1940: Over 500 men between the ages of 20 and 23 registered for 'call-up' at the Peterborough Labour Exchange on this Saturday. Of these only five registered a conscientious objection. In the end 490 actually signed up. 64 with the Navy and 130 with the RAF. The rest offered no definite preference. Not surprisingly, bearing in mind the industrial landscape of Peterborough, there was more than the usual number of recruits who were in reserved occupations - mainly engineering. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
George Whitehead visited Peterborough in this year. Travelling with other Friends (which is how Quakers addressed each other then and many still today) through neighbouring counties he arrived in the city. He wrote, “I was much pressed in Spirit to endeavour for a Meeting in the City of Peterborow, tho’ I heard of no Friends there to receive me.”
A Meeting for Worship was arranged and was well attended by Friends from neighbouring areas and by local townspeople and, despite considerable abuse and violence from a mob, who considered Friends heretics, the gathering ended quietly in the afternoon, and Friends “…parted peaceably without molestation or disturbance.”
His visit did not result in establishing a Quaker Meeting in Peterborough.
George Whitehead (1636–1723) was a leading early Quaker preacher, author and lobbyist remembered for his advocacy of religious freedom before three kings of England. His lobbying in defence of the right to practice the Quaker religion was influential on the Act of Uniformity, the Bill of Rights of 1689 and the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. He suffered imprisonment and abuse for his beliefs.
George Whitehead visited Peterborough in this year. Travelling with othe…