Early years

The Society of Friends – the Quakers – originated in the great upsurge of radical religious and political movements that subverted the established order in England in the middle of the seventeenth century. It affirmed the intrinsic equality of all human beings: no distinction between men and women, no need for any kind of clerical elite. Everyone could pay attention to the promptings of the spirit, though the potential anarchy that this might have fostered was tempered by the strong sense of community that found expression in its meetings for worship. This sense of community has enabled it to adapt to new conditions and survive into the twenty-first century.

One of its most characteristic features has been its peace testimony, utterly denying ‘all outward wars and strife and fightings with outward weapons, for any end or under any pretence whatsoever’. In a world where fighting with outward weapons is taken for granted, this conviction has prompted the Friends to find alternatives, and since the latter part of the nineteenth century to do so in an energetic and ingenious way. No one illustrates this preoccupation better than Horace Alexander. I worked with him, admired him immensely, and held him in great affection. Hence this book.

He was born in Croydon, a few miles south of London, on 18 April 1889. He was the youngest of four brothers.