Mary Forster (Quaker)


Mary Forster was an English Quaker campaigner. She wrote a preface to the 1671 edition of Guide to the Blind, which had been written by her husband, Thomas Forster.

A female approach

She also composed an address "To the Reader" which accompanied a Petition to the Parliament of England presented on 20 May 1659, expressing the opposition of over 7000 women to "the oppression of Tithes" levied by the established church.
To justify the then unusual political intervention by women in the form of a parliamentary petition, Forster states that it is God's way to employ "weak means to bring to pass his mighty work." She gives testimony in Piety Promoted on behalf of Anne Whitehead, who is considered to have been the first woman preacher among the Quakers in 1655. As one of five signatories to A Living Testimony from... Our Faithful Women's Meeting she argues that "we are not to put our Candles under a Bushel, nor to hide our Talents in a Napkin," having gained wisdom of God about "what will do in Families" as "Mothers of Children, and Antient Women in Our Families".
However, Mary Forster still sees the Protofeminist protests of women as a secondary reinforcement to the work of men. She justifies their parliamentary protest against tithes as auxiliary, while noting that it is compatible with the actions of the Quaker "Brethren".

Persecution

Her main issue in Some Seasonable Considerations is the continuing persecution of the Quakers.

Private life

Very little else is known of her private life. Mary Forster died in 1687.