Quaker Extension c.1905-1930: The Yorkshire 1905 Committee

The Yorkshire 1905 Committee was established in its eponymous year, and renamed the Yorkshire Friends Service Committee in 1928. This ‘extension committee’ of Yorkshire Quarterly Meeting was a significant feature of the ‘Quaker renaissance’ of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and carried forward many of the ideas of John Wilhelm Rowntree, one of the leaders of the Quaker renaissance, after whose death in 1905 the Committee was established. This paper aims to place the 1905 Committee’s activities in context, relating them to developments in the Society of Friends, and in adult education more generally: many of its activities were concerned with adult education, which had for many decades been an important activity among Quakers, especially in Yorkshire. The Committee was actively involved in the production and distribution of Friends’ literature, the support of adult schools, the organisation of summer schools, study circles and ‘Quaker tramps’, the establishment of educational settlements, and various other initiatives that fell into the category of ‘Quaker extension’. These were intended to improve the vocal ministry in Quaker Meetings, to extend the influence of Friends in their local communities, and to enhance the social and cultural life of the Society in Yorkshire. Although the 1905 Committee had some notable successes, particularly in the field of literature and in the initiation of permanent adult educational institutions, its overall impact on the strength of Yorkshire Quakerism was limited, and it failed to have the transformative impact that it had hoped for on the quality of Friends’ religious life. However, some of its pioneering activities inspired other social movements, and survived beyond the relatively narrow confines of the Society of Friends