‘Few today have to make the choices my grandparents’ generation did.’

17 Sep 2020 | by Antony Barlow

Family matters: Antony Barlow’s ancestors played key roles in the Society’s discernment on war

'My grandfather spent his life proclaiming pacifism at a time when opinion in the Society of Friends was very divided.' | Photo: Images: left, John Henry Barlow; right, Ralph and Joan Barlow with the author (left) and his brother David 1942.

When I started to go through my parents’ wartime correspondence, I had little conception of how relevant it would be to Friends today. Pacifism is of course at the very heart of Quakerism, and if people know only one thing about the Society it is this. But proclaiming pacifism is not the same as practising it. Few today have to make the choices my grandparents’ generation did in 1914, or my parents’ in 1939.

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