There was a community of Quakers in Harrogate and district in the late 17th century. The cases of John Hogg, who was put in the stocks for "speaking to the Priest at Rippon" in 1657, and Isabel Hogg, who was imprisoned in 1664 for non-payment of tithes, are both recorded by Besse. However the town did not have an independent Meeting and came within the orbit of neighbouring Knaresborough. In the 1820s and 1830s, travelling ministers such as Elizabeth Robson (1771-1843) and James Backhouse (1774-1869) visited Harrogate and held public meetings. By early 1835, a meeting for worship was established, solely for the use of visiting Friends, for there were none resident in the town at that time. An Allowed Meeting opened "during the season" from 1854, with its own purpose-built Meeting House on Chapel Street (now Oxford Street). This became a full Preparative Meeting in 1861. After the closure of Darley Meeting in 1887, Friends from there joined Harrogate and the Meeting was known locally as Darley and Harrogate until 1915. A new Meeting House was built at 12a Queen Parade in 1966 and is still in use. The Meeting has historically formed part of York Monthly Meeting.
From the guide to the Records of Harrogate Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1864-1907, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
