George Richardson Lecture

The George Richardson Lecture is an annual public lecture in Quaker Studies given by a leading academic. It was begun by the Centre for Quaker Studies at the University of Sunderland in 1996. The Richardson Lecture held at the joint annual conference of the  Quaker Studies Research Association and Woodbrooke’s Centre for Research in Quaker Studies.

George Richardson, born in North Shields in 1773, and a grocer by profession, was an Evangelical Friend. He was a contemporary of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson in the anti-slavery movement, began an adult school and was a leading member of the Bible Society in Newcastle. It was his letter to the Friend about two years before his death in 1862 which led to the formation of the Friend’s Foreign Missionary Association.

This year’s lecture

George Richardson lecture 2024: Back to the Light: A Fresh Approach

In this year’s George Richardson Lecture, Nigel Smith looks back to the dynamic period of Quaker activity from the mid-1650s to the early 18th century and explores what we can learn from it today.

The lecture is free to join online but booking is required.

Previous lectures

George Richardson lecture 2023: The Seed and the Day of Small Things – finding power and powerlessness in Quaker theology by Rachel Muers

You can find the transcript of the lecture here.

George Richardson lecture 2022: George Fox’s Pulpits – place and story in Quaker history by Professor Angus Winchester

George Richardson lecture 2021: Tolstoy or Kierkegaard? Dilemmas of Quaker Biblical Interpretation by Hugh S. Pyper

George Richardson lecture 2019: Hilary Hinds on The Poetry of Mary Mollineux

George Richardson lecture 2018: Andrew Murphy on ‘William Penn after 300 Years’

Find more George Richardson Lectures

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