ABSTRACT
The Quaker concern for the poor grew from deep roots in their history, and their system of caring for the poor helped to shape who they were in the late 1700s. From the beginning of his spiritual search, George Fox had seen the Anglican Church’s required pew tax as a form of oppression. The Quaker use of the word thou’ for all people similarly signaled Fox’s belief that all men deserved respect because he felt that the use of thou’ exclusively to inferiors contradicted his belief in the inner light of Christ in all men. The Quaker appreciation for the property of the poor as exemplified in both John Scott and Wilkinson’s writings and in the meeting house records also appears in Wordsworth’s writing. Wordsworth seldom describes any subservience in his beggars; his poor generally move with a type of self-possession encouraged by the Quakers. The aversion to theological theorizing resulted in few Quaker doctrinal writings on the poor.
