Joseph Bevan Braithwaite

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite
Born	21 June 1818 Kendal
Died	15 November 1905 Islington, London
Nationality	English
Occupation	Barrister
Known for	Evangelical Quaker minister
Spouse(s)	Martha Gillett (married 1851–1895)

Joseph Bevan Braithwaite (21 June 1818 Kendal – 15 November 1905 Islington, London) was a conservative, evangelical English Quaker minister. In 1851, he married Martha Gillett (1823–1895), also an acknowledged Quaker minister, and together they had nine children.

In 1887, he drafted the Quaker Richmond Declaration which stated, among other things, that the Bible was of greater authority than the Inner Light.

Braithwaite was born in 1818 to Quaker minister Anna Braithwaite and manufacturer Isaac Braithwaite of Kendal. His mother had been involved in trying to heal the first schism of Quakerism personified by Elias Hicks. Braithwaite attended the Friends' School, Stramongate, Kendal, in the Lake District. In the late 1830s, he was drawn to the evangelical ministry of Isaac Crewdson. He considered leaving mainstream Quakerism, as many in his family had done, but in 1840 he attended London Yearly Meeting and decided to remain. In 1843, Braithwaite became a barrister but due to a pronounced stammer he did not practice in court.

Despite his stammer, Braithwaite spoke eloquently at Westminster Meeting House and he was acknowledged as a recorded minister in 1844. After the death of the leading Quaker evangelical, Joseph John Gurney, in 1847 the responsibility for evangelical leadership among British Quakers passed to Braithwaite, who edited Gurney's Memoirs, the two volumes of which were published in 1854.

Like his mother, Braithwaite travelled extensively among Quaker meetings in Britain and Ireland. He visited the USA five times between 1865 and 1887 and established extensive contacts with American Quakers who visited London. He therefore became personally influential in Quakerism both in Britain, the USA and France.

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