1. Barry Levy, Quakers and the American Family (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 3–52;
2. Bruce G. Blackwood, The Lancashire Gentry and the Great Rebellion 1640–1660 (Manchester: Chetham Society, 1978), 1–4;
3. Barry Reay, The Quakers and the English Revolution (New York: St. Martins, 1985), 55–72; see also the VCHL for a detailed account of the economy and topography of Furness.
4. VCHL, vol. 8, 351–54, 361–62; Ralph A. Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450–1700 (London: Longman, 1984), 23; Henry Barber, Swarthmoor Hall and Its Associations (Ulverston: 187?), 24–33; Ross, Margaret Fell, Mother of Quakerism (London: Longman, 1949), chap. 1. In this chapter I am indebted to Isabel Ross for her fine chronological chart giving details of the important events in Fell’s life. This study includes an updated version of Ross’s chart.
5. See Dictionary of National Biography for details of the various offices held by Judge Thomas Fell. See also Ross, Margaret Fell, passim; VCHL, 8:354; Barber, Swarthmoor Hall and Its Associations, 24–33. Judge Fell’s funeral took place in October 1658 at St. Mary’s, Ulverston. According to local church ritual, it was by torchlight, a tradition observed for notable persons. See C. W. Bardsley, ed. Registers of the Ulverston Parish Church (Ulverston; James Atkinson, 1886), 154. Between 1645 and 1646 with the expulsion of Royalists from the House of Commons, new elections were held and many Independents were elected, of which Thomas Fell was one. These MPs were known as recruiter members. Fell remained an MP until 1647 after which time he was reported absent without cause and fined £20. Judge Fell was sympathetic to the Independents and, as lord of the manor of Ulverston, he may well have been instrumental in calling the Independent minister, William Lampitt, to the rectorship of his parish St. Mary’s, Ulverston. William Lampitt, referred to as “Priest Lampitt” by George Fox in his Journal, encountered Fox for the first time when Fox made his somewhat disdainful “steeplehouse” entry in June 1652. Ross, 11–12; Fell’s “Testimony,” George Fox Journal, Thomas Ellwood, ed., 1891, reprinted in Works of George Fox (1975), I, 50.