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CHAPTER 1

The Environment

In 2011 Quakers in Britain made a commitment to become a low-carbon, sustainable community, living out this promise in their personal lives and as a faith community. They began campaigning for climate and energy justice, and to build a fairer economy which is not powered by fossil fuels. We tend to think of this as a recent concern*, but much of it goes back to our origins. It is something like a jigsaw, for which earlier generations fashioned the pieces. Now modern science has documented the connections between things which we used to address separately. We can see a larger picture as the pieces are put together.

The Natural World

George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, says that as a child of eleven he realised "that I might not eat and drink to make myself wanton but for health, using the [animal and vegetable] creatures ... as servants in their places, to the glory of him who hath created them." Later mystical experiences convinced him that he was a part of the whole natural world. He sensed he was given an intuitive knowledge of the nature and virtues of plants, and wondered if he was destined to take up medicine. Later, when Quakers began to found schools, he asked for them to have herb gardens, to instruct the boys and girls in "whatsoever things were civil and useful in the creation."

This sense of unity with the creation was part of the original Quaker vision, shared by many of his comrades. They saw it as part of God's bounty to humanity and were deeply concerned that we should not abuse it. George Fox criticised the rich as "madmen that destroy the creation and the creatures of God upon your lusts!" And William Penn wrote: "The world represents a rare and sumptuous palace, mankind the great family in it ... the heavens adorned with so many glorious luminaries; and the earth with groves, plains, valleys, hills, fountains, ponds, lakes and rivers; and a variety of fruits and creatures for food, pleasure and profit. In short, how noble a house [God] keeps, and the plenty and variety and excellency of his table: his order and seasons, and suitableness of every time and thing. But we must be as sensible ... what careless and idle servants we are, and how short and disproportionate our behaviour is to his bounty and goodness."

A century later in America John Woolman reverenced nature, working in his orchard and urging us not to "lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation, which the great Creator intends for them under our government." Nature's balance demonstrated God's intention for us. Perhaps he had learnt from the Native Americans he met that if we take from nature what we need, it renews itself; but if we take more, we destroy it, and that is a theft from our descendants. He showed how the economics of greed distorted the human environment too by diverting the efforts of poorer men into producing unnecessary and indeed harmful goods, which they could not afford to enjoy themselves. He urged a moral solution: to open ourselves to the love which had provided such bounty and intended it for all. "Divine love imposeth no rigorous or unreasonable commands, but graciously points out the spirit of brotherhood and way to happiness." This can only be found when "we go forth out of all that is selfish."

One of the things which struck Thomas Clarkson, the British hero of the anti-slavery movement and a sympathetic observer of Quakers, was their kindness to their own animals. He mentions their aversion to hunting, hawking and shooting because of the cruelty involved. At a time when such ideas were almost unknown, "Quakers are of opinion that rights and duties have sprung up — rights on behalf of animals and duties on the part of men — and that breach of these duties, however often or however thoughtlessly it takes place, is a breach of a moral law."

Quaker Science: Medicine

Arthur Raistrick wrote that in the 17th century, "Alongside the religious questings and searchings out of which Quakerism emerged there was an ever-increasing urge to explore and to understand the physical world and its implications. There was a new acceptance of the function of observation and experiment in the search ... It was impossible for people endowed with the active, enquiring spirit characteristic of Friends, keenly alive to the unity of life and dedicated ... to the searching out and love of truth, to stand apart ..." Scientific enquiry was another part of the jigsaw. Friends saw the natural world as a lesson in God's love for us. Science was an innocent pursuit which would bring benefit, not harm, to humankind.

"The Seed" was a favourite Quaker metaphor for "that of God in us". Inspired by Jesus' parables, Friends were impressed by the life hidden in seeds which has the power to burst out and grow, but depends on our planting and nurturing. So botany became a favourite Quaker science. Thomas Lawson, one of the early Quaker travelling missionaries, pursued George Fox's interest in the virtues of plants. At the very start of systematic botany, he recorded and described over four hundred different species. Many Friends followed him, writing to one another across the oceans and inventing the systematic taxonomy of British and American flora. Several of them corresponded with the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus, exchanged ideas and sent him plants. The Quaker botanists saw the richness of the kingdom of plants as evidence of the power and wisdom of God; they would have been horrified at the accelerating loss of species today as a result of human activity.

