John William Graham (1859-1932): Quaker apostle of progress

This thesis explores the thought of John William Graham in the context of changes that took place in the Society of Friends in Britain during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. With other liberal-minded Christians, he turned against evangelicalism and strove to promote a faith open to new scientific thinking, and new approaches to the Bible. With other Quakers of his generation he found a religion which met his needs in George Fox and other early Friends, with their promotion of an inward faith, free alike of dogma and of ritual, and relying on the ‘free ministry’ of immediate inspiration. He became prominent in campaigning against tendencies within Quakerism to establish a paid pastorate and set forms of worship, and for a newly invigorated Quaker ministry. He believed that authentic Quakerism, based on the ‘Inward Light’ could lead the way towards a new and better world. Graham had an idiosyncratic outlook on theology as well as politics, especially the politics of war and of empire, which occasionally set him at variance with other Quakers of the ‘Renaissance’. In exploring points of convergence and divergence, this thesis provides new ways of understanding this crucial era in Quaker history.