John Audland (b. 1630-d.1664), one of the ‘first and most eminent’ Quaker preachers, according to William Penn,¹ was born near Camsgill, Kendal, in Westmorland. His parents and kindred were ‘of good repute’ [Camm and Marshall 1689; B5], and as an adult he worked as a linen draper, living at Crosslands, near Preston Patrick. Early on he became an eminent preacher, associated with the Westmorland Seekers. Here, he met and about 1650 married Anne Newby. According to his personal testimony, he was immediately convinced the first time he heard George Fox preach, at the age of twenty-two. As First Publishers of Truth records, he and Francis Howgill were preaching ‘to a seekeing and religeous people ther seprated from the Common way of Nationall worshipe’ at Firbank Chapel on the morning before Fox preached from the rock (Fox’s ‘pulpit’) outside, and afterwards it was to Audland’s house ‘at Crosslands in Westmrland, whither he came second or third day of the same weeke, & J A, & his wife Ann, Joyfully received him into theire house’ [page 243].

A year later, Audland became a ‘faithful minister’ [Nickalls, page 124] and travelled to spread the Quaker message amongst Baptists and Independents, accompanied first by Thomas Airey, and then by John Camm who travelled with him for many years. Apart from a visit to London, Audland’s ministry concentrated on Bristol and the South West. In Bristol Audland and Camm were responsible for the conversion of many in the city, convening a large Meeting of about 1,500 people. Audland's preaching was powerful, appealing to ‘all sorts of people; he had a word in season to all conditions’, so that ‘many hundreds were turned to God through him’ [Tomkins, pages 175–6]. Audland experienced persecution at and was imprisoned by the authorities in Bristol on several occasions. For example, he and Camm were attacked by ‘some hundreds of the rabble’ on their way from Bristol to a meeting they had arranged in Brislington [Besse, 1:39] and in 1654, he was apprehended as a Franciscan friar (along with Camm, George Fox, Edward Burrough, and James Nayler). In 1655, he journeyed from Bristol to Swannington, Leicestershire, to attend a large meeting, presided over by Fox at which Ranters, Baptists and other professors of the truth were ‘confounded’ [Nickalls, page 182]). Audland’s defence of Quaker principles against detractors was also conveyed in published tracts, most importantly, The Innocent Delivered out of the Snare (1655), a response to a Presbyterian attack on Quakers by Ralph Farmer, and The School Master Disciplined (1655).

Audland died on 22 January 1663/4 aged only about thirty-four, and was buried at Birkrigg Park (Westmorland) in the Quaker Burial ground. His early death was possibly a result of his sufferings in the cause; his wife Ann Camm (she later married John Camm's son Thomas) described how he was ‘much spent, through his great labours’ [Camm and Marshall D4]. Their son was born ten days after John Audland’s death.

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Further Reading
Joseph Besse A Collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, 2 vols (London: Luke Hinde, 1753)
William C. Braithwaite The Beginnings of Quakerism edited H. J. Cadbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1955)
The Memory of the Righteous Revived being a brief collection of the books and epistles of John Camm and John Audland edited Thomas Camm and Charles Marshal (London, 1689)
Caroline L. Leachman ‘John Audland’ in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition: your local library card will usually give you access)
J. Tomkins and J. Field Piety promoted … in five parts (1721)
The Journal of George Fox edited John L. Nickalls (Philadelphia: Religious Society of Friends, 1997)
‘The First Publishers of Truth’: being early records, now first printed, of the introduction of Quakerism into the counties of England and Wales edited Norman Penney (Friends Historical Society Journal Supplements 1-5; London: Headley; New York: Taber, 1907)

1.    Preface to the 1694 printed version of the Journal, edited Thomas Ellwood.     Return