A special cake was commissioned for the occasion. Photo: Courtesy of Peter Bolwell.
Friends in Hastings: 150 years of worship
Opening of Meeting house remembered
Quakers in Hastings in Sussex recently marked the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the opening of their Meeting house with a celebration on 25 January.
Among invited guests was the mayor of Hastings, councillor Bruce Dowling, who gave an address in which he acknowledged the significant contribution Quakers had made to the wellbeing of Hastings society.
Local ‘cake artist’ Sylvia Tippett had been commissioned to prepare a special cake for the occasion (see photo). Guests enjoyed this and a light buffet. They also walked around the Meeting house and examined a special display. This showed Victorian-era photographs of the architect who had designed the building and images of Quakers who worshipped there at the time.
Local Quaker historian Paula Radice introduced her new book Quakers in Hastings: The Making of a Community, 1673-1920, which was being launched at this event. She gave an engrossing account of the history of the building itself and also of its originators and some of its visitors.
Quakers had met and worshipped in Hastings since the seventeenth century, but it was only in 1865 that a plot of land was purchased for a purpose-built Meeting house. This was opened for its first Meeting for Worship on 12 January 1866.
