Quakers in Britain

The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Quaker
Associations	Friends World Committee for Consultation
Region	England, Scotland, Wales, Channel Islands, Isle of Man
Founder	George Fox
Origin	1660 Fenny Drayton
Separated from	Church of England
Congregations	478
Members	22,184 members and attenders
Hospitals	1
Aid organization	Quaker Peace and Social Witness
Secondary schools	8
Other name(s)	Britain Yearly Meeting (since 1995) London Yearly Meeting (until 1995) Quakers in Britain
Official website	www.quaker.org.uk

The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, also known as the Britain Yearly Meeting (and, until 1995, the London Yearly Meeting), is a Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It is the national organisation of Quakers living in Britain. Britain Yearly Meeting refers to both the religious gathering and the organisation. "Yearly Meeting" is usually the name given to the annual gathering of British Quakers. Quakers in Britain is the name the organization is commonly known by.

Britain Yearly Meeting, which until 1995 was known as London Yearly Meeting, grew out of various national and regional meetings of Friends in the 1650s and 1660s and has met annually in some form since 1668. The first meeting of Friends from different parts of Britain to be organised was at Balby in Yorkshire in 1656. This consisted of representatives from each Church in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire "to consider of such things as might (in the Truth's behalf) be propounded unto them; and to enquire into the cause and matter of disorder, if any be." The Quaker book of discipline, Quaker Faith and Practice records:

We may think of that at Swannington in 1654 or Balby in 1656 (the postscript to whose lengthy letter of counsel is so much better known than the letter itself) or Skipton the same year, or the general meeting for the whole nation held at Beckerings Park, the Bedfordshire home of John Crook, for three days in May 1658, and attended by several thousand Friends. This in some ways might be considered the first Yearly Meeting were it not for the fact that the 1660s, through persecution and pestilence, saw breaks in annual continuity. The meeting in May 1668 was followed by one at Christmastime, which lasted into 1669, since when the series has been unbroken. It is 1668, therefore, that we have traditionally chosen as the date of establishment of London Yearly Meeting. But many (though not all) of the meetings up to 1677 were select, that is, confined to "publick" (or ministering) Friends: from 1678 they were representative rather than select in character.

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