Note: The word “overseer” has traditionally been used by Quakers to describe Friends who are responsible for pastoral care. After consultation, in 2022 Meeting for Sufferings asked all area meetings to use another word or phrase because the traditional one has often been associated with the transatlantic slave trade, slavery and other forms of oppression.

In this edition of Quaker faith & practice, there are many references to “overseer” and “oversight”. Quaker faith and practice is currently being revised and, while we wait for it, we trust that readers will bear in mind our firm intention to remove the word as soon as we can. Older quotations may need some explanatory text where editing would be inappropriate.

Some Friends, whether called elders or not, have been looked to for spiritual counsel from the beginning. So in 1653 William Dewsbury proposed that each meeting should appoint ‘one or two most grown in the Power and the Life, in the pure discerning of the Truth’ to take responsibility for the spiritual welfare of the meeting and its members.

While the nurture of the spiritual life and responsibility for the right holding of meeting for worship continued to rest with ‘elders’, the more practical aspects of pastoral care were, towards the end of the eighteenth century, assigned to appointed ‘overseers’.

Most area meetings continue the practice of appointing elders and overseers from their membership to ensure that the needs of the worshipping groups within their compass are met.