Latest News
Quakers at Burghfield blockade
Quakers were among an eight-strong group of protesters who blocked a main entrance into the Atomics Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Burghfield, Berkshire, on Monday 19 May. The group sat down in the gateway at 7.20am and chained themselves together. Other protestors stood alongside them, offering support and liaising with police,...
Adam Clarke is new Leaveners’ director
Adam Clarke is the new director of The Leaveners, the Quaker community arts project founded in 1978. Adam has extensive experience in the arts. He has worked as a practicing contemporary artist throughout the UK, specialising in arts and ecology, while continuing to nurture a career in projects/events management...
Blue plaque for John Henry Barlow
Birmingham City Council will be erecting a blue plaque to the memory of John Henry Barlow on 17 June. John is being commemorated for his contribution to peace, his work with the Friends Ambulance Unit, and as a pioneer of social housing.
Death of Quaker poet
The distinguished Quaker poet Gerard Benson has died at the age of 83. Gerard was well-known as a driving force behind the popular ‘Poems on the Underground’ scheme, which was set up in London twenty-eight years ago.
American Quakers highlight environmental destruction
Friends in America have been at the forefront of a campaign to force PNC, one of America’s ‘Big Five’ banks, to pull billions of dollars from its support for companies involved in a destructive form of coal mining. The bank is funding big mining corporations that use huge...
Mansfield Friends open 1647 Garden of Reflection
Friends in Mansfield have developed their beautiful walled garden into a place of contemplation for Quakers and visitors. George Fox experienced his first ‘opening’ in Mansfield in 1647 and the garden has been named, in celebration of that event, the ‘1647 Garden of Reflection’.
Change at Newtown
Newtown School in Waterford, one of Ireland’s oldest Quaker schools, has become the latest minority faith school in the country to enter the Free Education scheme. The school says the decision was made because of a combination of financial pressure and a desire to become ‘more accessible’, in...
Russian Friends statement on Ukraine
Friends in Russia have called for restraint by all parties in Ukraine and abstention from violence in any form in order to avoid bloodshed. In a Monthly Meeting minute, adopted on 26 April, Friends stated that they ‘strongly oppose all possible seeds of war in ourselves and others’ and declared...
Margaret Fell’s 400th birthday
The Quaker Tapestry held a 400th birthday party for Margaret Fell on 30 April and also celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Tapestry in Kendal. The event, which was held in the Meeting house in Kendal, commemorated the life and witness of one of the leaders of early Quakerism. It...
Lichfield twentieth anniversary celebration
This year the twentieth anniversary of Litchfield Local Meeting coincides with International Conscientious Objectors Day. Local Friends are recognising both events with activities next week. Anthony Wilson, of Lichfield Meeting and the Quaker Service Memorial Trust, said that Friends were marking International Conscientious Objectors Day by gathering at the...