The world of Joseph Wood
Pamela Cooksey considers a fascinating Quaker archive
The publication this month of a full and unedited transcription of the large and small notebooks of Joseph Wood, a Yorkshire Quaker, will provide a significant new resource for those with an interest in Quaker history and genealogy.
The hundred notebooks, written between 1773 and 1821, together with 647 letters and miscellaneous printed Quaker papers, are now known as the Joseph Wood Archive. The archive, kept in the Wood family for over six generations, offers a revealing portrait of a Quaker and his time.
A Quaker Quietist
The notebooks, written in a firm and consistent hand, contain daily memoranda, detailed accounts of journeys undertaken, Meetings attended, letters both written and received and selected Quaker writings. They offer the reader an intimate and revealing portrait of Joseph Wood, of Newhouse, Birdsedge, near Penistone, and a member of High Flatts Meeting.
A true Quietist Quaker and a Minister of the Gospel, having been given ‘the unity and liberty of his Meeting,’ he travelled extensively throughout England and Wales for forty-eight years. In that time he became a greatly valued friend to all who knew him, a well-respected and hugely influential person, and a tireless worker in the cause of spreading Quaker truth.
Acknowledged as a powerful preacher, when standing in Meeting, his testimonies were part of the vigorous spoken ministry that was a feature of Quietist worship. After a Meeting at High Flatts he recorded:
‘a weighty exercise came over my mind and soon after I sat down therein the word was as a fire in my bones and I was constrained to stand upon my feet.’
Joseph Wood’s writings are of particular interest because they fully reflect the faith and religious convictions of his day and as well as his personal perspective on these. They provide a detailed insight into the beliefs and behaviour of ordinary people who were Quakers and offer a detailed guide to the many aspects of faith, religious thought and practice of ‘Quietist Quakerism.’
The spiritual life
Reading the 228 letters in his twelve ‘Letter Books,’ one is aware of his overwhelming concern for the spiritual life of individuals and the destiny of their souls. Letters of support, advice, encouragement, approval, disapproval and admonition were written to those whom Joseph wished to succour.
‘My earnest desire is that thou may not read it as a matter of little concern but solidly weigh the truths contained therein in a disposition of mind to improve thereby.’
Joseph described the life of those belonging to a community of Friends and their relationships with members of neighbouring Meetings. Many of the organisational and administrative features the Society of Friends, being created at the time to unify members, were also detailed.
Hospitality
Included in the records of Joseph’s numerous journeys are the names of the many people he met – the majority of whom were Quakers. He frequently noted the names of those who offered him hospitality. They welcomed him into their homes to ‘breakfast, dine, sup, take suitable refreshment’ and ‘to lodge.’
He recorded those who, when he was setting out on one of his journeys, were his ‘companion this day’; those who, when assisting him to hold one of his numerous ‘publick meetings’ went ‘to procure and prepare a place’ and ‘inform the inhabitants thereof’; those who ‘brought their intentions of marriage’ to the Meeting for Discipline and those who ‘stood in Meeting in testimony, in prayer, in supplication, in exhortation or in prayer and praises to the Almighty.’
Joseph also noted where people lived and the Meeting to which they and their families belonged. Within the detailed accounts of his daily living, Joseph provides us with information regarding facets of life in Georgian England.
In 1815, when travelling through Warwickshire, he noted:
‘came to Lymington [Leamington] a village about 2 miles from Warwick which is amazingly increased of late with very grand and stately buildings to accommodate the company who resort thither in great abundance to bathe and drink the waters, we stopt there a little to view the Baths and Pumprooms which are very grand buildings.’
Joseph understood rural poverty and was outspoken in his condemnation of…
‘the present mode of inclosing of common land’ and the ‘greedy freeholders who deprive our fellow creatures of their right without a just compensation’ for ‘the poor being depriv’d of their just and eqitable right whereby many have been assisted in the support of their families; and the little Farmer being reduced by these things, are obliged to fall upon the Parish for relief.’
Another extraordinary feature of the notebooks is that ninety of them have covers made from different contemporary wallpapers and decorative papers. A unique archive in itself!
The collection
In November the Joseph Wood Archive is to be gifted to the Special Collections, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, where it will then be available to scholars, students and the general reader. Copies of the transcription, with accompanying searchable CDs, will be available in Quaker libraries and libraries in a number of colleges and universities that offer Quaker and eighteenth and nineteenth century studies.
Pamela will be speaking about Joseph Wood on 25 October at 6.30pm in the Quaker Centre, Friends House. Visit www.quakerhistory.org.uk/quakerhistory to register for a free place.
Quaker Journals: The Large and Small Notebooks of Joseph Wood (1750-1821), edited by Pamela Cooksey, costs £10 and is available from Quacks Printers, 7 Grape Street, York, YO1 7HU and the Quaker Centre Bookshop, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ (0207 663 1030). High Flatts Quaker Meeting is the sole beneficiary from sales.
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