Fifty years in the travelling ministry, Ireland and beyond
“I felt a want, a vacuum unfilled with that good I was thirsting after.” — Mary Dudley
Mary Dudley’s life is one of the most sustained records of Quaker travelling ministry we have from a woman of her generation, and it does not hide what that ministry cost her.
She was born Mary Stokes in Bristol in 1750, a quick and much-admired girl raised in the Establishment and allowed nearly every amusement outside it, and dissatisfied in the middle of all of it. She went to hear the Methodists and was reached by them; she went among the Dissenters and was for a while much taken with the Baptists; none of it settled her. “I felt a want,” she wrote, “a vacuum unfilled with that good I was thirsting after.” She found what she was after in the silence of a Friends’ meeting, and in 1773, at twenty-three, she joined the Society, over the ridicule of her old companions and the mortification of her relations at the plain dress.
She married Robert Dudley and removed to Ireland, settling first at Clonmel and afterwards at Limerick and Waterford, and was called into the ministry — a service that held her for about fifty years. In 1788 she went through Holland and Germany with Sarah and Robert Grubb and home again through France. In 1792 she was at Dunkirk and Guernsey, and that year into the north of England and Scotland; the next through north and south Wales, Bristol, and Lancashire. In 1794 she wrote to the French prisoners at Kinsale. She went through Ulster and Connaught, sat in the families of Waterford, attended London Yearly Meeting, and returned to Ireland again and again — Wexford, Cork, Munster, Leinster — for some thirty years.
The book does not soften the price of it. Her husband fell ill in 1797 and died in 1807; her son died; her daughter Hannah died in the third month of 1810, in the twenty-sixth year of her age. Mary Dudley herself was ill for most of her adult life — there are years in these pages in which she can barely leave Bristol — and she kept going out anyway, into Kent and Surrey and Sussex, into Essex and Yorkshire, into Southwark, until the last illness took her. She died in the ninth month of 1823, in her seventy-fourth year, still writing an epistle to the Yearly Meeting only months before.
Biographical detail on this page is drawn from Mary Dudley’s own memoranda and letters, compiled by her daughter Elizabeth Dudley, and from the testimonies of Southwark Monthly Meeting and of the Quarterly Meeting for London and Middlesex concerning her, published in 1824.
Born Mary Stokes on the eighth of the sixth month, 1750, daughter of Joseph and Mary Stokes. She was a quick, lively, much-admired girl, fond of reading and of writing verse, brought up strictly in the worship of the Establishment and, by her own account, dissatisfied in the middle of it.
In her late teens and early twenties she went to hear the Methodists and was reached by them, joined their Society, and afterwards went among the Dissenters, much taken for a while with the Baptists. None of it settled her; what she wanted was an inward and spiritual life, and what she kept finding instead were forms.
In the twenty-third year of her age she joined the Religious Society of Friends, having found in the silence of their meetings what the preaching she had heard could not give. Her old companions ridiculed her and her nearest relations were mortified by the plain dress; she went on anyway.
She married Robert Dudley and removed to Ireland, settling first at Clonmel and afterwards at Limerick and Waterford, and was called into the ministry — the beginning of about fifty years of religious service.
She travelled through Holland and Germany with Sarah and Robert Grubb, and returned home again through France.
She was at Dunkirk and Guernsey, and that same year went into the north of England and Scotland.
She travelled through north and south Wales, Bristol, and Lancashire, continuing a ministry that carried her back and forth across the Irish Sea.
She wrote to the French prisoners at Kinsale. In these years she went through Ulster and Connaught, sat in the families of Waterford, attended London Yearly Meeting, and returned to Ireland again and again — Wexford, Cork, Munster, Leinster — a labour she kept up for some thirty years.
Robert Dudley, who had fallen ill in 1797, died in 1807.
Her daughter Hannah died in the third month of 1810, in the twenty-sixth year of her age. A memorial of her closes the volume of Mary Dudley's life. She also buried a son.
She died in the ninth month of 1823, in the seventy-fourth year of her age, after a long adult life of nearly constant illness through which she had kept travelling. She was still writing an epistle to the Yearly Meeting only months before.
Her life, compiled by her daughter Elizabeth Dudley from her memoranda and letters, was published with the testimonies of Southwark Monthly Meeting and of the Quarterly Meeting for London and Middlesex concerning her. Elizabeth's preface was written at Peckham in the eleventh month of 1824.
Her own memoranda and letters, compiled by her daughter Elizabeth Dudley, with the testimonies given forth concerning her by Southwark Monthly Meeting and by the Quarterly Meeting for London and Middlesex in 1824 — the record of fifty years of travelling ministry and of what it cost her.