| Description | In this address Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury provides an account of her involvement with the Young Women's Christian Association, including a brief history of the foundation of the Association in Britain.
Taylor Cadbury remarks on the 'inter-denominational' character of the Association's work, noting that her first introduction to the Y.W.C.A. came when she was invited to act as District Referee for the Association's branches in the County of Warwickshire, before becoming President of the Warwickshire District Council. Taylor Cadbury remarks on her experiences as President, travelling to different Y.W.C.A. centres during the First World War. She also describes her work founding a Central Hostel for the Y.W.C.A. on Corporation Street in Birmingham which included clubs and a restaurant as well as hostel facilities.
Taylor Cadbury refers to the annual Rally of Y.W.C.A. Branches, also called the Spring Festival, which was typically held in Birmingham Town Hall and comments on her endeavours to establish a British Y.W.C.A. Training College at Selly Oak which moved to Hamstead in 1942. Taylor Cadbury also remarks on celebrations held to commemorate the ninetieth birthday of the Y.W.C.A. in 1945, remarking on the importance of the Association's national and international work during and immediately following the Second World War.
Towards the end of her address Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury refers to some of the women who she had 'known and worked with' through her involvement with the Y.W.C.A., including Emily Kinnaird, the founder of the Association, and Edith Picton Turberville. She concludes her address referring to the first post-war Council Meeting of the World's Y.W.C.A. which had been held in China in 1947, noting that the Meeting had 'helped to renew and strengthen the bonds that unite the National Associations in a world-wide Christian fellow-ship'. |