A waiting bench at Scattergood Friends School in Iowa Photo: iowa_spirit_walker / flickr CC
Pews and views
David Butler to speak at upcoming conference
The Quaker architectural historian and writer David Butler is to speak at a forthcoming conference devoted to the non-conformist contribution to the story of pews, benches and chairs.
The conference, ‘Sitting in Chapel’, is to be held on Friday 2 March in Carr’s Lane Church Centre, Birmingham, and is an attempt to raise awareness of a little studied aspect of non-conformist history.
A new publication from the Ecclesiological Society, Pews, Benches and Chairs, has helped to rectify this for the Church of England but its findings are not entirely applicable to other denominations.
The focus of the conference is on aspects of seating in non-conformist places of worship. The organisers hope to increase understanding of the the role, design and traditions associated with historic seats in chapels and meeting houses. David Butler will talk about the tradition of Quaker seating.
