Stansted and the Rumblings of Religious Reform

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Essex had been a stronghold of nonconformism long before the days of the Quakers. The north of the county had been a centre for the Lollards – Christian reformers who followed the teachings of John Wyclif - and its congregations were quick to display their dissatisfaction with the established church.

So, when the Religious Society of Friends, also known as the Quaker movement, began to spread its roots, its powerful message, of returning to a simpler Christianity, found a receptive audience in Essex.  Founded around 1652 by the Cumbrian preacher George Fox, the term 'Quaker' began as a derisive nickname referring to his message that people should 'tremble at the Word of the Lord', however, the group eventually embraced the term.

^{A Plan of Samuel Days House Yard Gardens and Orchard (£800-1200)}

As early as 1656, a monthly meeting was established in Sawbridgeworth, while Fox himself visited Bishop’s Stortford in 1665, writing in his journal: 'Then we rode to Bishop’s Stortford where some were convinced'.  The residents of Bishop's Stortford were not alone in their scepticism it seems, in the early days at least, and Adrian Davies, in his book 'The Quakers in English Society, 1650-1725', describes how members of the Religious Society of Friends were at odds with much of society.  Their refusal to attend church, have children baptised, or doff their hats to any man, led to jail sentences and rioting. 

Yet, with time – and the passage of the Act of Toleration that allowed for freedom of conscience in 1689 - Quakers became fully integrated into the villages and hamlets of Essex and thereabouts. Respected for their integrity in social and business matters, and prepared to moderate once-extreme theological positions, many Friends assumed positions of great responsibility and respectability in the local community.

In the decades after the Restoration, the parish of Stansted Mountfitchet, in particular, become a powerful centre for the Quakers and other Independents. Quaker meetings are first recorded here in 1696 and, by 1703, land on Conygree Wood had been acquired for a Quaker burial ground. While the town’s first meetings were probably held in an existing timber-framed house or farm building, a second lease agreement of 1735 references a Meeting House.

^{A Plan of Samuel Days House Yard Gardens and Orchard (£800-1200)}

Among the most prominent local Quaker dynasties was the Day family. John Day was among those who signed the lease on the Quaker cemetery plot, where there is a collective memorial stone for members of the Day family, with death dates ranging from 1712 to 1796.  As early as the reign of Queen Anne, the Day family’s property holdings had the makings of a considerable country estate.

Included in Sworders’ Books and Maps sale, that runs online from 18-27 October, are two rare drawn and hand-coloured plans, detailing the tracts of land and buildings in the area owned by Mr Samuel Day at the turn of the 18th century. 

One, dated 1703, carefully documents his acreage in the parishes of Stansted Mountfitchet, Birchanger and Ugley – including land on what is today Stansted Mountfitchet's high street. The other plan (undated, but likely produced at the same time) is titled 'A Plan of Samuel Days House Yard Gardens and Orchard, situated in the Parish of Stansted in Essex'.

Probably produced as legal documents for the Day family to record property ownership, they carry an estimate of £800-1200.

Friday 18 - Sunday 27 October | Timed Online

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