A remarkable meeting

Elinor Smallman looks back on the Friend in December 1843

by Elinor Smallman 20th December 2013

In January 1843 a new monthly journal for Quakers in Britain was launched. The Friend was founded by editors who were ‘influenced by the desire to furnish a channel through which all who are connected with the Society of Friends may derive information on such subjects of general importance to the body as are calculated to afford instruction and pleasure to its members’.  In December – as the first edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol hit the bookshelves – the fledgling Friend marked its first year tongue firmly in cheek with the report of ‘a rather remarkable meeting’ by ‘A Friend of Letters’.