Founder

Nothing is known of Aldham's parentage. He farmed successfully at Warmsworth

Warmsworth

Warmsworth is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. It has a population of 3,855. The main route to Warmsworth is the A1 and the A630. The River Don also runs next to Warmsworth, as well as a train line from Doncaster to Sheffield...

, near Doncaster

Doncaster

Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...

. In 1644, he married Mary Killam (d. 1660), whom her son Thomas described as "a Woman that truly feared God, and served him in her Day and Generation." Aldham's son William was instrumental in opening the first permanent meeting house in the area, a building that survives as a private house in Quaker Lane.

Aldham was an early disciple of George Fox

George Fox

George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...

, with whom he was instrumental in establishing the Balby

Balby

Balby is a suburb of Doncaster located to the south-west of the borough in the north of England. It is home to the former secondary school, now sports college Balby Carr...

 meeting. Fox, who had suffered violent assaults in Tickhill

Tickhill

Tickhill is a small, wealthy town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England, on the border with Nottinghamshire. It has a population of 5,301.-Geography:...

 and Doncaster, preached for several hours under a walnut tree in Balby in 1652 to a large crowd. (A chair in the present Doncaster Meeting House is made from wood from this tree, and a table made from it was sent to America in 1967.)

Imprisoned

Aldham was imprisoned in York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

 in 1652 for speaking in a "steeple-house" (church), and fined 40 shillings for refusing to pay taxes, keeping on his hat, and saying "thou" to the judge, in keeping with the Quaker refusal to recognize ranks among men. He was imprisoned but released after two-and-a-half years, upon application, it is said, to Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

. He then travelled to various prisons where Quakers were confined and tried to obtain their release. He was also physically attacked by non-Quakers in 1654, 1655, and 1658. He prophesied the downfall of the Protector

The Protectorate

In British history, the Protectorate was the period 1653–1659 during which the Commonwealth of England was governed by a Lord Protector.-Background:...

 for disregarding his petitions, but said of Charles II of England

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, "I find nothing to this Man." Aldham is counted among the Valiant Sixty

Valiant Sixty

The Valiant Sixty were a group of early leaders and activists in the Religious Society of Friends . They were itinerant preachers, mostly from northern England who spread the ideas of the Friends during the second half of the Seventeenth Century, and were also called the First Publishers of Truth...

 who were active in the early days of the Religious Society of Friends

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

. He died in Warmsworth in April 1660.

Writings

During Aldham's lifetime the Friends grew from a small group of northern separatists into a national movement. Most of his writings date from the period of his imprisonment. They show an interest in wider Quaker affairs: he set about establishing contacts between northern Quakers and printers in London, and promoting the first general Quaker fund for missionary work.

According to Catie Gill, author of his ODNB entry, "His political and religious ideas were sometimes quite theatrically expressed. A parliamentarian sympathizer, he nevertheless once tore his hat into shreds when he was granted an audience with Oliver Cromwell, indicating, it seems, the certain belief that the protector would soon be torn from power." He did much to document and protest against the wrongful imprisonment of Quakers. Several of his letters appeared as or in tracts in the early 1650s, and in volume form in 1690.