Sketches from Yearly Meeting in 1925. Photo: Courtesy of Thomas Penny.
Eye - 26 July 2024
From the face of Friends to well-loved phrases
The faces of Friends
Thomas Penny, who delivered the 2021 Swarthmore Lecture, shared a discovery with Friends online recently, and, with Yearly Meeting 2024 rapidly approaching, kindly gave Eye permission to reprint some striking sketches.
His family found ninety-nine-year-old documents in advance from Yearly Meeting 1925, on which Hannah Taylor, his grandmother, had industriously sketched the Friends around her!
Thomas writes: ‘She used to sketch everywhere she went and there were some magnificent hats and hairstyles that year. We think the bonnets on the front must have been a flight of fancy rather than how anyone turned up to the Meeting, though who knows? Do you recognise anyone?
‘One person looks like Joseph Rowntree, but he had died a few months earlier, so it can’t be.
‘Is anyone inspired to pick up a pencil?’
Well-loved phrases
