Eye - 19 April 2013

From ducks quacking to longitudinal links

Quackers

Friends at Cambridge Jesus Lane Meeting have discovered that their Meeting house roof appeals to three local Mallard ducks as a handy habitat!

Several times a week, in the morning or late afternoon, they arrive from their usual haunt of the River Cam to nibble on any choice tidbits under the water or just to have a paddle.

However, they will need to scout out a new hang-out soon as the roof is being replaced in the second half of May.

A history helped

Friends have risen to the challenge posed by Alastair Thomas in last week’s Eye (12 April).

Chris Lawson, of Minehead Meeting, and William West, of Central Manchester Meeting, got in touch to shed some light on the tale.

The story appears in Pendle Hill Pamphlet 175 by Douglas V Steere in 1971, Mutual irradiation: A Quaker view of ecumenism:

‘In the years immediately following the first world war, the Quakers worked in Poland distributing food and clothing. One of the workers who served in a cluster of villages there became ill with typhus and in twenty-four hours he was dead. In this village there was only a Roman Catholic cemetery, and by canonical law it was quite impossible to bury one not of that confession in its consecrated ground. So they laid their cherished friend in a grave dug just outside the fence of its Roman Catholic cemetery. The next morning they discovered that in the night the villagers had moved the fence so that it embraced the grave.’

As Chris says: ‘It’s a great story, I trust true, and I’ve told it on several occasions when talking about how it’s what we do and not what we say that speaks.’

Longitudinal links

John Harrison (1693-1776) revolutionised long distance sea travel with his invention of the marine chronometer for measuring East-West longitude.

Elisabeth Alley, of New Earswick Meeting, has discovered a Quakerly link in the form of George Graham.

She came across the connection in Longitude by Dava Sobel:

‘George Graham (1674-1751) was the most eminent maker of clocks and scientific instruments of his day… he travelled to London when he was about fourteen and worked for the famous London clockmaker Thomas Tompion [Both of them were Quakers]. John Harrison admitted that he owed a great deal to Graham’s generous and unselfish support.

‘Graham, who was about twenty years older than Harrison, became his patron at the end of one long day together… Harrison went to see Graham at ten o’clock in the morning and by eight that evening they were still talking shop. Graham, the premier scientific instrument maker and a fellow of the Royal Society, invited Harrison, the village carpenter, to stay to dinner. When Graham finally said goodnight, he waved Harrison back to Barrow with every encouragement, including a generous loan to be repaid with no great haste and at no interest.’

Elisabeth adds: ‘Graham kept his cash in a strong box rather than a bank because he had a conscientious objection to interest. He lent considerable sums to others, besides Harrison, at no interest. In fact, he was known as “Honest George Graham”. His faith in Harrison was rewarded and in 1735 he reported to the Royal Society “John Harrison, having with great labour and expense executed a machine for measuring time at sea, upon such principle, as seem to us to promise a very great and sufficient degree of exactness. We are of opinion, it highly deserves public encouragement.” He also borrowed H-1 [Harrison’s first chronometer] and kept it on display in his shop, where people came from far and wide, just to look at it.

‘When, at long last, the Royal Society awarded its highest distinction to Harrison, it was George Graham who persuaded him to leave his work bench for long enough to accept the gold medal.’

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