We did conclude among ourselves to settle a meeting, to see one another’s faces, and open our hearts one to another in the Truth of God once a year, as formerly it used to be.

Yearly Meeting in London, 1668

 Yearly Meeting is now an occasion when the concerns of Friends can be shared with the whole community of Quakers in Britain, as it seeks God’s guidance and relates each particular insight or service to the others brought before it. At different stages of its history the agenda and pattern of Yearly Meeting have been built up in different ways.

 In the seventeenth century our yearly meeting grew out of a series of conferences of ministering Friends, some regional, some national. Early examples include the meetings at Swannington in 1654 and at Balby in 1656 (remembered more for the postscript to its lengthy letter of counsel than the letter itself), and the meeting at Skipton the same year. The general meeting for the whole nation held at Beckerings Park, Bedfordshire, for three days in May 1658, was attended by several thousand Friends. This might be considered as the first Yearly Meeting although no annual continuity followed in the 1660s due to persecution by the authorities and outbreaks of contagious disease. The meeting in May 1668 was followed by one at Christmastime which lasted into 1669, since when Yearly Meeting has been held annually. 1668 is the traditional date of establishment of London Yearly Meeting, which became the national Yearly Meeting in 1672.

The main exercise of Yearly Meeting related to ‘the state of the Society’ as revealed by the answers to the Queries (a set of questions about the “right ordering” of local Meetings) or, after written replies were discontinued, by triennial reports from quarterly meetings. Many (though not all) of the meetings up to 1677 were ‘select’, that is, confined to ‘publick’ or ministering men Friends; but from 1678 Yearly Meetings became representative rather than select in character. Minutes are preserved from 1672.

Until the mid-nineteenth century the life of the yearly meeting continued to centre on the answers from quarterly meetings to Friends’ queries and the ‘Epistles Foreign and Domestick’. Epistles and travelling ministers between them made the Atlantic community of Friends a reality; smuggling in Cornwall or dissension in Nantucket received equal thought and attention. The education of Friends’ children was a recurring theme, and with the establishment of Ackworth (1779) and Sidcot (1808) the reports from Friends’ boarding schools made increasing claims on the time of the meetings. The predictable answers to queries, lengthy reports and other documents read aloud, long-winded Friends, the narrow range of interests and the minutiae of procedure must have been stifling to the rebels. ‘And now for about an hour,’ wrote a young Friend in 1858, ‘the YM talked to points of order. When 5 or 6 courses are mentioned and a good many friends speak to each, it does not seem difficult to spend an hour or more in this way.’ ‘It is difficult,’ he added charitably, ‘to see how this is altogether to be avoided.’

In reality Yearly Meeting may not have been as parochial as the cautious minutes show. These can point to certain outstanding sessions – that of 1783 on the slave trade, for instance, or that from 1818 on capital punishment. Yearly Meeting was not merely preoccupied with introspective consideration of the state of the Society: it sought to awaken the public conscience. A statement in 1856 on liberty of conscience was translated into half a dozen languages and taken by deputations of concerned Friends to ecclesiastics and statesmen from Madrid to St Petersburg. Petitions to parliament and memorials to the monarch covered a wide range of concern. When in 1842 Caroline Fox with her brother and father called on the philosopher Thomas Carlyle, ‘he wanted to know what we were doing at the Yearly Meeting, and what were its objects and functions, and remarked on the deepening observable amongst Friends; but when we told of the letter to the Queen recommendatory of peace in Afghanistan, he was terribly amused. “Poor little Queen! She’d be glad enough to live in peace and quietness if the Afghans would but submit to her conditions.”’

‘Every Quakeress,’ wrote Charles Lamb in 1823, ‘is a lily; and when they come up in bands to their Whitsun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they show like troops of the Shining Ones.’ From 1656 Women’s Meetings and Women’s Monthly Meetings had been held, but it was not until 1784 that a Women’s Yearly Meeting was established, with the right to communicate with women’s quarterly meetings. From the 1880s some joint sessions of men and women Friends were held, and in 1896 Yearly Meeting decided that ‘in future women Friends are to be recognised as forming a constituent part of all our meetings for church affairs equally with their brethren.’ Some separate sessions still continued but the Women’s Yearly Meeting was laid down in 1907.

