Abiah Darby
| Abiah Darby | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Abiah Maude 1716 |
| Died | 1794 (aged 77–78) Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, Great Britain |
| Residence | Coalbrookdale |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Evangelism |
| Spouse(s) | Abraham Darby |
| Children | five surviving including Abraham Darby |
Abiah Darby (born Abiah Maude; 1716–1794) was an English minister in the Quaker church based in Coalbrookdale. She was also the wife of the iron industrialist Abraham Darby. Abiah kept a journal and she sent letters which recorded the Darby family's achievements. One of her letters has been used to identify the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Abiah Maude was born in 1716 into a Quaker family headed by Samuel and Rachel (born Warren) Maude. By her teens she was moved to preach, but she took no action. She wanted to marry John Sinclair, but her widowed mother resisted the match until February 1734. Within three years, Abiah Sinclair was a widow with a daughter named Rachel. She rejected her sister's requests to rejoin society. Instead, she carried out her religious duties until 1745, when she met the Quaker widower Abraham Darby of Coalbrookdale. They married at Preston Patrick on 9 March 1746.
Her new husband was revolutionising the iron industry and she became the hostess to businessmen as well as fellow Quakers. Abiah recorded the details of many of their visitors between 1752 and 1769 in her journals. They had seven children, of whom four survived infancy. Sarah, Mary, Samuel and another Abraham Darby. While her children were still small, in 1746 Abiah Darby gave in to her wish to preach. Her daughter Mary was still a baby, and her husband was busy introducing his improvements to the smelting process of the ironworks in Coalbrookdale where he was a partner. Nevertheless, Abraham accompanied Abiah on some of her preaching trips by horse; on other occasions, she was usually accompanied by Ann Summerfield. It has been said that Abiah Darby "broke the shackles" of her gender's role in her evangelism of the Quaker message. In 1750 Abraham and Abiah moved into a newly-built house called Sunniside, set in its own park, named after Abiah's parents' home in Bishopswearmouth.
Despite her severe outlook, Darby did not attract the hostility that faced some of her fellow women preachers. In 1754 she was credited with improving communication between the male and female groups within the Society of Friends. However, she did not just preach at home. In 1756 she wrote in her journal about the food riots, but she also spoke at three public meetings at Chesterfield in Derbyshire, Ambleside in the Lake District, and Newcastle on Tyne and Shields in the north-east of England. She was also able to obtain permission to address the soldiers stationed in Berwick upon Tweed, on England's north-east coast bordering Scotland.
...
Wikipedia