Fox's Pulpit

Eschewing the customary delights of the M6 motorway service stations on our drive back from Wales today we detoured a short way into Cumbria to seek out Fox's Pulpit where the Quaker Movement began in 1652. It was a lonely, unassuming spot.

George Fox (July 1624 - 13 January 1691), the founder of the Quaker movement or the Society of Friends, preached extensively in the north of England in 1652.

On reaching Sedbergh in June of that year, on 13th June he visited an isolated chapel on Firbank Fell, located a few miles from the town, where from the nearby outcrop of rocks he preached to a congregation of more than a thousand people for three hours. The place has became known as Fox's Pulpit.

Fox described the event in his journal:-

'While others were gone to dinner, I went to a brook, got a little water, and then came and sat down on the top of a rock hard by the chapel. In the afternoon the people gathered about me, with several of their preachers. It was judged there were above a thousand people; to whom I declared God's everlasting truth and Word of life freely and largely for about the space of three hours.'

Quaker burial ground next to Fox's Pulpit

Found on the east side of a single track road between the Lune valley and headwaters of the river Kent. On the southern perimeter is a crag where George Fox led a meeting of early 'seekers', called Fox's Pulpit. A commemorative plaque marks the spot. There was a chapel at this isolated spot, when Fox addressed a multitude of about a 1000 people in June 1652, for about 3 hours. Services are still held here, occasionally. The chapel fell down in a storm of the winter 1839-40, and was rebuilt on the other side of the fell, where the current Firbank chapel stands.
When Fox was starting the Quaker movement they were not allowed to meet in 'steeplehouses' nor get 'sprinkled'. In 1689 the Act of Tolerance stopped the persecution of Quakers for not attending conventional church. Because Quakers were not 'sprinkled' (baptised) they could not be buried in a churchyard. So Friends acquired land for burial.
Firbank Quaker Burial ground
Firbank
Sedbergh
Cumbria

There are five headstones laid flat, and one erect headstone. There are probably several hundred buried here. Disused.
Quaker headstones, their removal.
The Yearly national Meeting in 1717 and again 1766 instructed that all headstones be removed from all Quaker burial grounds. Friends were erecting 'vain monuments' over their dead relatives graves. This decision was rescinded later (1850) and simple uniform headstones were used in each area to help relatives find their deceased. Eventually a pattern was agreed, with deceased's name, age and date of death inscribed on a simple locally made stone.
Quakers were unbaptised and were forbidden burial in "consecrated ground" or in church connected graveyards. They buried their dead on private land and would do the same for those forbidden burial in church consecrated land (unbelievers, condemned, suicides etc.).

Sources: Donald A Rooksby, The Man in Leather Breeches, A People to be Gathered, And Sometime Upon the Hills

 

The Inscription on the Plaque

Let your lives speak

Here or near this rock George Fox preached to about one thousand seekers for three hours on Sunday, June 13, 1652. Great power inspired his message and the meeting proved of first importance in gathering the Society of Friends known as Quakers. Many men and women convinced of the truth on this fell and in other parts of the northern counties went forth through the land and over the seas with the living word of the Lord enduring great hardships and winning multitudes to Christ.

June, 1952.

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