Abstract
Joan Vokins (née Bunce) (c. 1630–1690) was the wife of a yeoman farmer in the Vale of White Horse in Berkshire, England. About 1663, she was converted to Quakerism by Oliver Sansom, husband of her sister Jane. Sansom became leader of the Quaker community that formed in the Vale, with the two sisters as his leading associates. Jane specialized in administrative and social matters while Joan strove to deepen the faith by preaching and exhortation. In 1678, following instructions from the central Quaker authorities, the Vale Quakers reorganized into separate men’s and women’s meetings. Vokins was instrumental in overcoming strong opposition to the principle of women’s meetings from Quakers elsewhere in the county. In 1680, she traveled to visit Quaker communities in the American colonies and extended her journey to Barbados, where women’s meetings were under discussion. In 1686, despite declining health, she undertook a further journey to Ireland. She died in 1690 on her way home from a national Quaker meeting in London.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Barbour, Hugh, Christopher Densmore, Elizabeth H. Moger, Nancy C. Morel, Alison D. Van Wagner, and Arthur J. Worrall. 1995. Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends in the New York Monthly Meetings. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.
Braithwaite, William C. 1912. The Beginnings of Quakerism. London: Macmillan.
Brod, Manfred. 2004. “Vokins [née Bunce], Joan.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/28351.
Crisp, Thomas. 1682. The First Part of Babel’s-builders Unmasking Themselves as Appears by the Following Judgment from Barbadoes. London.
Fell, Margaret. 1666. Womens Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures. London.
Hinds, Hilary. 2005. “An Absent Presence: Quaker Narratives of Journeys to America and Barbados, 1651–1681.” Quaker Studies 10:6–30.
Sansom, Oliver. 1843. Life of Oliver Sansom. Edited by J. Boorne, Jr. London: C. Gilpin.
Sippell, Theodor. 1937. Werdendes Quäkertum. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
Smith, Howard R. 1904. “The Wilkinson-Story Controversy in Reading.” Journal of the Friends’ Historical Society 1 (2):57–61.
Vokins, Joan. 1671. A Loving Advertisement unto All Those who Joyn Together to Persecute the Innocent. London.
———. 1687. A Tender Invitation unto All Those that Want Peace with God. London.
———. 1691. God’s Mighty Power Magnified as Manifested and Revealed in His Faithful Handmaid Joan Vokins. London.
Worrall, Arthur J. 1980. Quakers in the Colonial Northeast. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brod, M. (2024). Vokins, Joan. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_388-3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_388-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01537-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01537-4
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Vokins, Joan- Published:
- 09 February 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_388-3
-
Vokins, Joan
- Published:
- 08 December 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_388-2
-
Original
Vokins, Joan- Published:
- 02 December 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_388-1