Pendle Hill Beginnings - The Founders

Pendle Hill had a predecessor in Quaker adult education, the Woolman School, which opened in 1915 under the care of the Advancement Committee of Friends General Conference. In 1927 the Woolman School closed for lack of students and funds. However, Caroline Norment, its acting director, and Paul Furnas, clerk of the board, had a larger vision for a new Quaker educational center and a continuation committee was appointed. A key planning meeting was held three days after the stock market crash of October 24, 1929.

The founders of Pendle Hill included well-known Quaker spiritual leaders, teachers and business people such as Rufus Jones of Haverford, Henry Cadbury of Bryn Mawr, William and Hannah Clothier Hull of Swarthmore, George Walton of George School and his brother, J. Barnard Walton, Agnes Tierney of Coulter Street Meeting, Germantown, and D. Robert Yarnall, who was to clerk the Board for 24 years. The first director was Henry Hodgkin, a respected British Quaker who played a large role in naming Pendle Hill after the hill climbed by George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, in 1652, from which he saw "a great people to be gathered." Henry Hodgkin wrote: "The name of Pendle Hill symbolizes the call to climb to spiritual heights through hard thinking and self-discipline...to see deeper into the meaning of life and farther out into the great world, and to come down, as did Fox from Pendle Hill, with a fresh zest for the service which reaches to 'that of God' in all...." [Pendle Hill: An Experiment in Life and Education, p. 3]

At first Henry Hodgkin directed recruitment efforts at recent college graduates who had some practical experience and would come to Pendle Hill to prepare for future service. In addition, some college faculty members looked to Pendle Hill as a place to live and study during their sabbaticals. Students were generally expected to stay for a year's study. At the start Pendle Hill's student body was diverse religiously and racially, and included two African Americans as well as students from several countries.

Pendle Hill opened with an excellent faculty for 1930-31, including several teachers who were on the faculty of Swarthmore, Haverford or Bryn Mawr College: Henry Sharman (Bible), Rufus Jones (mysticism), Henry Cadbury (the Prophets), Douglas Steere and George Thomas ("Religion and the Modern World"), Ilse Forrest (religious education), Henry Hodgkin (social relations) and Clarence Pickett (Quakerism, with Henry Hodgkin). The first year was successful, with two publications resulting from group efforts, the start of the public Monday night lectures, and visits from Muriel Lester and Rabindranath Tagore.

With Henry Hodgkin's untimely death in 1933, Pendle Hill struggled to establish itself, promoting its initial purpose as it sought students, staff and other participants. Finally the Board recruited Howard and Anna Cox Brinton to serve as directors in 1936. The Brintons led Pendle Hill over the next two decades and were largely responsible for making Pendle Hill a significant Quaker resource for the Religious Society of Friends in the United States and around the world.