Friends and Families: a Study of the Quakers of the Earls Colne Area, 1655-1750
Abstract
This study examines the economic and demographic characteristics of the 464 adult members of the Earls Colne, Halstead, and Coggeshall meetings of the Society of Friends in north-central Essex for the period 1655- 1750, and is an attempt to discover if this group differed from the general demographic pattern of the English population during the same period. Recent demographic historians have overlooked the non-conformist sects in their studies of population in Britain during these same years, but a search of the microfiche collection of the records of the English village of Earls Colne has yielded the birth and death records and the marriage certificates of the Quarterly and Monthly meetings of the Quakers in thir region. These documents allow the examination of demographic and economic patterns among this group of non-conformists for a hundred-year period.
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- OSU Theses [15752]