Joseph Gurney Bevan

Joseph Gurney Bevan (1753-1814) was the son of a chemist/druggist in Lombard Street, London. Bevan was the cousin of Joseph John Gurney and Elizabeth Gurney Fry, both well known Quaker activists. He took over his father’s business in 1784, and retired ten years later. He became a Quaker at seventeen, and remained a steadfast follower, refusing to supply armed ships with drugs from his firm. He began writing for an almanac published by the Quaker printer, James Phillips, in 1794, and wrote for four years, contributing numerous poems. He moved to Stoke Newington in 1796, where he published Refutation of the Misrepresentations of the Society of Friends, Commonly called Quakers, with a Life of James Nayler; also a Summary of the History, Doctrine, and Discipline of Friends (1800). In 1802 he published his Appeal to the Society of Friends, in which he showed that Quakers were not and had never been Unitarians. Thoughts on Reason and Revelation appeared in 1805. He was considered by many to be one of the ablest of the Quaker apologists.