Richard Hubberthorne was an early Quaker preacher and writer active in the 1650s and early 1660s until his death in Newgate

Newgate

Newgate at the west end of Newgate Street was one of the historic seven gates of London Wall round the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. From it a Roman road led west to Silchester...

 prison.

Hubberthorne is generally overshadowed by more famous early Quakers like George Fox

George Fox

George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

, James Nayler

James Nayler

James Nayler was an English Quaker leader. He is among the members of the Valiant Sixty, a group of early Quaker preachers and missionaries. At the peak of his career, he preached against enclosure and the slave trade....

, and Edward Burrough

Edward Burrough

Edward Burrough was an early English Quaker leader and controversialist. He is regarded as one of the Valiant Sixty, early Quaker preachers and missionaries....

. William Braithwaite Beginnings of Quakerism includes him among the "heroic pioneers of the new movement", but puts him last, and later describes his writing as having "no distinction either of style or matter.".

Pre-Quaker life

Hubberthorne was born in Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, the only son of a yeoman

Yeoman

Yeoman refers chiefly to a free man owning his own farm, especially from the Elizabethan era to the 17th century. Work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, such as would be done by a yeoman farmer, came to be described as "yeoman's work"...

 and his wife. His childhood is reminiscent of Fox

Fox

Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...

's – Edward Burroughs

Edward Burroughs

Edward Burroughs III is the elected member of the Prince George's County Board of Education from District 8. He lives in Temple Hills, Maryland....

 describes him as being "inclinable from his youth upwards to Religion and to the best way, always minding the best things," though unlike the headstrong young George, his disposition was "meek and lowly," and he "loved peace among men". However, around age 20 he joined the army and fought in the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

, which Burrough reports without obvious disapproval.

After the war ended, he apparently was in the company of the large group of disaffected radical puritans known as "Seekers

Seekers

The Seekers, or Legatine-Arians as they were sometimes known, were a Protestant dissenting group that emerged around the 1620s, probably inspired by the preaching of three brothers – Walter, Thomas, and Bartholomew Legate. Arguably, they are best thought of as forerunners of the Quakers, with whom...

" in the Westmorland

Westmorland

Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...

 area. The Seekers were already, it should be noted, close to a number of "Quaker" positions and practices: their official minister refused to accept payment from the compulsory tithes, for example, and after he left the group held some of their meetings in silence

Silence

Silence is the relative or total lack of audible sound. By analogy, the word silence may also refer to any absence of communication, even in media other than speech....

.

Quaker career

But the spark that lit a fire under the Westmorland Seekers was the arrival of George Fox in June of 1652. Burrough, who was also one of them, recounts Hubberthorne’s conversion experience in this fascinating way:

And when it pleased the Lord God everlasting to raise us up to be a People in the North parts, … This same Person was one among the first of us whose heart the Lord touched with the sense of his Power and Kingdom; and amongst us he had the mighty operation of the Power of God experienced in his heart; Great afflictions and tribulations for many weeks was he exercised in … he was in that state, and while therein exercised for many days, a wonder to all that beheld him, as one passing out of the body, as one under the deep sense of the hand of the Lord, under the operation of his Power; thus it was with many of us, and particularly with him …

Works

A volume of his collected works were published in 1663, a year after his death, and titled A collection of the several books and writings of that faithful servant of God, Richard Hubberthorn, who finished his testimony (being a prisoner at Newgate for the truths sake) the 17th of the 6th month, 1662 (phew).

Not everything he wrote appears to be included in this volume however, because another recent book (Walking in the way of peace by Meredith Baldwin Weddle) refers to a pamphlet of his called The good old cause briefly demonstrated, published in 1659 that is not in the Collection.

External links

• Works:
  • The Collection on WorldCat Libraries.
  • The good old cause briefly demonstrated on WorldCat Libraries.
  • Undated "Epistle to Friends" from the 1663 Collection
• Blog post on "The Seed Lifting Up" that formed the starting point for this article