Stephen Grellet
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Stephen Grellet (November 2, 1773 – November 16, 1855) was a prominent French Quaker missionary.
He was born Etienne de Grellet du Mabillier in Limoges, the son to a counsellor of King Louis XVI. Raised as a Roman Catholic he was educated at the military College of Lyons, and at the age of seventeen he entered the body-guard of Louis XVI. During the French Revolution he was sentenced to be executed, but escaped and eventually fled Europe to the United States in 1795.
Impressed by the writings of William Penn, George Fox and Quaker beliefs, in 1796 he joined the Society of Friends. He became involved in extensive missionary work across North America and most of the countries of Europe, in prisons and hospitals, and was respectfully granted meetings with many rulers and dignatiries, including Pope Pius VII, Czar Alexander I, and the Kings of Spain and Prussia. He encouraged many reforms in educational policies and in hospital and prison conditions.
In 1804 he married his wife, Rebecca, the daughter of the publisher Isaac Collins.
It is reputed that he was the last living person who could have identified the "Lost Dauphin" of France.
He died in Burlington, New Jersey on November 16, 1855 and his body was buried there behind the Quaker Meeting House at 340 High Street.
[edit] Bibliography
- Benjamin Seebohm: Memoirs of the life and gospel labours of Stephen Grellet, Longstreth, Philadelphia, 1862 (3rd ed.), 426+438 p.
- Frances Anne Budge : A missionary life : Stephen Grellet, Nisbet, London, 1888, 127 p.
- William Guest : Stephen Grellet, Headley, London, 1903, 226 p.
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