BARCLAY, Robert

Influential Scottish writer and activist who followed his father’s conversion from Roman Catholic to Quaker; his own wedding was the first Quaker one held in Scotland. His certainty of the inner moral light of revelation led him to make public protest against current social ills by walking through the main streets of Aberdeen with ashes on his head and wearing sackcloth. He worked closely with George Fox and linked also with William Penn, serving as Governor of East New Jersey (non-residentially) for the last 8 years of his life.