Quakers in Kenya

There are about 196,800 members of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, in Africa. African Friends make up around 52% of Friends internationally, the largest proportion in any one continent. Kenya has the largest number of Quakers in a single nation – about 146,300 in the year 2012 (according to the Friends World Committee for Consultation).

Central and Southern African Yearly Meeting was founded by Friends from London Yearly Meeting. A meeting was first established in Cape Town in 1728. Friends worshipping in South Africa separated from London Yearly Meeting to become an independent Yearly Meeting in 1948. Due to the historic links with London Yearly Meeting, worship is in the unprogrammed tradition, in contrast with Friends' meetings in East Africa.

On April 23, 1902 three Friends — Arthur Chilson, Edgar Hole, and Willis Hotchkiss — set sail from New York to Mombasa, Kenya. They went on behalf of the Cleveland Friends Meeting. From there they made their way across by rail to Kisumu and then by foot to Kaimosi and set up a mission there on August 17. They came from the programmed tradition of Five Years Meeting (now Friends United Meeting).

From that small beginning, Quakerism grew and spread throughout Kenya during the twentieth century, although it is still concentrated in the western area. A mission hospital (Kaimosi Hospital) was founded in 1941. The Friends Bible Institute opened in 1942. Friends gradually spread into other areas of Kenya, with another hospital (in Lugulu), an epilepsy colony, an agricultural college and a college of technology all being established, as well as many new churches. It also spread to the neighboring countries of Uganda and Tanzania. Due to the size, the original East Africa Yearly Meeting split into several smaller Yearly Meetings, some of these splits have been painful.

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