Sarah Squire

Sarah Brown Squire of Huntingdonshire, England was a Quaker missionary to Shetland who arrived in 1835. She appears to have been the first Quaker in Shetland, although there may have been earlier ones.<ref>The First Quaker in Shetland</ref>

Talking of the Waterstairs in Lerwick, she records her accomodation thus:

"…our sitting room commands a limited view of the landing place it can hardly be called a pier though use as such being mostly made of large stones unevenly laid, and ill broken …"

On Sandness she wrote:

"there was no place in Sandness where we could have had comfortable lodgings, for the people were very kind, but the habits and manners in some of the country places are so connected with an absence of cleanliness that I consider it a great privilege that we have in general been comfortably provided for."<ref name=Abrams>Quoted in Abrams, Lynn Myth And Materiality in a Woman's World: Shetland 1800-2000, p62</ref>

Lynn Abrams points out that on average six people lived in every household "so that Miss Squire was fortunate perhaps to be so accomodated."<ref name=Abrams/>

References

• A journal kept by Sarah Squire in a series of letters to her relations at home during a religious visit she paid the inhabitants of the Shetland and Orkney Isles, and the northern parts of Scotland, accompanied by Mary Roberts, David Priestman and W.F. Simmonds in the summer of 1835. (published 1978)

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