Many thanks as always for your kind and constructive comments Andrew. You are certainly right about how some of their contemporaries viewed them, namely as sanctimonious - a charge which had previously been levelled at puritans and others. For Quakers in North America, an excellent starting point is Andrew Murphy's work on William Penn. As for Quaker occupations, and indeed their average age-profile, I'll deal with these shortly.
Many thanks as always for your kind and constructive comments Andrew. You are certainly right about how some of their contemporaries viewed them, namely as sanctimonious - a charge which had previously been levelled at puritans and others. For Quakers in North America, an excellent starting point is Andrew Murphy's work on William Penn. As for Quaker occupations, and indeed their average age-profile, I'll deal with these shortly.