Release of the Quakers Annual Monitor 1849

Today we launch a small collection of Irish death records from the Quaker Annual Monitor 1849. The Quaker Annual Monitor 1849, or Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends in Great Britain and Ireland for the year 1848, is a published list of obituaries and death notices compiled from the annual returns of the Society’s Meeting Houses in 1848 and the latter parts of 1847.

While some of the obituaries provide only a small amount of detail, many are accompanied by the quite lengthy eulogies provided by the elders of deceased's Meeting House.

Quakers Annual Monitor
Quakers Annual Monitor

For example, one of the last entries for 1848 concerns a young man named Cuthbert Wigham, a member of the South Shields Meeting House, who died aged only 26 in Madeira. Wigham's death notice recalls that as a youth he was drawn towards the 'powerful convictions of sin', but by the time of death had been forgiven for his sins. Suffering from consumption, Wigham spent the last months of his life at Funchall and extracts from his diary for this period accompany his obituary.

These death records are sure to appeal to anyone with a genealogical interest in members of the Society or with Quakers in their Irish family tree.

More information on the Quakers Annual Monitor 1849

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