A Meeting was settled in Brighouse around 1652 by Christopher Taylor of Chapel-in-the-Bryer, who had been convinced by the preaching of William Dewsbury. Groups of Quakers from the area were amongst those imprisoned in York Castle in January 1661, including John Green of Liversedge, who eventually died in prison in 1676. The Meeting was recorded in 1665 as Brighouse and Mankinholes, part of Pontefract Monthly Meeting. In 1669, it became part of the newly formed Brighouse Monthly Meeting. It drew in Friends from Liversedge, Oakenshaw, Bradford, Bowling and Great Horton, as well as Brighouse. Meetings were held at the homes of Thomas Taylor of Brighouse, John Green of Liversedge and William Pearson of Oakenshaw. Mankinholes formed a separate Meeting and Bradford broke away by 1670 or 1671. A decade later, Friends had acquired their first Meeting House and burial ground, on Snake Hill, Rastrick. The site was known as Scar Mill Cliff and was rebuilt in 1737. Land at Newlands was bought in 1863 and six years later a large Meeting House with classrooms opened on the site. Since this was sold in 1958, the Meeting continued in rented accommodation until its closure in 1988.
From the guide to the Records of Brighouse Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1701-1990, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
