Title: Dublin's merchant-Quaker
First published: 1998
Description: A towering figure in the history of Irish Quakerism, and friend of William Penn and William Edmundson, Anthony Sharp left England in 1669 to settle in Dublin and carve a place for himself in the woolen trade. As a businessman he succeeded brilliantly, employing some 500 workers and amassing a fortune that included lands in Ireland, England, and New Jersey. His economic success helped him gain entree to prominent political and ecclesiastical officials, from whom he sought relief for persecuted Quakers.

Dublin's Merchant-Quaker is not only a biography of Sharp but a portrait of Dublin's community of Friends. The author explains in detail the functioning of national, provincial, and local meetings; the Friends' work in educating and disciplining their members; their provision of charity to the needy; and their efforts to ransom captives in Muslim lands.

In undertaking these activities, Sharp and his fellow Quakers expressed the driving force of their faith and built a society that sustained the Friends for centuries to come as a minority within another minority, the Protestants of Ireland.
Subjects: Quakers, Biography, Merchants, Homes and haunts, History, Quakers, biography, Dublin (ireland), Ireland, biography
Places: Dublin, Ireland
People: Anthony Sharp (1643-1707)
Time periods: 17th century
LC classification: DA995.D75 G74 1998