Some Friends Meetings have a very strong and continuing family tradition and identity. That is not the case with Portadown. It is also a modern characteristic of Ulster life where the population has become more mobile. Families grow up and seek educational opportunities and employment in distant places and tend not to settle in their native areas. While members have been lost through relocation we have benefited greatly through the arrival of other families joining the Meeting. A striking example of this phenomenon was provided at a meeting in early 2004 to consider our Centenary plans. Of the almost 20 people present only one had been a member in 1970 and she was then living overseas!

The 1970s represented somewhat of a watershed. Arthur and Alice Chapman moved to Lisburn with their family. Jean Matthews also went to Lisburn to be near her daughter. Walter and Freda Sinton with Paul and Janet went to live in Tamnamore. However, Donald and Audrey Poole with their four children came to live in the district and entered enthusiastically into the life of the meeting. Raymond and Caroline Mitchell with Frances and William joined us too and from Grange came John and Elizabeth Campton and Osmond and June Haydock with their families.

This brought great encouragement to those who had seen the meeting develop over previous years. The senior members of the meeting, George and Annie Chapman, Thomas and Peggy McDonagh, Thomas and Elizabeth Hewitt, Norman Davis, William Upton, David and Helene McDonagh, Edmund and Gwen Greeves all provided stable leadership in ministry and in the various activities necessary for the health of the meeting. Alexander and Marianne Richardson sometimes came too on Sundays when their local Moyallon Meeting was not held, accompanied by other members of the family. About 1980 they were joined by two other mature Friends, William Brien, a man of infinite experience and service among Friends, and Fred Bell, formerly of Bessbrook and father of Audrey Poole. William Brien had joined Friends in Dublin and had worked for many years in the city-centre mission at Meath Place before going to the island of Pemba in East Africa where Friends Service Council had missionary work. On his retirement he came to live in Ulster. The final years of his long life were spent in Portadown. He was the last Recorded Minister in Ireland Yearly Meeting and had a good rapport with all, especially the young. Despite failing health he had a dogged independence and continued to take an active part in ministry until shortly before his death at the age of ninety-six.

Fred Bell was for many years Registering Officer for Marriages in Lurgan Monthly Meeting. In fact Portadown seems to have had almost a monopoly of this office, as incumbents include Albert Shemeld, William E. Coulthart, David McDonagh, as well as the present appointee, Donald Poole and his alternate, Carolyn McMullan. In the 1920s and 30s Portadown Meeting House appears to have been a popular venue for weddings, as a number of Lurgan Friends opted to have their marriage ceremony in this smart setting. Nowadays the rural setting of Moyallon is more popular and the last wedding in Portadown Meeting House was that of June and John Guy in 1989.

In these years George and Annie Chapman were the 'father and mother' of the meeting, having been associated with it since the Coulthart era. They were both blessed with good health, were regular attenders and active in mind and body until an advanced age. George died after only a few days illness in 1987 at the age of 86 and Annie reached the new century before her death in 2001 at the age of 97. The Magowan family, Jack, Tom, Nellie and Betty, continued to support the meeting faithfully as they had done all their lives and rejoiced to see its renewed vigour and increased membership. It was seldom when some of their number were not in their accustomed seat on a Sunday morning until their deaths in the final decade of the century.

1994 saw the demise of the last of the original members of Portadown Meeting, Mabel Chapman. She was only some nine months short of her hundredth birthday, but, although she had been unable to attend meeting for many years, her interests had remained with Friends. There were no living descendants of her parents and in her will she bequeathed a very large sum to Friends in Ireland 'for charitable purposes including relief and mission work at home and abroad'. A trust was set up by Friends in Ireland known as the Robert and Kezia Stanley Chapman Trust. From this fund many schemes have benefited, including projects carried out by Portadown Meeting.

The period from the late sixties until the late nineties was one of much unrest and violence in Northern Ireland. On one occasion a car bomb a few hundred yards away caused window damage to the premises, but nothing of a serious structural nature. Friends in Portadown were concerned about the general tension in the country and supported both the practical work of Quaker Cottage, the Visitors Centres in the prisons and the political initiatives undertaken at Quaker House, Belfast. At a later stage they became more actively involved in local matters when confrontations occurred on a regular yearly basis over the return of an Orange march from Drumcree to the centre of Portadown along the Garvaghy Road.

In 1997 Friends decided to open the Meeting House for prayer at lunch time once a month. In the tradition of Friends the session was entirely unprogrammed, as it was recognised we needed each one to seek the wisdom of God to resolve the issue. Gathering together with us in our joint search were Catholics and Protestants, Republicans and Unionists, acknowledging that the way to peace and harmony was through acceptance of the way of Christ. In the deeply divided sectarian situation of the time it was a great encouragement to see a wide spectrum of opinion represented, from the rector of Drumcree to members of the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition. The support of Friends from other meetings throughout the country was deeply appreciated and we were greatly helped by the links with Settle Friends Meeting in Yorkshire, some of whose members made a special visit to Portadown to assure us of their solidarity and interest in achieving a satisfactory outcome to the problem.

