This is a list of notable people associated with the Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers.

The first part consists of individuals who are known to be or to have been Quakers continually from some point in their lives onward.

The second part consists of individuals whose parents were Quakers or who were Quakers themselves at one time in their lives but then converted to another religion, formally or informally distanced themselves from the Society of Friends, or were disowned by their Friends Meeting.

Quakers

A

• William Allen
• Edgar Anderson
• Ann Austin, early Quaker missionary
• Piers Anthony

B

• Edmund Backhouse, "black sheep" of Backhouse family
• James Backhouse (1794-1869), botanist and missionary
• James Backhouse (1825-1890), botanist, archaeologist, and geologist
• Eric Baker (activist), co-founder of Amnesty International
• Emily Greene Balch, Nobel Peace Prize winner
• Robert Barclay, theologian
• Bernard Barton, poet
• John Bartram, botanist
• Joel Bean
• Anthony Benezet, educator, abolitionist
• Caleb P. Bennett
• Lewis Benson, printer, researcher and writer about Early Quakerism, especially George Fox
• Arthur Berk theologian and Wilberite educator
• Albert Bigelow, nuclear weapons protestor
• J. Brent Bill, author of fiction and non-fiction, notably "Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality"
• George Birkbeck, a founder of London Mechanics Institute, now Birkbeck College
• Daniel Boone
• Kenneth E. Boulding, an economist, educator, poet, religious mystic, systems scientist, and interdisciplinary philosopher
• John Bowne, promoter of religious freedom in colonial America
• Samuel Bownas, second-generation Quaker, travelling
  
  
  
  minister, and writer
• Sandra Boynton writer, cartoonist, composer
• John Bright, politician
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astrophysicist
• Edward Burrough, 1660s activist
• Maria Louisa Bustill, (1853-1904) mother of Paul Robeson
• Smedley Darlington Butler, (1881-1940) a U. S. Marine

C

• George Cadbury, chocolatier
• Henry Cadbury, chairman of the American Friends Service Committee
• John Cadbury, chocolatier
• Mary S. Calderone, one of the founders of SIECUS
• Arthur Capper, governor and U. S. senator from Kansas
• Cyrus Clark co-founder of C&J Clark, shoe manufacturers in Street, Somerset
• James Clark co-founder of C&J Clark, shoe manufacturers in Street, Somerset
• Whittaker Chambers, convinced Quaker at the time of his editorship at Time and testimony against Alger Hiss (Cantor, 1993)
• William Coddington, first governor of Rhode Island
• Levi Coffin, abolitionist
• John S. Collins, land developer
• Peter Collinson FRS, botanist
• Anne Finch Conway, philosopher
• James A. "Jim" Corbett

D

• John Dalton, chemist
• Abraham Darby I, ironmaster
• Abraham Darby II, ironmaster
• Abraham Darby III, ironmaster
• Dame Judi Dench, actor
• John Dickinson (1732-1808)
• Jonathan Dickinson, merchant
• Richard Dillingham, abolitionist
• Ambrose Dixon
• Henry Doubleday (1808-1875), entomologist and ornithologist.
• Henry Doubleday (1810-1902), scientist and horticulturist.
• Sue Doughty politician
• Paul Douglas, economist and United States Senator
• Mary Dyer, religious martyr

E

• Arthur Stanley Eddington, astrophysicist
• Paul Eddington, actor
• Fritz Eichenberg, illustrator
• George Ellis, cosmologist
• Thomas Ellwood, religious writer.

F

• Chuck Fager, 20th Century Quaker writer and activist
• Margaret Fell, one of the earliest Quakers, married to George Fox
• Richard Foster, ecumenical leader & reformer, founder of Renovare
• George Fox, founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
• Tom Fox, captive in Iraq
• Robert Were Fox
• Francis Frith, photographer
• Elizabeth Fry, prison reformer
• Klaus Fuchs, physicist convicted of supplying U. S. atomic bomb research to the Soviet Union

G

• Samuel Tertius Galton, businessman and scientist
• Thomas Garret, abolitionist
• Henry D. Gilpin, Attorney General of the United States
• Stephen Grellet, missonary
• Nathanael Greene,
  
  
  
  major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War
• Joseph John Gurney reformer

