By Rosemary Bailey
This article was published in the December 2022 edition of Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society
Ian Sewell has passed over all his files associated with the Sewell family and we have started to go through them to see what they contain. I came across a photo of a plaque on the side of the Quaker Meeting House in Beccles, Suffolk which said that the building had been given to the Quakers in 1759. The photo had appeared in the journal in 2009, but with no information.
I thought it worth emailing Beccles Quakers and was pleased to be put in touch with the delightful Jill Allum who has provided me a lot of information about Philip as well as She has researched in Norwich and Ipswich Record Offices plus the top Quaker sources in Friends House London. After a few emails going to and from she wrote a letter to me saying ‘You’ve started something here!, My floor is covered in papers and I can hardly reach my bed. But it’s fun and I am very grateful for you including me in your research’. With the letter was a pamphlet which told the story of Philip with much information we didn’t know. This will be in a full article in the next journal.