers did not permit gravestones until 1860.

For over a century they carved out a significant niche for themselves, but for many it was a modest existence.

Mary Dudley, writing in 1791, paid a visit to Antrim ‘where only a few Friends reside’.

‘We concluded to sit with this poor little flock in their meeting house’, she said.

Things had not improved much when Thomas Scattergood dropped by four years later.

The meeting house, he said, was ‘small and damp, having an earthen floor’.

‘It was a low time’, he said.

Thankfully, the Quakers were fairly meticulous when it came to documenting important facets of their lives, especially the ‘sufferings’ inflicted on them by the church and state and also their marriages - an important step at a time when the very validity of their weddings was in some doubt.

The first tantalising list of local people at the forefront of the religion came in 1680 when the Friends publicly objected to the principle of paying tithes - 10 per cent of your earnings or produce - to the church.

They regarded this as more than an unfair imposition. To them it was a grave spiritual error. Indeed the idea of clergy being paid for their pastoral work appalled them.

So in 1680 all Quakers in Ireland were asked to write a few sentences against the ‘tax’, and locals heeded the call.

Antrim men John Boyd, Josias Endsworth, James Forth, James Hide, William Hogge, Andrew Melving, John Rafford, Louis Rafford, Thomas Wilkinson, William Wilkinson, John Wilson and James Young all joined the protest - as did local women C Boyd, Mary Hogge, Sara Jones, Jane Langlye, Elizabeth Marsh, Roberta Rafford, Sara Rafford, Jennet Wallas, Elizabeth Wilkinson and Jannet Wilson.

They also detailed the large quantity of goods they had to stump up, or face the consequences.

William Wilkinson, for example, was compelled to hand over ‘twelve stooks and a half of barley’ and three cart loads of hay worth 10 shillings in 1678 for the use of the Earl of Donegal - he having two parts and Priest George Evans the third.

John Wilson lost 47 stooks of oats and nine stooks of wheat, worth one pound and two shillings.

Things only got worse during the 1688-1690 war.

Richard Wilkinson from Staffordstown was instructed to give three horses and two acres of corn, at a personal cost of £13. James Kid, from Donegore, was ‘robbed’ of one mare as well as meal, malt, butter and money to the grand total of 14 pounds nine shillings.

The campaign undoubtedly galvanised the movement, but their own uncompromising interpretation of the scriptures conspired against their growth.

The Society of Friends in its earliest years aspired to perfection - and did not make much allowance for human failings.

Members were deprived of their membership - or ‘disowned’ - for several reasons, the chief one being marriage by a clergyman of another denomination.

Other reasons were drinking alcohol, insolvency, having a child out of wedlock, bearing arms and taking an oath.

Among the disowned of Antrim were Joseph Dean, Samuel Boyd, Olive Wilson, Thomas Wilson, Isaac Chapman and Elizabeth Dean, all in 1758.

They were followed by Joseph Reford and Elizabeth Wilson in 1759, Hanna Reford in 1766.

This attempt to keep the Society pure seriously weakened an already small body.

The problem was further compounded by emigration to America, where William Penn’s colony in Pennsylvania attracted many Irish families.

For the Quakers, there was a strong incentive to migrate. In one fell swoop they escaped the clutches of the king, the bishop and the landlord. For them, that was unbelievable freedom.

All a Friend of good standing had to do was acquire a certificate of removal. When this was presented Stateside, it ensured that the family received a warm welcomes and inclusion into a new community.

The certificate stated that the bearer was in unity with Friends and of sober behaviour, clear of debt and, in the case of the single, was clear of ‘any marriage engagement or promise’.

Records show that quite a few locals availed of the opportunity. Among the Antrim émigrés were John Smith and wife (1720), John Lowden, wife and children (1713), John and Jane Boyd and children (1736), Joseph Wilkinson and Ann Wilkinson (1737-8), William and Elizabeth Vance (1741), Ann and Sarah Mulhollan their sister Hannah Henderson (1741), Joseph, Alex, Samuel, James and David Dean (1740-47), Jean Wilson and her daughter Jane (1763) and Margaret Steel (1763).

The Society of Friends has had a testimony for peace and a refusal to take part in war - and that posed questions for some of those left behind.

By the end of the 18th century, insurrection was in the air. The United Irishmen made sure of that.

The Quakers responded by instructing all Friends to take any firearms in their possession and break them up publicly. Thus they would prove ‘their peaceful nature’.

There was also a concern that the weapons could be stolen and used to kill others.

By 1797 all but one Quaker in the Antrim area had complied. The sole objector was Richard Erwin, of the Grange near Toome, who was defiantly determined to stick to his guns. After several attempts to change his mind, he too was disowned.

June the following year saw the Battle of Antrim, and Quaker families were caught up in the carnage.

After the uprising was quelled orders were given to search the Scotch Quarter in Antrim for United Irishmen. The intervention of Quaker Thomas Chapman, on behalf of his parents, seems to have prevented the razing to the ground of all the dwellings - but they were thoroughly ransacked.

Ezekiel Vance, who had been a saddler in Antrim, was the son of Quaker parents. But he later enlisted in the Yeomanry to serve King and Country. He guided the advancing army into the town that fateful day in June and helped turn the tide on the United Irishmen.

He was later remembered for standing up to Lord Massereene and preventing 22 local men being executed on his orders in the days after the uprising. He lived to a ripe old age and among his descendent was Lieutenant Ezekiel Vance, who died in June 1916 after being wounded at the Somme.

Nevertheless, the Quakers association with Antrim was drawing to a close.

Their meeting house was eventually closed in 1844 as it was ‘not being held to the good reputation of Friends’. It was sold to William Clugston in 1852 for just £30.

But Ross Chapman maintains that their time in the town should be commemorated.

“The gradual dimming of activity and dedication led to the meeting petering out in 1844.

“The records tell of a small, sturdy group of men and women who had a vision of a style of democratic, do-it-yourself Christianity.

“Their placid acceptance of suffering for their opposition to tithes showed the extent to which they acted on principle.

“Their beliefs and practices continue to be kept alive elsewhere in Ulster. Perhaps their story in Antrim town is worthy of being remembered.”

While the light undoubtedly dimmed after 1844, it was not extinguished entirely.

Indeed, near the graveyard on the Belfast Road a Blue Plaque has been erected outside a grand residence.

It was the home of William A Green, a life-long Quaker, and a renowned photographer. He is best known for the pictures he took in pursuit of his personal interest in old rural crafts and customs; scenes of country life, of flax and corn processing, carpet, wool and linen weaving, clay pipe and china production, and fishing around Lough Neagh.

The Quakers, however, are still reaching out to new Friends. Indeed, Sunday October 2 is World Quaker Day.