Collection in Focus: Elias Hicks in Edward Hicks’s “A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing…”

Elias Hicks (1748–1830) was an influential Quaker minister and cousin of artist Edward Hicks. He was a major proponent of a great schism in the Quaker faith that occurred in 1827, a few years before his death. This split divided Quakers into two groups: urban members who wanted to exert discipline and authority to ensure the preservation of Quaker beliefs, and rural members who held fast to personal freedoms and the “inner Light” that Quakers believe guides each individual. Elias Hicks was a vocal supporter of individual freedom, and due to his power and standing as a minster, this second group became known as “Hicksites”.

In this video Sarah Monks, Lecturer in Art History at the University of East Anglia, describes the polemical and influential minister in the painting “A Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners.”