After the Yearly Meeting was constituted on a representative basis in 1678 ministering Friends, and later elders, met with members of London’s Second Day Morning Meeting (the weekly gathering of ‘ministering Friends in and about the city’) at the beginning and the close of Yearly Meeting. This gathering assumed a measure of national authority – it issued, for instance, in 1702 ‘A brief memorial of some necessary things’, which was the basis of the advices on ministry – and in 1754 it was constituted as the Yearly Meeting of Ministers & Elders. In 1876 the meeting was enlarged in membership and renamed the Yearly Meeting on Ministry & Oversight, but as part of the egalitarian movement of the late nineteenth century it was decided to discontinue the separate hierarchy of preparative, monthly and quarterly meetings on ministry and oversight, and, in consequence, the Yearly Meeting on Ministry & Oversight last met in 1906. Elders and overseers subsequently met separately for conference.

Until as recently as 1861 Yearly Meeting was in theory attended only by representatives, together with ‘such ministering Friends as may be in town, and the correspondents or members of the Meeting for Sufferings’. From the mid eighteenth century (if not earlier) the doors were in fact open to any man Friend, and much business was in consequence referred to the Large Committee, which was confined to those constitutionally entitled to be there. When at length the Yearly Meeting sessions were opened to all men Friends as a right some felt that the Yearly Meeting would degenerate into mere conversation and lose its essentially religious and deliberative purpose.

In almost every generation there has been a Right Holding of Yearly Meeting Committee, though its title varies from one occasion to another. Such a group has the opportunity of deciding whether we need to direct our attention to constitutional change, or to the shortcomings of our human nature. In 1902 John Wilhelm Rowntree and Edward Worsdell applied their minds to the conduct of Yearly Meeting with devastating remarks: ‘Discussion confused and futile’, ‘discussion disproportionate and prolix’, ‘a demonstration not a conference’. It was two years before this outburst that the first memorandum of agenda had been issued, and it had been agreed to print some reports in advance.

In 1905 Yearly Meeting was held for the first time out of London. Meeting at Leeds it received at its opening session a message from the venerable patriarch J Bevan Braithwaite, who, after sixty-four years of unbroken attendance, felt the journey inadvisable. ‘Coming together as we do’, wrote the Yearly Meeting in its response, ‘amid such new surroundings, the thought of the faithful lives of service which have been given in the past to the work of our Society comes with peculiar power and helpfulness to us, and as we listened to thy letter and thought of the long years in which thou wast present during the sittings of the yearly meeting, the desire arose that we might be more faithful in giving ourselves to the work.’ We too may re-echo the desire that we may be inspired by those who have gone before us in our yearly meeting but not fettered by their procedures.

In 1918 Mary Jane Godlee was the first woman to act as Yearly Meeting Clerk when John H Barlow, a member of Friends Service Committee, was called to attend the High Court for publishing a pacifist leaflet without submitting it to the censor. He was serving as Clerk to Yearly Meeting that day so left the meeting to go to court, and Mary Jane Godlee took his place at the table. The first woman to be appointed as Yearly Meeting Clerk was W Maud Brayshaw who served from 1943 – 1948.

The organisational reforms of the late nineteenth century continued into the 1920s. In 1924 Yearly Meeting ceased the practice of recording ministers, a response to Friends’ disquiet about giving ‘undue prominence to the ministry of a restricted body of Friends’, which was felt to ‘discourage ministry from many who might otherwise feel moved to offer it.’ In 1926 London Yearly Meeting moved from Devonshire House in Bishopsgate to the purpose-built Friends House opposite Euston Station.

The twentieth century witnessed a considerable growth in the number of standing committees of the Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings, and in their scope of work. Increasingly, the agenda of Yearly Meeting was built up round concerns brought through these committees.

During the 1970s and 1980s residential Yearly Meetings (6.22) were becoming increasingly popular, with Friends appreciating the events alongside the sessions as much as the business. Hence it was decided to try out a gathering without the formal Yearly Meeting business, answering the needs of Friends to live together in community and to explore issues and activities for which there was little programmed time at a meeting for church affairs. The first such Summer Gathering was held in Bradford in 1991. Further Summer Gatherings were held at four-yearly intervals, all different and all successful. Subsequently, the administrative pressures of organising these events led to the holding of two experimental combined residential Yearly Meetings and Summer Gatherings. The first such Yearly Meeting Gathering was held at York in 2009.

