Records of Keighley Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends

Minutes of Preparative Meeting, 1700-1959 (4 vols.) [C 3a, 1; T 25; SE 55]; Minutes of Women's Preparative Meeting, 1703-1798 (2 vols.) [C 2-3]; C 2 includes manuscript history of origins of Quakerism in Keighley and district; List of members, 1854-1978 [SE 56]; Birth notes, including for Keighley, 1917-1925 (1 vol.) [F 32]; Account book, 1965-1982 (1 vol.) [SE 91]; Copies of leases for Stanbury burial ground, 1681-1710 (1 bundle) [LL 93]; Tenancy agreement for Mill Street Meeting House, 1841 [C 27]; Plans of Strawberry Street Meeting House, 1936 (43 items) [DD 21]; Ordnance Survey map of Keighley, 1919 [LL 77]; Yorkshire Notes and Queries, vol.I, 1888, and vol.II, 1890 (photocopy extract, containing extracts from Quaker registers for Stanbury and Keighley) [T 12]; with bundle of miscellaneous papers, c.1695 onwards; Register of library borrowers, 1875-1921 (1 vol.) [SE 30]; Miscellaneous papers, 1959-1981 (1 bundle) [SE 90]

William Dewsbury and Thomas Stubbs (a local man from Ive Delves, Warley) are attributed with settling the Meeting in Keighley, after preaching in the area around 1653. Those convinced included Christopher Smith of Stanbury and Anthony Moore of Oakworth Hall. A burial ground was provided for Friends by Thomas Brigg in c.1659; this was conveyed to trustees in 1691. William Clough of Keighley was amongst those imprisoned for non-payment of tithes in 1665. The Meeting was recorded in 1665 as part of Skipton Monthly Meeting and in 1669 as part of the newly formed Knaresborough Monthly Meeting. It covered Steeton and Stanbury, as well as Keighley, and its leading members were William Clough, Joshua Dawson, Dinis [sic] Waid, Thomas Briggs, Robert Smith and Henry Ambler. The first Meeting House was built in Mill Street in 1709. It is uncertain whether this was rebuilt in 1797, or whether Friends simply bought another building in the same street. The Meeting was in decline at this point, and the premises were let as a school from 1807. By the time of the 1851 census of religious worship Friends are recorded as meeting in a rented room in Change Gate. In 1853, the Meeting was transferred to Brighouse Monthly Meeting, but it was discontinued two years later. An Allowed Meeting opened again in 1872, becoming a full Preparative Meeting three years later. The former Meeting House was repaired and re-opened for worship in 1877. This was superseded in 1936 with a new building on the outskirts of town, in Strawberry Street, off Skipton Road, and this is still in use. The Meeting became part of the re-formed Settle Monthly Meeting in 1924.

The records are numbered and arranged according to the system used when they were in Carlton Hill Meeting House

The conditions of deposit include a clause requiring written prior permission from a Friend Custodian for access to consult current legal documents and any material less than fifty years old

The collection of archives of the Society of Friends formerly held at the Friends Meeting House at Carlton Hill, Leeds

In English

Contents listed in Handlist 99, Inventory of the records of Brighouse, Knaresborough, Leeds, and Settle Monthly Meetings of the Society of Friends formerly preserved at the Friends Meeting House, Carlton Hill, Leeds, 2nd edition, 1997. Documents C 1 (1730-1802), C 2-3, and T 25 (1859-1913) have been indexed in the Library's Quaker Archives database. http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/quaker/quakint1.htm

As with access, the photocopying of current legal documents and any material less than fifty years old requires the permission of a Friend Custodian

Related material in Leeds University Library: Records of Knaresborough, Brighouse and Leeds Monthly Meetings, and Keighley Friends Adult School

The records are deposited and remain the property of the Society of Friends