Eye - 25 February 2011

Elizabeth Hooton takes to the stage

The remarkable early Quaker Elizabeth Hooton recently appeared at Stourbridge Meeting, our Friend John Lampen tells Eye, in the form of Lynn Morris’ one-woman show ‘Lover of Souls’.

Elizabeth was George Fox’s mentor in the earliest days of his mission and, after years of travelling, preaching, beatings and imprisonment in her fifties and sixties, she accompanied him to Jamaica, where she died in 1672.

John was singing the praises of Lynn’s one-woman performance, which, he says, both engaged and informed and brought Elizabeth Hooton to life for a twenty-first century audience.

‘Lynn kept her audience on the edge of their seats with her passionate portrayal of this intense, heroic, humorous and dedicated Friend, reminding us that we owe the existence of our Society today to the extraordinary conviction and courage of its founders in the most desperate conditions’, said John.

Elizabeth Hooton was a middle-aged, married woman when she first met George Fox in Skeby, Nottinghamshire, and was one of the first people to be convinced by his teaching. She was one of the famous ‘Valiant Sixty’ who first preached the Quaker message.

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