George Fox first visited Selby in 1651, after his release from gaol in Derby. There is no evidence that he actually preached in the town at that time, but he had already made contact with John Leake of Selby, who had visited him in prison. Some of the first Friends to be convinced in the town were John Leake and his wife Ann, and Richard and Elizabeth Tomlinson. William Dewsbury preached in Selby in the early 1650s and was probably responsible for settling the Meeting. Mary Fisher, counted as one of the Valiant Sixty, came from Selby and began to preach in the local area as early as 1652. The Meeting was recorded in 1665 as part of Pontefract Monthly Meeting, and again in 1669 as part of York Monthly Meeting. It encompassed the villages of Cottingwith, Skipwith, Aughton and Brayton, as well as Selby. Its leading members included George Canby, who compiled the history of the origins of Quakerism in Selby printed in The First Publishers of Truth (1907). Both he and John Leake were imprisoned in early 1661 along with hundreds of other Friends in Yorkshire. Land was purchased in Gowthorpe for a burial ground in 1692; it is probable that the Meeting House also dates from this time, although it was substantially rebuilt in 1785. The Meeting closed in 1877.
From the guide to the Records of Selby Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1698-1951, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
