| Description | Bournville Local/Preparative Meeting has its origins in what eventually became known as Stirchley Preparative Meeting, when a group of 66 Friends and attenders who attended Quaker Meetings at Stirchley Institute, many of them the original members of that meeting, established a meeting in Bournville in 1905. By this time, the meeting at Stirchley Institute (then known as Bournville Meeting) had a large membership, and it was thought members could be spared for mission work to establish a new meeting in Bournville village, which at that point consisted of 500 houses. George Cadbury commissioned the building of a meeting house on Linden Road which opened in 1905, and the meeting was appointed a Preparative Meeting by Warwickshire North Monthly Meeting. Designed by W. A. Harvey, the meeting house had a main hall which could seat 300 and a gallery for a further 60. An Evening Meeting, which had been started by Robert Waite prior to this and met in Ruskin Hall, also soon moved to the new meeting house. By 1915, Bournville Meeting had 345 members, attenders and associates. In 1954, the average Sunday congregation was 80.
A number of activities were held for adults and children at Bournville Meeting House. A Women's Guild was started by Elizabeth M. Cadbury in 1906 to provide women with the opportunity to hear a speaker on a topic of general interest and to socialise. It met each week and still existed in 1955. In 1907, Elizabeth Carnell and her daughter established the Ruskin Adult School for women, which was a branch of Class XIV of Severn Street Adult School. It became a mixed Adult School in 1934. Robert Waite and Clarkson Booth set up the Bournville Brotherhood in 1913 to provide interdenominational meetings, and Florence Pumphrey and Mrs Aytoun founded Fircroft Women's Adult School in 1914. Activities for children and young people included a Sunday School, a morning Children's Class, Fircroft Junior Adult School (1913 - 1939), Scouts (1913 - c.1939) and Cubs, Camp Fire Girls (1913-1940) and Blue Birds, the Young People's Association (1923 - 1931) and other young people's clubs, rambling and sports clubs.
Among others, George and Elizabeth Cadbury were involved with this meeting.
See SF/3/23 for details of the history of Bournville Meeting when it was located at the Cadbury factory and in Stirchley Institute.
For a detailed history of Bournville Meeting, see MS 1452/2/30 Wadsworth, R.V., A History of Bournville Friends' Meeting (1882-1955).
See SF/3 for a description of the functions of the Local/Preparative Meeting. |