Erica Canela

Photo of Erica Canela

Department of Theology and Religion
Doctoral researcher

Contact details

PhD title:  Quakers in Herefordshire and Worcestershire: From the Civil Wars to Toleration c.1640 - 1708
Supervisors: Dr Richard C. Allen and Dr Rosemary Moore
PhD Theology and Religion

Research

My thesis explores the topic of early Quakerism in Herefordshire and Worcestershire, encompassing their origins in the mid-seventeenth century to the period of acceptance and respectability in the early eighteenth century. Religious identity was central to early modern communities, and this thesis will examine the impact of identifying as a Quaker had on an individual's family dynamic, economic prospects, and the wider community.  The earliest Quakers and their unrelenting zealousness amidst the post-civil war religious vacuum make them a perfect case study for the seventeenth century, and a regional approach allows for a more narrow focus on distinct communities. My thesis is a study that centres on two counties that were decimated by war and those individuals who saw Quakerism as the only viable spiritual option to the state church.

Other activities

Conference Papers:

  • June 2018 – Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: 'Our dear Friend has departed this life': Testimony writing in the long eighteenth century'
  • June 2016 – Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, Birmingham, England: 'Eulogising a Seventeenth Century Friend': The Commendable Life and Noble Death of Humphrey Smith
  • February 2016 – Friends House Library History Group, London: 'Eulogising a Seventeenth Century Friend': The Commendable Life and Noble Death of Humphrey Smith
  • June 2014 – Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, Westtown, Pennsylvania: 'Lamentation Over England': Morgan Watkins (c.1684), Polemics and Restoration Quakerism on the English Borders
  • May 2014 – University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Conference of Religious History: 'Morgan Watkins (-c.1684), A Quaker Voice on the English Borders.'
  • January 2014 - South Wales Centre for Historical and Interdisciplinary Research Seminar: 'In the Name of God Amen: Tudor Wills in Breconshire'

Affiliations:

  • Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, Steering Committee
  • Quaker Studies Research Association, Web Officer
  • Friends Historical Society, Executive Committee / Web Officer
  • Friends Historical Association
  • Worcestershire Historical Society

Awards:

  • 2015 Gerald Hodgett Award, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Birmingham, UK.
  • 2014 David Adshead Award, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre and Quaker Studies Research Association, Birmingham, UK
  • 2014 Friends' Historical Society Research Grant, Friends Historical Society, London, UK. Research Project: 'A worthy Soldier and Follower of the Lamb': Humphrey Smith (c.1624 – 1663), the Civil Wars, his missionary activity, and publications.

Publications

Books:

  • Communicating the Thoughts and Actions of the Early Quakers: Understanding and Interpreting the Swarthmore Manuscripts [with Richard C. Allen] (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming)
  • The First Quakers, 1647 – 1660 (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming)

Article:

  • 'The Commendable Life and Noble Death of Humphrey Smith' Quaker Studies, Vol. 25, 1, 2020, pp. 3 – 26

Book Chapter:

  • "Our dear Friend has departed this life": Testimony writing in the long eighteenth century' in Quakerism in the Atlantic World in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680s - 1830s (University Park: Penn State Press, 2021)

Book Reviews:

  • New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650 – 1800 edited by Michele Lise Tarter and Catie Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) in Quaker Studies, June 2019
  • Enlightening Enthusiasm: Prophecy and Religious Experience in Early Eighteenth-Century England by Lionel Laborie (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) in Quaker Studies, June 2018
  • A Path in the Mighty Waters: Shipboard Life and Atlantic Crossings to the New World by Stephen R. Berry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015) in Quaker Studies, June 2017