George Fox drew attention to the curative properties of herbs, and many of the Quaker botanists followed him, with a number of distinguished contributions to biology and medicine. They combined their fascination with nature with their wish to serve people, following the example of Jesus as a healer and witnessing to humanity's unity with the world of nature. Among the Quaker doctors were Thomas Hodgkin (after whom a disease is named) and John Lettsom. In the next generation Joseph Lister the founder of antiseptic surgery was raised a Quaker. But my hero is John Fothergill, who qualified as a doctor in 1740.

He was a man of very wide interests. He based his work on continual close observation of his patients, rather than following the orthodoxies of the time. He pioneered the use of simple prescriptions such as quinine in place of the unresearched compounds of his day based on superstition and alchemy (horse dung was a common ingredient!) He only gave drugs to patients as part of a holistic course of treatment. He urged the contribution of good diet, fresh air and exercise to the healing process. In 1749 he became famous for stemming an epidemic of scarlet fever among children in London, refusing to bleed his patients and giving them one single medicine supported by diet, cleanliness and good nursing. He could then have become rich by devoting himself to a wealthy clientèle; instead he continued his work among the poor and his researches into diseases which were untreatable at the time, including epilepsy, syphilis and sciatica. He did the first systematic research into the symptoms and treatment of influenza. He pioneered a regime to help women come through the menopause, with attention to its psychological concomitants. He set up Medical Societies which met regularly to listen to papers and discuss treatments. John Lettsom and he supported Jenner (not a Quaker ) in his work on vaccination and helped establish the practice across Britain and the American colonies. They investigated accounts of the resuscitation of people who had almost drowned, and Lettsom founded the Royal Humane Society to set up first aid posts and train workers in these methods.

John Fothergill kept a large botanical garden to support his research into new medicines. He financed the illustrations to Linnaeus' great book, The Sexual System of Plants. He encouraged Benjamin Franklin in his electrical experiments and helped to get them published. These two friends tried to prevent war between Britain and its American colonies as we shall see later. Fothergill welcomed John Woolman to London and supported schemes for the emancipation of slaves.

It was noticeable that most Quaker doctors followed Fothergill's example of not running after wealthy clients. Many of them worked free of charge among the poor. Quaker chemists developed dispensaries in slum districts offering cheap pure medicines. These Friends also took an interest in public health, advocating for fresh air, nourishing food, good hygiene and sea bathing. Around forty years before Elizabeth Fry's first prison visit, John Lettsom was visiting prisons regularly, bringing large quantities of medicines and good food, and persuading both staff and prisoners of the importance of cleanliness. Their stories give the lie to the idea that eighteenth-century Quakers formed an inward-looking society, with little interest in the needs of the wider world.

Quaker Science: Physics

Other Quaker scientists contributed to the jigsaw through the pure pursuit of knowledge. I have no space to mention them all, but Raistrick wrote that "Friends have secured something like forty times their due proportion of Fellows of the Royal Society during its long history." The tradition has continued in the twentieth century with scientists like Kathleen Lonsdale, who did pioneering work in x-rays and crystals (and went to prison in 1943 as a conscientious objector ), and Jocelin Bell Burnell, the discoverer of radio pulsars. I will pick out two earlier Friends because they were outstanding in their fields, one dealing with the tiny components of nature, the other with its grandest aspect.

John Dalton did important research in meteorology and colour-blindness (from which he suffered) but he is chiefly famous as the author of the modern atomic theory and discoverer of "atomic weights" (1807). He endorsed what John Woolman had concluded about the world we inhabit: "We should scarcely be excused in concluding this essay without calling the reader's attention to the beneficent and wise laws established by the Author of nature to provide for the various exigencies of the sublunary creation, and to make the several parts dependent upon each other, so as to form one well-regulated system or whole" — an anticipation of the Gaia hypothesis.

Arthur Eddington became Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge in 1913. He made crucial contributions to the understanding of stars. As secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society during the War, he was the first to hear about Einstein's theory of general relativity. He was one of the few astronomers with the mathematical skills to understand it; and with his Quakerly internationalist and pacifist outlook he was rare among British scientists in being willing to pursue a theory developed by a German physicist. He became the chief supporter and advocate of the theory in Britain.

When conscription was introduced Eddington claimed conscientious objector status, making clear his willingness to serve at the Front in the Friends Ambulance Unit, or as a harvest labourer. His application was not granted. The Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, supported Eddington at a later hearing, emphasising Eddington's essential role in the solar eclipse expedition planned for May 1919. The tribunal granted him twelve months' exemption from military service on condition that he continued his scientific work. His observations during the expedition to Principe provided the first proof that Einstein's theory was correct.