In 1994 London Yearly Meeting agreed to change its name to the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, or in short form, Britain Yearly Meeting. This decision followed a recommendation by Meeting for Sufferings after a consultation with monthly meetings. The new name was chosen to express the identity of the yearly meeting in a more inclusive way, so that Friends who were physically distant from London could feel more fully part of the whole. It also reflects more accurately the geographical area which is covered: England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The new name came into effect on 1 January 1995.

The Covid-19 pandemic spread around the world in early 2020. A series of restrictions on travel and meeting were imposed from March 2020. A residential Yearly Meeting had already been planned to take place in Bath in the summer but this was not possible due to these restrictions. By this time most Friends had access to the internet, so Yearly Meeting was moved online using business conferencing technology for remote meetings and took place in November. ‘Not since 1668 has anything – not even world wars – prevented Yearly Meeting, a time for Quakers to gather in stillness to listen to the promptings of love and truth.’ The final part of the concluding minute − ‘There being no further business for the Yearly Meeting, we separate, hoping to meet again from 31 July – 5 August 2021, should nothing occur to prevent’ – felt very powerful, holding much emotion and learned experience.

In 2021 Yearly Meeting Gathering was held online because of continuing Covid-19 restrictions. The need to take care of each other meant that all events were held virtually for this three-week festival of faith and friendship, including activities for children & families, young people and Junior Yearly Meeting. In 2022 Yearly Meeting returned to Friends House in London, with a continuing substantial attendance online. Such blended Yearly Meetings have become the norm ever since.

In 2024 Yearly Meeting agreed to alter its structure. Following the conclusion of the four-day meeting in London in 2026, Yearly Meeting would cease to be a single annual gathering and would become a more flexible series of linked sessions lasting one day or longer and taking place throughout the year at different locations: a continuing Yearly Meeting. Meeting for Sufferings – the representative body which had dealt with all matters affecting Britain Yearly Meeting between formal sessions – was laid down so that more discernment and decision-making could be done by a wider group of Friends meeting more frequently than once a year.

Yearly Meeting continues to receive reports from Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees and other committees. It provides an opportunity to scrutinise and affirm the work done in the name of Friends in our meetings and by our committees and staff. It lays matters of concern before a gathered session of Yearly Meeting for divine guidance, discernment testing or decision. It informs and educates us, as a meeting for learning. It agrees constitutional changes and amendments to our book of discipline. It strengthens our witness as a religious society and encourages us in our living of the testimonies. It inspires us to action, corporately in our meetings or individually and in groups. It searches our spiritual depths and refreshes our spiritual life as individuals and corporately. It reinforces the sense of community in our meetings and in Britain Yearly Meeting as a whole. It praises, gives thanks to God, and celebrates.

The intent and holy design of our annual assemblies, in their first constitution, were for a great and weighty oversight and Christian care of the affairs of the churches pertaining to our holy profession and Christian communion; that good order, true love, unity and concord may be faithfully followed and maintained among all of us.

Yearly Meeting in London, 1718

The “Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain” in session is the final constitutional authority of this Society. It is commonly known as Britain Yearly Meeting. Geographically it covers England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Its membership consists of all who belong to the area meetings in those places. All members of the Yearly Meeting have the right to attend and to take part in its deliberations, whether at the physical location or online. (See 6.16 and 6.17)

The primary purpose of the Yearly Meeting, continuing in its several sessions throughout each year, is to discern the leadings of the Spirit for the spiritual life, work and witness of Quakers in Britain.  It does this by gathering Friends together for learning, worshipping, and discerning.  Through that discernment, it seeks to make decisions, issue public statements, and respond to calls for action.

