[1] After graduating from Oxford, Speed took the Covenant and became Minister of St Philip's, Bristol, until 1650 when his interest in Quakerism began and he became a merchant.
Speed and his friends had a difficult time in establishing Quakerism in Bristol, being subjected to abuse in both physical and pamphleteering forms, and defended themselves with no less vigour.
Speed, along with Thomas Goldney I and others recorded how they were 'abused, dirted, stoned, pinched, kicked and otherwise greatly injured' in Cry of Blood published in 1656.
[3] Speed's four decades of highly successful trading as a merchant seems to have been built on a commercial culture based on the values of honesty and friendship rather than religious ideology or impersonal contract.
[4] Speed's daughter and heiress, Hannah, married Thomas Goldney II whose successors were made baronets of Beechfield and Bradenstoke Abbey, Wiltshire.