Eddington compared his studies and his faith during his Swarthmore Lecture* to the 1929 Quaker Yearly Meeting*: "We have no creed in science, but we are not lukewarm in our beliefs ... not that all the knowledge of the universe which we hold so enthusiastically will survive in the letter; but a sureness that we are on the road ... So too in religion we are repelled by that confident theological doctrine which has settled for all generations just how the spiritual world is worked; but we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world ... There is a kind of sureness which is very different from cocksureness."

The inspiration of all the Friends who so studied and loved the natural world was well expressed by Sarah Baker, a lecturer in botanical chemistry in University College, London, in 1912, when such posts rarely went to women, and a trained artist. She died five years later at the age of twenty-nine. Her Sunday School class recalled her telling them "that the universe is always singing, while only man is silent; and that man must learn to listen, so that his heart may join the universal chorus."

The Human Environment

George Fox, William Penn and, later, John Woolman all said that the personal spiritual life, the human community and the natural world are interdependent, just as the pieces of a jigsaw link together. Violence to any one damages them all. Fox wrote: "You merchants, great men and rich men, what a dishonour is it to you to go in your gold and silver, and gold chains about your necks and your costly attire, and your poor, blind women and children, and cripples, crying and making a noise up and down your streets ... How can you go up and down in your superfluity, and abounding in your riches, and see the poor, blind, and cripples go about your streets?"

John Woolman's concerns for the welfare of the natural world and of human society were inseparable. He objected to inequality of labour even more than inequality of income, because he saw that the huge demands put on working people damaged their health, their chance to contribute to the affairs of society, and their spiritual lives. This was caused by the conspicuous consumption of the rich. Slavery exacerbated the problem, and he argued against it on economic and moral grounds: "Were all superfluities and the desire of outward greatness left aside, and the right use of things universally attended to, such a number of people might be employed in things useful that moderate labour with the blessing of heaven would answer all good purposes relating to people and their animals." Slavery of course was the extreme example of inequality, and Quakers were at the forefront of efforts to eliminate it.

Quakers involved in the new industries of the nineteenth century found Woolman's advice harder to follow, and some of them became very wealthy. But the Yearly Meeting strongly counselled them against speculation, living beyond their means, or adopting a lavish lifestyle. (Quite a number of business men indeed found the discipline too strict, and left the Society of Friends.) Quaker employers felt a responsibility to the community from which their workers came. When the chocolate manufacturers became aware of the slum homes of their workers, they were horrified; they felt an immediate need to create healthy and attractive living spaces for them, with decent housing, good schools, community buildings, parks, libraries, sports fields and swimming pools, and tree-lined roads. The innovation was widely admired and followed. In this way the Quaker concern with public health and preventative medicine which began with John Fothergill and his friends persisted into the twentieth century.

Alfred Salter was another Quaker doctor who could have had a brilliant career in research. But his daily journey through London as a medical student had shown him the slums of Bermondsey, where five families might live in a single room, and one water closet serve twenty-five houses. He decided that his life work must be there. In 1900 he rented a corner shop as his clinic, and became a local councillor (and later a Member of Parliament). From this base he struggled for better housing, better health care and an environment rich in trees and flowers. His wife Ada was also elected to the local council and engaged in parallel work, particularly with girls at risk. She became the Mayor of Bermondsey, the first female Mayor in London, and the first Labour Party female Mayor anywhere. By the 1930s she had planted 7000 trees in the Borough, decorated buildings with window-boxes, and filled all open spaces with flowers. She provided music concerts, art competitions, games, sports and children's playgrounds. The council houses built under her leadership are still cited today as an exceptional example of public housing.

Contemporary Concerns

Though Quakers achieved so much in these areas of environmental concern, it was others who connected the different strands and inspired the present Quaker concern for the sustainability of our planet. There were three books which shocked me and my generation into understanding how and why the world was going wrong and how it needed to change. The first was Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring in 1962, showing us how we were poisoning our planet. Then in 1973 E. F. Schumacher published Small is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered, which was an attack on the unquestioned notion of limitless technological progress. At the end of that decade James Lovelace wrote Gaia–A New Look at Life on Earth, a vision of our planet as a single self-regulating system, endangered by our reckless behaviour and our inability to understand its complexity.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Quaker Roots and Branches"
by .
Copyright © 2017 John Lampen.
Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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