Portrait of Elizabeth Fry by John James Hinchliff (1805-1875). Photo: Via Wikimedia Commons.
‘Extraordinary Quaker women’ celebrated
A exhibition celebrating Quaker women took place at Bury St Edmunds Meeting House
Around sixty people attended an exhibition on ‘Extraordinary Quaker Women’ at Bury St Edmunds Meeting House, as part of the Heritage Open Day programme.
The exhibition on 8 and 9 September featured fourteen women, ranging from famous Friends from the past, such as Elizabeth Fry and Margaret Fell, to lesser-known women scientists, including Kathleen Lonsdale and Anna McClean Bidder, a marine biologist who founded the Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge.
Graham Gosling, who coordinated the exhibition with Pam Gosling, told the Friend: ‘Quaker women over the years have made a big contribution to society in general and we wanted to show the public that. Going back in time, women have always had an equal opportunity in Quakerism to contribute, which is perhaps not true of other religious groups.’
Pam Gosling said: ‘The exhibition was a lovely group effort. We brainstormed and people sent in ideas.’
The exhibition featured scientist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, MPs including Ruth Cadbury and Catherine West, and familiar names such as Judi Dench and Sheila Hancock, ‘who people don’t necessarily know are Quakers’. Historical figures such as Mary Dyer and Mary Fisher also appeared, as did poet Rosie Bailey, and local Quaker Margaret Kemp, who ‘single-handedly kept the Meeting house going in the 1940s and 50s’.
Graham Gosling said: ‘The Local Area Meeting wanted to close it down, but she stuck to her guns, as it were, even though rain might be dripping into a bucket. In the end, the Meeting house was renovated and saved.’
