Welsh Journals

up schools, to care for orphaned children, and to afford relief to Friends in need, through sickness or old age. Entries in the minute books also demonstrate a careful regulation of an acceptance into membership. Advice and counselling were offered to those who had fallen away from the Quaker ideals of upright behaviour and sobriety. Occasionally members were 'disowned', drunkenness and marriage outside the Society being the most frequent causes. Marriage within the Society was arranged according to procedures strictly laid down. Both parties had to bring proof of the acceptability of the proposal to their monthly meetings before the meeting allowed the marriage to proceed. Series of minute books have survived for different periods from different parts of the country. Volumes from the Wales Yearly meetings start in 1682 and run to 1797; the North Wales Quarterly meetings cover from 1668 to 1797, and the South Wales Women's Yearly and Half-yearly meetings run from 1749 to 1817. Minute books from Monmouthshire Quarterly and Monthly meetings cover the period 1692-1868; from Monmouthshire and Radnorshire, 1757-97; Shropshire and Montgomeryshire, 1693-1714; Merioneth and Montgomeryshire, 1785-1829; Pembrokeshire, 1700-1829; Carmarthenshire, 1724-68. The longest continuous series held arises from the Carmarthenshire and Glamorgan (later South Division of Wales) Monthly meeting; the minutes commence in 1748 and run through to 1978 with one gap, a relatively modern one, 1947-57'. The locations of the meeting-places in this series indicate centres of Quaker strength which changed during the period. Llandovery, Llandebie, and Cross Inn, for example, are included among the early entries, Swansea, Neath and later Cardiff are major centres, with Brynmawr, Trealaw and Pentre appearing in the twentieth century. A good series of minutes from the Swansea Preparative meeting is held from 1852 to 1981, while for the Pentre Preparative meeting the period runs from 1931 to 1949. Communication from the yearly London meeting for England and Wales took the form of an Epistle, which could be read out at local meetings, and recorded in minute books. Epistles ensured that the Society's ideals and standards were kept before members and they were a vehicle for airing matters of particular import. The Epistle was a means of keeping local groups in touch with each other, as well as with the centre, and copies of Epistles from different parts of the country, or from Friends overseas, are recorded in local minute books. Membership for the South Wales Monthly meeting can be traced from a List for the period 1837-1924, and from abstract entries (for Carmarthenshire and Glamorgan) of births, marriages and burials from