Fellowship, Service and the ‘Spirit of Adventure’: The Religious Society of Friends and the Outdoors Movement in Britain, C. 1900–1950

This article considers the involvement of members of the Religious Society of Friends in various manifestations of the outdoors movement in early twentieth-century Britain. It examines the Edwardian ‘Quaker tramps’ and their role in the ‘Quaker renaissance’, and goes on to consider the influence of Friends in organisations such as the Holiday Fellowship and the Youth Hostels Association, as well as interwar Quaker mountaineers. It argues that, while the outdoor activities of the Quaker renaissance were essentially internal to the Religious Society of Friends, a wider conception of social service took Quakers beyond the boundaries of the Society in the interwar period, resulting in a more profound influence on the outdoors movement. These activities of Friends were associated with the promotion of the ‘social gospel’, and represented a significant strand of Quaker service in the first half of the twentieth century.