Letters - 14 August 2026
'In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity.'
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Vegan witness
I want to thank Leyton Williams, writing for Quaker Vegan Witness, for his well-judged, challenging and informative article in the latest issue of the Friends Quarterly (Issue 3, 2026).
Leyton might have included in his list of Quakers concerned about animal welfare (though not necessarily vegan or even vegetarian) Anna Sewell, the Norwich Quaker who wrote Black Beauty (1877). The book has taught generations of children to empathise with animals. I hope it is still read.
A less well-known figure is John William Graham (1859-1932), a passionately-engaged member of the Anti-Vivisection Association, as well as a peace advocate. The Northern Friends Peace Board was founded in response to a lecture he gave in York in 1913 to assembled members of the five northern Quarterly Meetings, which he supported with characteristic passion and commitment, as well as becoming a founder member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His concern for conscientious objectors led to a commission by the No-Conscription Fellowship to write Conscription and Conscience (1922). Anyone curious about this many-sided, flawed, but wholly honourable liberal Quaker can read about him in my PhD thesis: ‘John William Graham: Quaker apostle of progress’ (University of Birmingham, 2016).
Joanna Dales
Reparations work
We are grateful to our Friend Mark Frankel (Letters, 31 July) for reading so closely the document in advance provided to Yearly Meeting by the Reparations Working Group (RWG), and for taking the trouble to set out his concerns in detail. We’ve checked each point against the underlying research.
It’s worth being clear about what the document is. By necessity, it is an overview of a much larger body of research, a taster of what the RWG has established in far greater depth elsewhere, not a standalone account.
On Rowntree, the fuller picture, including the presence of both black and East Indian indentured labourers on the estates by 1904, is set out in our detailed paper, ‘Sweetness and Sin,’ drawing on the Rowntree Society’s own archival research. The overview necessarily compresses this; the detail has always been there.
On Cadbury, we don’t agree with Mark’s concern about this section. The 1901 bill of sale listing 200 workers as property is well documented, including in the Cadbury family’s own institutional history. The overview states this fact; it does not claim, or imply, that Cadbury traded in enslaved people.
On Harris, the focus of the historical workstream of the RWG is on Quaker complicity in enslaving and trafficking Africans across the Atlantic, and Quaker colonialism and economic exploitation, not a general history of the anti-slavery movement. Abolitionist history is acknowledged elsewhere in our work. Separately, we can find no record that Harris was himself a Quaker.
On the relevance of the group: the RWG’s terms of reference follow from Yearly Meeting’s own decision in 2022 to establish this work (Minutes 27 & 33).
We encourage Friends to attend the RWG conference ‘Truth & Repair: Our Quaker journey to justice’ on 23 October at Friends House and online, where the detailed research will be explained (see www.quaker.org.uk/events/truth-and-repair-our-quaker-journey-towards-justice).
Marghuerita Remi-Judah (North West London Area Meeting) & Ann Morgan (Lancashire Central & North Area Meeting), on behalf of the Britain Yearly Meeting trustees’ Reparations Working Group