H

• Elizabeth Haddon (1680-1762) founder of Haddonfield, New Jersey
• Seok-heon Ham
• Cornelia Hancock, nurse
• Sheila Hancock, comedian
• Jan de Hartog, author
• Jonathan Hazard, Continental congressman
• Edward Hicks, painter
• Elias Hicks, Quaker theologian
• Thomas Hodgkin, physician who documented Hodgkin's lymphoma
• Marshall Hodgson, historian
• Gerard Hoffnung, artist and humorist
• Rush D. Holt, Jr., U.S. Congressman
• Herbert Hoover, U.S. President
• Johns Hopkins, philanthropist
• Luke Howard, meteorologist
• Francis Howgill, preacher and writer
• Charles Humphreys, Continental Congressman
• Joshua Humphreys, ship builder, 1751-1838

J

• Rufus Jones, Quaker theologian
• T. Canby Jones, Quaker peace activist, theologian, and professor emeritus at Wilmington College

K

• Martin Kelley, online Quaker Journalist, creator of the blog and of the .
• Thomas R. Kelly
• Ben Kingsley, actor
• Patti Kent, concert violinist, musicianary

L

• Joseph Lancaster
• John Lilburne, Leveller
• Kathleen Lonsdale, scientist

M

• Svetlana Sotiroff MacDonald
• John Macmurray, Philosopher
• Elizabeth Magie, inventor of Monopoly
• Dave Matthews, musician
• John L.P. Maynard Quaker Bagpiper and humorist and early silent spokesperson for Quaker Minimalism.
• Edward R. Murrow, journalist
• Lucretia Mott

N

• James Nayler
• Richard Nixon, U.S. President (His father was Catholic)
• Russ Nelson, open source software developer

O

• Amelia Opie, writer
• Lorcan Otway, Folksinger

P

• Alice Paul, suffragist
• Edward Pease, early railway owner in England
• Joseph Pease, first Quaker member of Parliament
• Isaac Penington
• William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania
• Gerald Priestland, BBC broadcaster

R

• Bonnie Raitt, musician
• Lewis Fry Richardson
• Joseph Rowntree, chocolatier
• Bayard Rustin, civil rights leader

S

• Moses Sheppard, philanthopist and abolitionist
• Philip Sherman, first Secretary of State of Rhode Island
• Alys Pearsall Smith
• Hannah Whitall Smith
• Robert Pearsall Smith
• Lawrence Southwick
• Cassandra Burnell Southwick
• Joseph Sturge
• Donald Swann, composer, musician and entertainer
• Noah Haynes Swayne

T

• Joseph Taylor, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics
• Lillian Thrasher
• Daniel Hack Tuke, physician and expert in mental illness
• James Hack Tuke
• Henry Tuke, co-founder of the York Retreat
• Samuel Tuke
• William Tuke, co-founder of the York Retreat

W

• Mary Vaux Walcott, artist
• George Washington Walker, missionary
• Benjamin West, painter
• Jessamyn West, novelist
• Ann Cooper Whitall
• John Greenleaf Whittier, poet
• John Wilbur
• Priscilla Anne Wilkinson, married to David Ricardo
• Dallas Willard
• Waldo Williams, poet
• Anna Wing, actress
• Gerrard Winstanley, Leveller
• Caspar Wistar (glassmaker)
• Victoria Wood, comedian
• John Woolman, abolitionist

Y

• Thomas Young, physicist

People With Quaker Roots

• Susan B. Anthony, suffragist
• Joan Baez, singer and activist
• Robert Bage, novelist
• David Byrne (musician), singer, composer
• A. S. Byatt, novelist
• Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University
• Blythe Danner, actress
• James Dean, actor
• Thomas Fowell Buxton, abolitionist
• Margaret Drabble, novelist
• Samuel Tertius Galton
• Abigail Hopper Gibbons, abolitionist, activist, and a nurse during the American Civil War
• Kersey Graves
• Elisha Gray, an independent inventor of the telephone
• Sarah Grimke, campaigner against slavery and for women's rights
• Lyndon LaRouche, (disowned in 1941)
• Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
• Maria Mitchell, astronomer
• James A. Michener, novelist
• Annie Oakley, wild-west entertainer, sharpshooter
• Edward R. Pease, co-founder of the Fabian Society
• Ned Rorem, composer and diarist
• Betsy Ross, reputed creator of the first American flag
• Angelina Grimke Weld, campaigner against slavery and for women's rights

References

1. Cantor, Norman F. (1993) Inventing the Middle Ages, p. 219, HarperCollins, ISBN 0688123023: " was also a moment in Time's history when a senior editor was Whittaker Chambers, the former Soviet spy and eventual nemesis of Alger Hiss. Now a devout Quaker, Chambers was keen on importing British conservative Christianity to American shores.."