There were very few Quakers in Huddersfield before the Industrial Revolution. Edmund Horsefall, Edward Key and John Brook suffered distraint of goods in 1683 for being absent from the national worship; of these, the Brook family of Row in Lockwood continued to be Quaker into the 18th century. A Meeting known as Paddock was settled in the early 1770s to accommodate the large number of Friends, particularly those in the textile trade, who had removed to Huddersfield from High Flatts and Lumbroyd. It was a constituent of Brighouse Monthly Meeting. A plot of common land was enclosed in 1769, on which a Meeting House was built. When a new Meeting House superseded this in 1812, it was used as a women's Meeting House and a schoolroom, before being demolished in 1898. A large hall to accommodate the Adult School was added to the Meeting House in the same year. The name of the Meeting was changed to Huddersfield from May 1804. One of the mainstays of the Meeting was the Firth family, particularly Thomas Firth (1797-1879), a tea dealer in Kirkgate. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries, the Robson family, bleachers and dyers of Dalton, were influential both as Friends and in the wider local community. The Meeting is still in existence.
From the guide to the Records of Huddersfield Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1769-1977, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
