Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Vokins, Joan

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719594Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 58 — Vokins, Joan1899Charlotte Fell Smith

VOKINS, JOAN (d. 1690), quakeress, was the daughter of Thomas Bunce, a substantial yeoman of Charney, Berkshire. A pious woman from her youth, she joined the society some time after her marriage to Richard Vokins of West Challow in the Vale of White Horse, and induced her father, husband, and children to do likewise. She at once began to preach and to travel. In February 1680 she went on a missionary journey to America, arriving in New York in May. She visited Long Island, Rhode Island, Boston, East and West Jersey, and Pennsylvania. On the return journey she went to Antigua, Nevis, and most of the West Indian islands. In Barbados, where there were many quakers who had been transported from England, she held sometimes two and three meetings a day.

She landed at Dover on 3 June 1681, and spent three weeks preaching in Kent. At Sandwich she was haled out of the church by the vicar, although the mayor before whom she was brought would not commit her to prison. In 1686 she travelled for about a year in Ireland, holding constant meetings. She was at the Whitsuntide yearly meeting in London, 1690, and died at Reading, on her way home, on 22 July 1690. Her husband and eldest son were at the time in gaol for not paying tithes.

Besides two sons, one of whom predeceased her, she had four daughters. Her various writings were collected by her brother-in-law, Oliver Sansom, in ‘God's Mighty Power Magnified,’ London, 1691, 8vo; republished at Cockermouth, 1871.

[Memoirs above named; Life of Oliver Sansom, 1710, 2nd ed. 1848; Piety Promoted, 1723, p. 172; Whiting's Memoirs, pp. 193–6; Smith's Cat. ii. 843; Bowden's Hist. of Friends in America, vol. i. pt. iii. p. 295.]

C. F. S.