Joseph Besse


Joseph Besse was an English Quaker controversialist. He quantified the sufferings and persecution undergone by the Quakers.

Biography

Besse was born about 1683 and lived in Colchester, where he was a writing master. There he married on 9 October 1716 Hannah Dehorne, who died in Chelmsford. Besse then moved to Ratcliff, now part of east London, where he died on 25 November 1757 and was buried in the Friends' burial ground. His son of the same name emigrated to Pennsylvania. Besse was a convert to the Quakers from the Anglican Church, in which he had refused a living worth 400 shillings a year.

Works

Besse was a vigorous controversialist. Various works of his have been edited by William Sewel, Richard Claridge, Henton Brown, Isaac Penington, and Samuel Bownas. His main books and tracts were:
His prime work is the Sufferings of the Quakers, a laborious compilation of cases of persecution against Quakers, arranged by British counties, followed by New England, Barbados, Nevis, Bermudas, Antigua, Maryland, Jamaica, Europe and Asia, Isle of Malta, Hungary and Austria, Danzig, Hamburg, Germany, Ireland and Scotland.
In 1746, Blesse edited and published a work by Penington, which he entitled The Doctrine of the People called Quakers, in relation to bearing arms and fighting; extracted from the Works of a Learned and Approved Writer of that Persuasion''. This defended Quaker beliefs on pacifism, reacting to anonymous writings by Richard Finch.