| Description | Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury wrote to her father John Taylor in January 1892 thanking him for some family reminiscences which he had sent to her. She remarks on feeling sorry 'that we now-a-days write in such a hurry that our letters are not worth preserving' adding 'and therefore we shall not be able to read again pictures of our own children when little.' This concern may have motivated Taylor Cadbruy to begin writing her family journal, a weekly account of events which she sent to her family from the early twentieth century until her death in 1951.
Taylor Cadbury describes her recent activities, noting that she hoped to see her friend Lilly Davey soon and remarking on a visit by her younger sister Janet Taylor. Taylor Cadbury notes that she and her husband George Cadbury had taken the evening service at the Quaker Meeting House in Northfield whilst Janet had overseen her sister's class at the Severn Street Adult School.
Taylor Cadbury refers to her attendance at a public meeting in Northfield with her stepson Edward Cadbury. She writes that she had taken her son Laurence and stepdaughter Isabel to tea at Bournville before overseeing the Selly Oak Sunday School. Taylor Cadbury also remarks on a shopping trip to Birmingham commenting that she had bought 'so much food for ensuing parties, that I felt I could never eat again!'
Taylor Cadbury's letter provides an insight into the parties which she hosted at the Cadbury family's home, Woodbrooke in Selly Oak, for various groups from Birmingham and neighbouring districts. Taylor Cadbury describes a number of visits by groups from Birmingham, such as the Carrs Lane Band of Hope. She also remarks on a visit by Dr. Robert Dale's curate Mr. Barber as well as recent family events and dinner parties at the house. Taylor Cadbury provides an account of a visit by the M. H. U. which she had organised for one hundred and twenty children who had played in the hay fields and eaten a 'hearty tea', demolishing thirty five pounds of strawberries. A number of other large gatherings and family activities are also described in the letter, including a hay-making party for mothers and children from Edgbaston and an outdoor party in a tent erected in the grounds of Woodbrooke for four hundred and fifty members of the Selly Oak and Bournville branches of the Seven Street Adult School.
Towards the end of her letter Taylor Cadbury notes that her husband George Cadbury wished her father to return the letter 'when done with, as a sort of journal', suggesting again that this early letter was a forerunner to the family journal letters which Elizabeth Taylor Cadbury sent to her siblings and children throughout her life. |