Stephen Hubbersty


Stephen Hubbersty (1631–1711) was the younger brother of Miles. Fox describes them as 'two sinmple-hearted men'.

First Publishers speaks of him in the section on Underbarrow:

Stephen Huberstie, Brother to the said Miles, who was allso an Husbandman, and early raised up to Labour in the worke of the Ministry, and mett wth hardships in many places, perticularly in ye Towne of Kerby Lonsdalle, where he was sore abused and beaten unreasonably for Calling people to repentance, & lost much blood at that time, and one or two of his teethe broken out of his mouth. Travelled in sevrall parts of this nation, after some years Marryed, and sattled at Hendon, neare London, where he is yet Liveing, a ffaithfull servant of the Lord.

He travelled to the South West: but also in Essex and London. His publications included England's lamentation, or Her sad estate lamented as also a call to the heads and rulers, and all sorts to repentance, and shewing them the cause why so many disasters, and the judgements of God which are in the earth, and also a way how to remove the same, with an answer to some objections and the Eistles to Friends My dearly beloved Friends and brethren whom the Lord hath reached unto and visited with his heavenly power, by which you have been gathered to himself to eat of the finest of the wheat. In these he stresses that the Quakers are 'the peaceable people of God', for 'our weapons are not carnal but spiritual', and laments the torments inflicted on them by their fellow countrymen, 'throwing many into Holes, and even into infected Prisons, contrary to your own advice in your Prayer Book, so that many hath lost their lives'. He suggess that the spread of the plague has been sent by God as a punishment and warning to their persecutors.

He married Ann (died 1681), with whom he had two children, Hannah (1675) and Samuel (1670, who died in 1685 at the age of 24, predeceasing his father). He settled in Hendon, where he died on 9 May 1711 'Aged about 79 years' [Middlesex burials]. His marriage does not seem to have been recorded by London and Middlesex Quarterly Meeting, but both he and 'Anne HUbbersty' are witnesses at the marriage of his brother Miles to Hannah Haley on 13 September 1671 in Clerkendwell, and they are both present for the earlier marriage of the Lancastrian James Fell with Sarah Haley, his brother Miles' future sister-in-law, on 2 September 1669.


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Further Reading
Joseph Besse, A collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, 2 vols (London: Luke Hinde, 1753)
William C. Braithwaite, The Beginnings of Quakerism, edited Henry J. Cadbury (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1955, reprinted 1981)
Norman Penney The First Publishers of Truth (1907)