A Friends meeting house is a place of worship for the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). George Fox, founder of the Society, spoke contemptuously of churches as "steeple houses" and Friends were convinced that there was no necessity for special buildings for worship. The idea of a steeple grew up as a political compromise between a church and the local merchants, where legally the church had to be the tallest building in town, so the local merchants built a tall, thin and mostly useless tower on the church.