| Description | This letter refers to the Christmas presents which Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury and her children had received from her family, including some ivory work from Delhi which her younger sister Josephine Taylor had sent to them.
Taylor Cadbury gives an account of the children's party which the Cadbury family had held in Selly Oak. Three hundred and sixty children had attended the event which had featured 'a cinemateograph, conjuror and ventriloquist' to amuse them. Taylor Cadbury writes that she had also been to see 'the Bournville Village School drill', a display of the exercises which children attending the village's temporary school learned in their physical education classes. The children had also sung for Taylor Cadbury and her family on their visit. Taylor Cadbury describes the Christmas party at the Manor House, alluded to in her family journal letter dated 20th December 1904. She writes 'at 6 o'clock we were a party of 96 to tea, including a great number of children. After tea came the tree and presents, and then we had a cinemateograph and the children sang, played the violin, etc.'
Taylor Cadbury concludes her short letter by referring to visits from family and friends and a family trip to Lickey where George and his eldest son Edward were building houses. She also writes that the family had attended the old people's party at Selly Oak and remarks on a holiday lecture given by the physicist and Principal of the University of Birmingham Sir Oliver Lodge in aid of the Children's Country Holiday Fund. Taylor Cadbury writes 'there were a great number of young people present, and he gave interesting experiments.' |