Tom Hamm and the Public Ministers: John Wilbur and the Long Roots of Conservative Quakerism

Tom Hamm’s Thanksgiving Series on Public Ministers (Part 3… and yes, we promise Part 4 is coming)

Remember back at Thanksgiving when we boldly announced a four-part series on nineteenth-century public ministers? And then we only managed to publish two? Well, Friends, welcome to the other half. Consider this our late-season act of faithfulness. Ministry happens on its own timetable, after all.

We are indebted to the Quaker Faith and Podcast for this chart, which can be found: HERE

Today we turn to John Wilbur, one of the most consequential and complicated Quaker ministers of the era. If Elias Hicks lit the match and Joseph John Gurney fanned the flames, Wilbur was the one who tried to build a firebreak. His fierce commitment to what he understood as “primitive Quakerism” created a new strain of Friends in the nineteenth century. That strain lives on today as Conservative Friends.

And like every figure in this series, he still has something to teach those of us trying to walk in public ministry now.

A Minister Shaped by Discipline and Tradition

Wilbur was born in Rhode Island in 1774 and grew up in a strict Quaker family. He spent his life as a farmer, a surveyor, an elder, and—eventually—a recorded minister. He was a stalwart defender of what he saw as the original Quaker message. He pushed back hard against Elias Hicks during the Hicksite controversy, especially around Christology and scripture. Yet he shared Hicks’s concern about the growing involvement of Friends in outside reform groups.

His worldview was simple and deeply held: holiness is slow work. The spiritual life takes a lifetime of inward attention, suffering, and discipline. And anything that might distract Friends from that inward work—whether it was fashionable reform movements or theological innovations—looked dangerous to him.

Enter Joseph John Gurney, Stage Left

If you’ve been following this series, you already know Gurney as the well-educated, well-funded, determined English Friend who left a large imprint on nineteenth-century Quakerism. Gurney emphasized scripture, definite conversion, association with other Christians, and an active outward-facing ministry.

To Wilbur, this looked like a complete distortion of the Quaker way.

He accused Gurney and his supporters of preaching a “gospel of cheap grace,” one where a person could be justified simply by believing rather than by growing slowly into holiness. He insisted that justification and sanctification are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other.

He also believed Gurney was exalting the written word above the Spirit’s ongoing guidance and placing too much weight on the outward work of Christ while neglecting the inward work of transformation. And he was deeply distressed by the way English Friends had begun forming associations with non-Quakers in anti-slavery, Bible, and prison reform societies, fearing these ties would reshape Friends more than Friends could reshape the world.

For Wilbur, these shifts weren’t just concerning—they were existential threats to Quaker identity.

The Separation and the Birth of Conservative Friends

The conflict came to a head in the early 1840s. When Wilbur publicly warned Friends about Gurney’s teaching, the Gurneyite leadership of New England Yearly Meeting moved quickly to silence him. When Wilbur’s own monthly meeting refused to discipline him, the yearly meeting dissolved that meeting entirely and reassigned its members elsewhere.

Greenwich Monthly Meeting, now his new meeting and firmly Gurneyite, promptly disowned him for detraction and defamation. Wilbur appealed, but the yearly meeting affirmed the decision in 1843. That was the breaking point. Wilbur and about five hundred supporters left to form what they believed was the true New England Yearly Meeting of Friends.

From there, other yearly meetings had to choose sides. Most followed London Yearly Meeting and recognized the Gurneyites. Ohio Yearly Meeting split later, where Wilburites were the majority. Philadelphia nearly tore itself apart and ultimately chose to cut off all official communication with every other yearly meeting rather than take a position.

The long-term result was the emergence of Conservative Quakerism, defined by plainness, silence, spiritual discipline, and a continued wariness of outside influence. When Gurneyite meetings later adopted pastoral systems and abandoned long-held practices, conservative Friends saw it as confirmation that Wilbur’s warnings had been right all along.

What This Has to Do with Public Ministry Today

Wilbur is not the easiest companion to sit with. He could be severe, uncompromising, and unable to see nuance where nuance was needed. And yet he reminds us of something essential in ministry: that the inward work matters. That our spiritual lives are shaped slowly. That holiness has something to do with patience, honesty, and a kind of faithfulness that resists shortcuts.

He also reminds us that fear and purity concerns can lead to isolation, rigidity, and the harm that comes from cutting ties rather than staying in relationship.

Public ministry today requires a kind of balance Wilbur struggled to find. We need grounding and roots and the inward attentiveness he championed. And we also need the courage to remain in relationship with communities, even when they change, even when it is risky, even when our first impulse is to retreat.

There’s wisdom in his life if we listen for it. There are also cautions.

Next up in our very belated second half of our four-part series: David Updegraff. We promise not to make you wait until Easter for that one.

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This is all leading up to Tom's live public appearance in December! Who would want to miss that? You can register here.

Tom is Emeritus Professor of History and Quaker Scholar in Residence at Earlham College. He is the presenter in an ongoing series of short lectures for Friends Incubator on his personal favorite public ministers in Quaker history.

If you enjoyed this and other lectures and want to support the series and our new work to support public ministry in the Religious Society of Friends, please consider a gift: here.

Audio for this series edited by Martin Oliver (Baltimore Yearly Meeting and Northern Yearly Meeting).