Primary Contributors:
Marjon Ames
Title page from Margaret Fell, Womens Speaking Justified (1666). (Source of image: Wikimedia Commons)
Margaret Fell and the Quakers
Margaret Fell (1614–1702)
Margaret Fell (née Askew), often referred to as the Mother of Quakerism, was a leading figure in the seventeenth-century religious community. Born at Marsh Grange in Furness, Lancashire, Fell was the eldest daughter of John Askew and Margaret Pyper. She married Judge Thomas Fell of Swarthmoor Hall, Ulverston, Lancashire, in 1632, and together they had nine children. The Fells often welcomed itinerant preachers at Swarthmoor Hall, which became known as a refuge for dissenters.
In 1652, George Fox was invited to their home and preached to the household. Margaret, her daughters, and several members of the household staff were convinced and became central members of the Quaker community. From this point forward, Swarthmoor Hall became a hub of itinerant Quaker ministers and a clearing-house of communication for members of the community. Fell also established the Kendal Fund to aid preachers and their families during their frequent imprisonments. As the Quaker sect continued to grow, Margaret Fell developed and maintained a letter network that united the faithful throughout Europe and North America. She wrote to and received letters from itinerants during their travels, maintaining correspondence that became the basis of early Quaker church records and subsequent martyrological texts like Joseph Besse’s The Collection of Quaker Sufferings.
After Thomas Fell’s death in 1658, Fell transitioned into a more public advocate for the Quakers. Shortly after his ascension to the throne, she also petitioned Charles II for the Quaker cause. In the wake of the Quaker Act of 1662, Fell was tried for holding meetings in her home and was imprisoned from 1664–68. Among her many publications, Women’s Speaking Justified was published in 1666, which promoted the Quaker position of female preachers. In 1671, Fell created the Women’s Monthly Meeting, the first of which occurred at Swarthmoor Hall.
Throughout the first decades of Quakerism, a number of internal disputes over the sect’s leadership occurred and Fell supported George Fox’s position as sole leader. In 1669, Fell and Fox married. After her husband’s death in 1691, Fell remained a central figure in the community and continued to preserve his legacy until her death in 1702. Ultimately, Margaret Fell created the institutional memory of the first several decades of Quakerism. Her financial, organizational, and epistolary influence cannot be overstated.
Partners and Additional Contributors
EMLO, together with Women’s Early Modern Letters Online, would like to thank Marjon Ames for her contribution of metadata from the correspondence collated during preparatory work for her publication Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism (Routledge [Taylor & Francis], 2016), and for her contribution of the text for this introductory page. EMLO is grateful to Kim McLean-Fiander for drawing together additional biographical details to enhance the people records for Friends involved in this correspondence, and for her editorial work on a number of the abstracts. Thanks are due once again to EMLO’s indefatigable volunteers for rolling up their sleeves to bring this task to completion.
Additional letters to and from Margaret Fell, and a testimonial letter from George Fox (1624–1691), to be found in the UK National Archives in the Stuart State Papers, have been contributed by Cultures of Knowledge and by the UK AHRC-funded Networking Archives project.
Key Bibliographic Source(s)
Marjon Ames, Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).
Contents
Early Quaker leaders helped to shape a stable organization that enabled the transition to occur from a movement to a church. Margaret Fell’s role was essential to this process, for she developed and maintained the epistolary exchange that formed the basis of the early religious community. Her efforts enabled others to travel and spread the faith, while she served as the nucleus of the community’s communication network by determining how and where to share information.
Detail showing the signature of Margaret Fell, from a letter of 20 January 1660 (UK National Archives, Kew, SP 29/91 f.9; source of image courtesy of Gale Cengage, Stuart State Papers Online)
Scope of Catalogue
The details for the vast majority of the letters listed at present in this collection were brought together by Marjon Ames. It is hoped that, in future, further Quaker correspondence will be added to the catalogue, as will additional correspondence for both Margaret Fell and George Fox.
Should you have metadata or texts of early Quaker correspondence you would like to contribute to this catalogue of Quaker correspondence, please do not hesitate to be in touch.
Further resources
Bibliography
Marjon Ames, Margaret Fell, Letters, and the Making of Quakerism (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).
H. L. Ingle, First among Friends: George Fox and the creation of Quakerism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
H. Ingle, ‘Fox, George (1624–1691), a founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
B. Kunze, ‘Fell [née Askew], Margaret (1614–1702), Quaker leader‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Additional Resources
Collections of the Library of the Society of Friends, Friends House, London.
Quaker correspondence metadata contributed by Marjon Ames
The correspondence of Margaret Fell (1614–1702)