| Description | This letter begins with remarks about the experiences of Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury's younger sister Josephine Taylor in India and references to other Taylor family activities.
Referring to developments in educational legislation, Taylor Cadbury explains to her family that 'Board Schools are now called Council Schools'. She suggests that 'the difficulty of getting teachers' was partly because 'the salaries are so small'.
This letter contains a long paragraph about Taylor Cadbury's meeting with Mr. Hinde, the Manager of the African Lakes Company who had worked in British South Africa for fifteen years. Taylor Cadbury describes Mr. Hinde's work in South Africa, supporting housing development. She also remarks on her busy social calendar in the weeks up to Christmas, but regrets that her brother Claude Taylor and his family would be unable to visit over the festive period.
In her family journal letter dated 27th September 1904 Taylor Cadbury referred to her close relationship with the women who attended her class at the Severn Street Adult School in Birmingham. Members of her extended family were involved in work with the class, particularly her sister-in-law Elizabeth Knox Taylor. In this letter Taylor Cadbury notes that some of the members of the class had asked to send a 'special message' to her sister-in-law telling her about the death of one of their oldest members, Mrs. Wilks who she writes had 'hardly ever missed a meeting'. Remarking that Mrs. Wilks had been in the class 'from the very beginning', Taylor Cadbury describes her as 'a bright, lively little woman', expressing her sympathy for Mrs. Wilks's family. Taylor Cadbury later remarks that she had attended a meeting of the Dorcas Society at Selly Oak who made garments of clothing 'to be given away to poor members of the class.'
Taylor Cadbury describes her recent activities which had included a Bournville Estate Meeting and 'a gathering of the lady governors of the University'. She notes that she had dined out in the evening following the gathering, remarking that although her husband George Cadbury disliked dining out 'occasionally I am asked to go alone if he does not care to go.' Taylor Cadbury writes that the previous Thursday she had cycled over to Bournville 'to see how the new schools and Meeting house were getting on.' She had also visited some of the new cottages in the village with her husband George Cadbury. Following this Taylor Cadbury had attended a Conference of the Birmingham National Union of Women Workers at the new Y.M.C.A. building noting, in contrast with her earlier experiences on 25th October 1904, that she had found it 'a very nice hall for a meeting.' At tea after the meeting a number of Union members who had attended the National Conference in York in November 1904 had given accounts of the conference meetings.
Taylor Cadbury also notes her attendance at M. H. U. and social calls which she had made, as well as attending 'the Annual Meeting of the Girls' Evening Homes' held at the Bristol Street Board Schools in Birmingham. She writes that three hundred and fifty excitable girls had attended who 'were very wild' and had annoyed the school's caretaker by jumping on the desks.
Taylor Cadbury concludes her letter noting that George Cadbury was unwell and commenting on the difficulties she was having reading Sidney Watson's books. She also comments that she had sent copies of books by her cousin, the American Quaker scholar Rufus Jones to her family oversees. |