To fulfil that purpose, the deliberations of yearly meeting in session may include:

1. fostering the individual and corporate spiritual life of Quakers in Britain, furthering the development of its visionary and prophetic role;
2. supporting and encouraging individual and corporate witness of faith in action;
3. ensuring appropriate arrangements for keeping under review, testing and seasoning existing and new concerns referred to it by area meetings and other bodies;
4. receiving minutes from area meetings and other eligible bodies as appropriate, and arranging for them to be considered;
5. receiving reports and advice from Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees (including their annual report and audited financial statements), giving guidance to them and holding them to account;
6. receiving reports and advice from other committees and bodies appointed by the yearly meeting, giving guidance to them and holding them to account;
7. deciding long-term strategy and priorities for the centrally-managed work and witness;
8. appointing Friends to serve the yearly meeting in various capacities, including as representatives to other yearly meetings, following nomination by the relevant nominating bodies;
9. making or authorising public statements, in accordance with its approved policy on speaking out, on behalf of the yearly meeting;
10. ensuring that appropriate entries are made in the prison and court register;
11. ensuring that communication throughout the yearly meeting is fostered;
12. making decisions on constitutional matters, including recognising area meetings and recording changes in their composition;
13. determining, on the recommendation of the Agenda Planning Committee, the dates and venues of future sessions of the yearly meeting and arrangements for summoning a special yearly meeting if required.

The agenda may comprise:

1. minutes from area meetings, Crynwyr Cymru – Quakers in Wales, Quakers in Scotland or General Meeting of Young Friends in Britain, and minutes or memoranda from committees sharing with the yearly meeting as a whole some concern which has their united support;
2. proposals for amendments to our book of discipline forwarded by the Agenda Planning Committee in accordance with the process currently approved; details of this process may be obtained on application to the Recording Clerk;
3. certification that every part of Britain Yearly Meeting is producing proper financial accounts and property records (14.36) ;
4. the annual report of Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees and audited financial statements for the preceding year (6.25);
5. the tabular statement (6.09);
6. the report of the Agenda Planning Committee;
7. testimonies to the grace of God in the lives of deceased Friends, forwarded by area and general meetings;
8. epistles received from other yearly meetings and other Friends’ bodies, reminding us of our membership in a world family of Friends;
9. subjects initiated by the Agenda Planning Committee

Items b, c, d and e are presented for consideration and acceptance, the Trustees’ annual report and financial statements having been approved and forwarded by Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees (8.03).

The tabular statement is a factual account of changes over the preceding year in the status and membership of the constituent meetings of the yearly meeting, together with other information on the membership of the yearly meeting, compiled by the Recording Clerk from information supplied by area meetings (4.10, 11.37).

In 1999 the Agenda Committee wrote:

We see Yearly Meetings as events in the life of the institution of Britain Yearly Meeting which can involve:

• constitutional decision-making;
• annually overseeing and guiding the stewardship exercised between Yearly Meetings;
• settling policy on major areas of work or witness;
• promoting teaching and learning;
• offering inspiration and leadership;
• celebrating together;
• re-dedicating ourselves;
• calling us to action;
• creating and sustaining a community, including those both under and over nineteen.

Yearly Meetings are also occasions in which we can learn, practise, improve, and take back to our local meetings ways of conducting business which are rooted in Quaker tradition and our own experience yet also meet contemporary challenges. They should be a focus for every facet of Quakerism, constantly reminding us of what it means to be a Quaker today.

We are aware that we do not always achieve these purposes in our Yearly Meetings as well as we might; and indeed that it may not be possible to fulfil all the purposes to an equal extent at an individual Yearly Meeting. Seeking the right balance at any one Yearly Meeting is a necessary though difficult task. Our experience is that Yearly Meeting is most fruitful when its programme includes some decision-making and ‘doing together’, alongside more reflective sessions; and when it focuses on doing what only Yearly Meeting can do.

In the course of reflecting on his experience as secretary from 1940 to 1945 of Friends War Victims Relief Committee and Friends Relief Service, Roger Wilson wrote in 1949:

Yearly Meeting is not, in the last resort, made up of a body of experts. People who know a great deal about the matter in hand may do most of the talking, central committee members familiar with the complexities of translating convictions into practical terms may appear to be leading the meeting. But a few halting yet sincere hesitations, uttered by a Friend from a small meeting in a distant county may, in fact, be of more significance in revealing a matter in its true setting than all the sophistication of the committee worthies. Again and again on deep issues it is reality as known and experienced by the simple and single-minded meeting, that does not know too much to have lost its simple faith, that guides the Society; and the central committee or its administrator who knows that its service is, in the end, related to the life of the local meetings in the country, will have a deep respect for the weight of Yearly Meeting.