Out of these special events there arose a Cross-community prayer meeting which still meets on the premises once a month and is supported by our members. The Meeting House continues to be considered as a safe and neutral venue and is used from time to time for cross-community events. Friends have been represented in inter-church affairs for some time. In 1999 Arthur Chapman was Chairman of the local Council of Clergy and in 2004 Portadown Churches Together arranged for an exchange of readers in Sunday morning services. Dan and Rosemary Sinton went to St. Patrick's Catholic Church and Elaine Peile to Seagoe Parish Church while we had visitors from these two churches who ministered most acceptably.

Although the average age of members in the 1980s was quite high, younger Friends played an active part. Richard Poole served as Clerk and along with Michael Chapman from Richhill ran a Junior Christian Endeavour class attended by Young Friends from neighbouring meetings too. Maurice and Joyce McDonagh, who were living in Portadown, transferred their allegiance from Richhill in the late 80s. Esther Davis came back from her work in a leprosy hospital in Nigeria about this time. Arthur Chapman returned to Portadown on retirement and also from Lisburn came David and Anne Gamble a few years later. There was soon a thriving Sunday School again with very young children, such as Ross and Helen Anderson, Judith and Jonathan Poole, Peter and Rachel McDonagh and Stephen and Christina Gamble. The active Sunday School was an attraction for Tamnamore Friends, Dan and Rosemary Sinton with David and William, and also Stephen and Carolyn McMullen with their children Chris and Charlotte, Trudy Pedlow also joined the meeting on her removal to the Portadown district from Lurgan.

In the more open society which is now found in Northern Ireland we often have visitors who wish to experience our mode of worship. Several are committed members of other churches but who nevertheless enjoy on occasions coming to worship after the manner of Friends and feel very much at home with us. The Turkington and Smith-Talbot families have made a big contribution to the meeting and their participation was a great encouragement to all.

Sunday morning meeting for Worship at 11.00 am is our chief activity. It is a time of fellowship, teaching and praise. As we gather in silence with no set programme or liturgy under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we benefit from ministry which is varied and shared by a good number. While being generally Bible-based, messages are relevant to current needs and challenges of modern life. Vocal prayer is frequently offered and on occasions the whole meeting joins in the singing of a hymn. A time of prayer preceeds the Meeting for Worship. Members frequently meet for mid-week Bible studies or join in gatherings with Friends from other local meetings.

A feature of Portadown Meeting in recent years has been the active Sunday Club. At times three classes were held and when time came for teachers and children to leave meeting the attendance was reduced by half. Joyce McDonagh has been for many years the co-ordinator of the Sunday Club Committee but she is assisted by a panel of teachers who share the responsibility. Stephen and Carolyn McMullan again brought into being a Friends Youth Club not only for the young people of Portadown but for all surrounding meetings too. The younger McDonaghs, Gambles and McMullans were to the fore in providing leadership for the Moyallon Camps, Junior Yearly Meeting and other Young Friend events. Youth activities tend to operate in cycles. In 2003 no fewer than six young people from the meeting went off to university, and at present the large number in Sunday School in previous years is greatly reduced.

The meeting has no insular outlook but is very much aware of the needs of the world. Esther Davis has travelled regularly to her beloved leprosy hospital in Nigeria where she worked for so many years and endeavours to bring to the attention of Friends the plight of the patients of that institution. In recent years too we have also sought to support Jonathan and Lupita Morton in their work among street children in Mexico City and Sophia Lamb in her medical work in Hong Kong and other projects of Irish Quaker Faith in Action. In 1991 Donald and Audrey Poole were Irish representatives at the Friends World Conference in Honduras, Central America, and travelled extensively among Friends groups in the USA and Canada. Arthur Chapman attended Friends Yearly Meetings in France and Germany. Elaine Peile visited Friends mission work in Bolivia. Special links have been forged with young people in North-West and South-West Yearly Meetings in the USA and visits have been paid there by Carolyn and Charlotte McMullan and Rachel McDonagh. Chris McMullan took part in the Friends Youth Pilgrimage to North America in 2001.

The Premises Committee has been active in maintaining the property in a good state of repair. Dry rot was detected in the 1980s and involved considerable expense in overcoming the problem. The electrical rewiring was renewed, the heating system upgraded and automatic time switches installed. With the assistance of the Chapman Trust a car park was laid out to the south side of the building. The high wall of the warehouse building behind the Cottage was removed in 2003 and the property now enjoys enhanced light and sunshine. To mark the Centenary Portadown Friends considered how our needs might be more fully met and approved a scheme to enlarge the kitchen, give direct access to it from the car park and increase the size of the small meeting room. As we celebrate our Centenary Year we again give thanks for those whose vision and energy provided the original building and who maintained it so faithfully in the intervening years.

For many years during the past century Portadown Meeting was the smallest of the four which form the local Monthly Meeting: Bessbrook, Lurgan, Moyallon and Portadown. That is no longer the case. Portadown now has the largest average attendance on Sundays of all the above meetings. The advent of the motor car has made travel much easier and few members are now based in the immediate locality. Probably no Friends are now resident within one mile of the Meeting House. Active Friends come from Dromore, Lurgan, Tandragee and Banbridge as well as from the town itself. The meeting is blessed in being a group united in faith and purpose. We are grateful to God for the vision of those Friends who established a Quaker presence in this area some 350 years ago, for those who planned for and negotiated the building in Portadown, for those who maintained and fostered the life of the meeting during the hundred years of its existence. We view the future with confidence, 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith'.