With the benefits of the welfare state having now extended over several generations it is difficult to imagine the severe hardship once experienced by those in ill-health or un-provided for in old age. Where such safeguards did not exist it frequently fell to charities and personal conscience to make provision. Alongside other religious groups, the Quakers, both collectively and individually, recognised the needs of the community, providing relief through personal contributions, the funding of innovative schemes for physical and mental health, education, training and reform. A good many managing committees had a Sturge name upon the list of members and harnessed their energies for the support of a worthy cause.

Quaker women often led the way. In a testimony written after the death of Abiah Darby in 1794, the Shropshire Monthly Meeting recorded of her that “She was a tender sympathiser with those afflicted , whether in body or mind, and an eminent example of Christian benevolence to those who are stewards of the good things of this life, being rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and also at sundry times, under an especial apprehension of duty, the condemned and other prisoners in different jails.”

Many undertook such works and others were better known than Abiah Darby, the name of Elizabeth Fry probably being the one best known today. The recognition of that social responsibility was witnessed in the life of Sarah Lloyd Sturge (Mrs Wilson Sturge,) who played an exceptionally active role in her community throughout her long life.

Sara Sturge continued the example set by her parents, Sampson and Mary Lloyd, and the similar commitment of the family she was to marry into. She did not allow her ten children to distract her from her work for the “Ladies’ Negro Friends Society,” anti-slavery work, the Mothers Meeting, the children’s Bible Class held in her home every Sunday, soup kitchens, assisting the deaf and dumb, running a school for colliery girls and her involvement in numerous religious interests.

Every two years she led the organisation of a Christmas Tea Party for the aged poor of Birmingham. Five hundred people benefited from this event, held in the Town Hall over two days. Amongst the various papers of the Birmingham branch of the family we discovered one copy of the handbill advertising for subscriptions to this event and this is reproduced below.

Sara Sturge 1831 - 1922

By modern standards, the wording may appear strange and the thought of the subscribers being admitted to watch the spectacle would certainly be considered inappropriate today. Nevertheless, that carefully folded and preserved handbill is just one of many illustrations of how members of the family heeded the principles of their Quaker lifestyle, following the words dictated by George Fox, when a prisoner at Launceston in 1656. “Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach amongst all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one.”