No organisation or planning can produce a good Yearly Meeting if those who attend come for an inadequate reason. When the Religious Society of Friends gathers for its annual assembly, it does so because it seeks to come to know the mind of God on the various affairs to be brought forward… We are ordinary people, with the shortcomings of ordinary people, and there is laid upon us the necessity of patience with one another in all our gatherings, and especially in Yearly Meeting, and the willingness to accept the imperfect arising from our human limitations. When therefore we find our Yearly Meeting falling short of the standard which it should reach, whether in worship or in deliberation, it behoves each of us to listen more intently for the voice of the Spirit, and to seek the more earnestly that every contribution, be it by spoken word or in silence, is that which is in accord with the divine leading. In our worship at Yearly Meeting, it is laid upon us with special weight to listen. It is not our ministry that is required in worship, nor our inspiration in deliberations, but we seek to hear the true word of God speaking through our frail humanity and leading us to the place where he would have us be. This is the right holding of Yearly Meeting.

Right Holding of Yearly Meeting Committee, 1960

The service and counsel of John Morland (1837–1934):

His attendance at Yearly Meeting was increasingly prized, and his personality felt to be a permeating influence. To the last his judgment retained its acuteness. How frequently in a few trenchant sentences he has cut through a problem or re-stated confused issues… The precepts laid down by him whilst clerk of Yearly Meeting (1899–1903) were scrupulously observed by himself: ‘Do not speak without a sense of the imperative ought; speak audibly, not loudly but clearly; speak shortly.’

Testimony of Mid-Somerset Monthly Meeting, 1934

Mary Hughes (1860–1941) comes with heart and mind prepared:

Anyone who lived with her during April and May knew how intensely Friends’ Yearly Meeting was on her mind. It was as important to her as ‘going up to Jerusalem’. For weeks beforehand it came into her prayers in the morning, at meal times and with friends. She wished that God’s power would be in the meetings, that people would go forth from them with a new vision of God’s work for them, a new sensitiveness towards their fellows, especially the distressed.

Rosa Hobhouse, 1949

The Yearly Meeting shall appoint clerks for a specified term of service, on the nomination of Central Nominations Committee (6.26).

All Friends are encouraged to attend Yearly Meeting online or at the venue. Yearly Meeting has agreed that area meetings, specified Yearly Meeting committees and certain other bodies should appoint representatives to attend Yearly Meeting.

Representatives to Yearly Meeting should be appointed by the body that will send them through their usual nominations process.

Representatives normally serve for three calendar years, up to a maximum of six.  This ensures that continuity of experience is balanced with opportunities for other Friends to participate in Yearly Meeting.

Attenders may be appointed to serve as Yearly Meeting representatives.  However, Yearly Meeting may close any part of the meeting to non-members if it feels the need to do so.

Britain Yearly Meeting staff should not be appointed as representatives to Yearly Meeting.

Appointing bodies are encouraged to consider these aspects of the role when discerning the names of representatives.

• The discernment of Yearly Meeting is strengthened by perspectives from its different parts, so representatives should reflect the physical, spiritual, geographical and cultural variety among British Friends.
• Each area meeting is asked to appoint one representative. Additional representatives may be appointed according to a formula agreed by YM, where circumstances such as the size or geographical spread of the area meeting warrant this
• Crynwyr Cymru – Quakers in Wales, Quakers in Scotland, and General Meeting of Young Friends in Britain are asked to appoint representatives to Yearly Meeting sessions.
• Appointed representatives should expect to be able to attend most of the Yearly Meeting sessions during their term of service. This will help continuity and ensure a reasonable minimum attendance at all sessions for Yearly Meeting business.

All Quaker communities should consider how they can ensure that their members know about Yearly Meeting and encourage them to attend.

The Agenda Planning Committee may invite any Yearly Meeting committee to send a member to a Yearly Meeting session when it feels that their attendance would be of particular assistance to the discernment of Yearly Meeting as a whole.

The clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting trustees, the Yearly Meeting treasurer or a representative of trustees, should be present at all Yearly Meeting sessions. A Clerk or a member of Central Nominations Committee should be present whenever nominations are requested or brought forward.

When committees feel that more than one of their members should be present at Yearly Meeting they might consider the option of online attendance to reduce the costs of travel.

 Members of the Society not belonging to Britain Yearly Meeting may attend the sessions of the Yearly Meeting on producing a minute or letter of introduction signed by the clerk of their own meeting or otherwise satisfying the clerk of their membership. However, Friends in sojourning membership of an area meeting (11.27) are exempt from this requirement.

Permission for the attendance of non-members at one or more sessions may be given at the discretion of the clerk, if satisfied that their presence is likely to be of service to the Society. Such permission should be sought well in advance of Yearly Meeting in accordance with the process set out in the Yearly Meeting registration documents on each occasion. Last-minute requests should not be made. Non-members should receive suitable support and guidance to enable their contribution to be of service and for them to benefit from attendance at Yearly Meeting. If called to speak in a Yearly Meeting session, non-members should be sensitive to the fact that they are not in membership and should make this known.

Non-members attending Yearly Meeting sessions must be aware that they may be asked to leave during consideration of certain sensitive business at the discretion of the clerks.

From 2026, the Yearly Meeting gathers in session more often than once a year. These sessions are responsible for continuing deliberation, discernment and the oversight of our corporate religious life and witness. There may be a longer gathering over several days, and several shorter further gatherings during the year. From time to time there may be longer residential Yearly Meetings as needed. All these gatherings have the same constitutional authority, purpose, agenda preparation, decision-making processes, and attendance arrangements.

The dates and locations of future Yearly Meeting sessions and of any residential Yearly Meetings are agreed in advance by Yearly Meeting in session on the recommendation of its agenda planning committee.

The purpose of occasional residential gatherings, in addition to considering normal yearly meeting business, is

1. to strengthen and support the witness and activity of Friends by continuing the personal friendships, spiritual inspiration and momentum that residential gatherings provide;
2. to provide time, at a more leisurely pace than is normally possible during regular Yearly Meeting sessions, for the exploration of those issues and concerns which by their nature require such time;
3. to provide the space for exploration of issues and concerns in groups or other diverse ways;
4. to provide the time and facilities for study and real learning;
5. to involve as many Quakers of all ages as possible in active participation; this should include activities for all ages.

The Proceedings of the Yearly Meeting comprise documents in advance, the Trustees’ annual report and financial statements for the preceding year, the tabular statement, the report of the Agenda Planning Committee, testimonies to the grace of God in the lives of deceased Friends, the final minutes of Yearly Meeting and any other documents as directed by Yearly Meeting.

Yearly Meeting may appoint committees or other bodies to carry out or oversee, among other things, the following functions before, during or after its sessions:

• agenda planning
• nominations
• drafting of a Yearly Meeting epistle
• examining Yearly Meeting minutes and correcting inaccuracies
• spiritual and pastoral care
• other practical arrangements for holding Yearly Meeting including issue of documents in advance.
• right conduct of sessions

Details of the names, roles, terms of reference, nomination and appointment processes, composition, membership, clerking, terms of service, and consultation and reporting arrangements of these committees and other bodies are set out in supplementary material approved by the Yearly Meeting.

Yearly Meeting appoints members of its committees and Britain Yearly Meeting Trustees.

Yearly Meeting entrusts to Trustees the organisation and periodic revision of the structure of certain committees (8.06, 8.17). However, it reserves to itself decisions affecting the existence and basic functions of Quaker Life and Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committees (8.07, 8.08 , 8.11). The work they represent may not be altered without the approval of Yearly Meeting in session. In such cases any proposed amendments to our church government must, after due consideration, be forwarded to Yearly Meeting for decision (8.17).

Central Nominations Committee is responsible for finding names for appointments as required by Yearly Meeting and for overseeing and developing nominations procedures It is appointed by Yearly Meeting on the nomination of Yearly Meeting Nominating Group. Members are appointed on a rotating triennial basis. Terms of reference for the committee are agreed by Yearly Meeting.

Omitted

Omitted