The first meeting for worship at the newly-built Quaker Meeting House at the junction of Strawberry Street and Skipton Road was held on Sunday 27th September 1936. It was attended by more than seventy people including several dignitaries. The black and white photographs were taken around this time. Worshippers include William Thomson and Nellie Sugden.
Quakerism arrived in Keighley in around 1653, preached by William Dewsbury and Thomas Stubbs. The Meetings had to be held in secret as the followers were regarded as radicals. The Toleration Act of 1689 allowed for freedom of worship. Leading members of early Meetings included William Clough, Joshua Dawson, Thomas Briggs, Robert Smith and Henry Ambler. A property on Mill Street in Westgate was bought in 1709 to serve as the Friends’ Meeting House. A property in the same area was used on and off up until the 1930s when much of Westgate was cleared due to the conditions of the buildings and homes.
A new property was purpose built in the grounds of a Victorian garden at the junction of Strawberry Street and Skipton Road. The new Meeting House was covered in the Keighley News of Saturday 15th August 1936, below a picture of the new building it stated: “After worshipping in the old meeting house in Mill Street, Keighley, since 1709, the Quaker congregation in Keighley are to have to have a new place of worship in Skipton Road. It is intended to open the building, now nearing completion, on 27th September.”
The black and white photographs were supplied by Simon Spedding along with some of the background information. The colour photograph was taken by Tim Neal in 2022.
