A Meeting was settled in Bradford around 1652 by Christopher Taylor of Chapel-in-the-Bryer, who had been convinced by the preaching of William Dewsbury. A group of Quakers from Bradford was amongst those imprisoned in York Castle in early 1661. John Wynn and his wife Deborah Kitchin were both early ministers and held meetings at their home. When the structure of the Society was formalised in 1669, Bradford Friends became part of Brighouse Preparative Meeting. This arrangement did not last beyond 1670 or 1671, when an independent Meeting in Bradford is recorded by Besse. A burial ground was acquired in 1672 at Goodman's End and the first Meeting House opened on the same site in 1698. The journal of William Edmundson gives evidence of the strength of Quakerism in the area in the 1690s. Over the following centuries, Bradford Meeting had amongst its members the Bartlett, Hustler, Seebohm, Peckover, Harris, Maud and Priestman families. Local Quakers were involved in the wool trade, banking and insurance (the Friends Provident Institution was founded in the city in 1832); large numbers of them were also apothecaries and doctors. In 1732 a new Meeting House was built on the same site; this was demolished and replaced by a new building in 1811. Despite successive improvements, the whole property was sold in 1876 and a new Meeting House opened in Fountain Street two years later. 11 Melbourne Place, was bought in 1951, following a decline in membership; the Meeting has been housed in Russell Street since 1995. Quaker burials took place in the municipal cemetery at Undercliffe from 1856 onwards. The Meeting has historically been part of Brighouse Monthly Meeting.
From the guide to the Records of Bradford Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1650-1968, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
