Street Corner Society

Notes and Links

Edward Grubb (1854-1939)

British author, editor, and teacher associated with the "Quaker Renaissance" of the Rowntree family, Rufus Jones, and other "young Friends" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From an article about the Quaker Renaissance:

"While some Quakers held firm to their Evangelical beliefs, others, mainly in the younger generation, took part in a movement to reformulate Quakerism. Dubbed the Quaker Renaissance, this development ... embraced scientific and critical attacks on the authority of the Bible and downgraded the idea of the atonement much more readily than was feasible in most other denominations. This was possible because it was fairly straightforward for proponents of the Quaker Renaissance to appeal to the society's own distinctive tradition of the Inner Light as the ultimate religious authority, rather than the Bible.

"It is no coincidence that there was a huge revival of interest in early Quaker history and theology among the Friends in the late nineteenth century. ... Moreover, the Quaker Renaissance emphasized ... the necessity to revive Quakerism by making it more relevant to society and more involved in society's concerns; to perform good works, following the example of Christ; and to act with justice and compassion to all human beings as bearers within them of the divine spark of the Inner Light."

– Ian Packer, "Religion and the New Liberalism: The Rowntree Family, Quakerism, and Social Reform." Journal of British Studies 42 (April 2003). (Copy available on request.)

See also the excerpt quoted elsewhere in this site, from Edward Grubb's essay on The Early Quakers, regarding modern interest in early Quaker writings.

See also British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community, by Thomas C. Kennedy. (Oxford University Press, 2001.) [top]

Secretary (1901-06) of the Howard Association (later the Howard League for Penal Reform)

Archives at University of Warwick, UK, include "manuscript notebooks belonging to successive secretaries of the Association, (William Tallack and Edward Grubb) recording visits to prisons in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and overseas, 1895-1906." Modern Records Centre

Hon. Treasurer of No-Conscription Fellowship during the Great War (WW I)

Grubb is recorded as Hon. Treasurer of the No-Conscription Fellowship on a leaflet, forwarded in 1916 along with a letter to authorities warning that "a very active anti-conscription propaganda has been carried on here [Letchworth] by the Independent Labour Party." (National Archives of the UK, Catalogue reference: HO 45 10801/307402/57.)

Letchworth

"The First Garden City in the World," started 1903. Situated in North Hertfordshire, north of London. (Map, Aerial view)

Grubb wrote the hymn, "Our God, to Whom We Turn."

Our God, to Whom we turn
When weary with illusion,
Whose stars serenely burn
Above this earth’s confusion,
Thine is the mighty plan,
The steadfast order sure
In which the world began,
Endures, and will endure.

See linked page for all four verses of the hymn and accompanying music (Midi), courtesy of The Cyber Hymnal. [top]