Geraldine Cadbury, 1865-1941 (review)

Book Reviews121 Géraldine . Cadbury, 1865-1941. By Janet Whitney. London: George G. Harrap and Co. 1948. 200 pages. 12s. (American price: $3.50). Janet Whitney's sixth book, the biography of Géraldine S. Cadbury (1865-1941), is a vivid account of a "vitality-giving" person. Through the skillfully gathered material and Janet Whitney's lively comments and evaluations, we are privileged to follow an intense and abundant experience both private and public. Warmhearted and impulsive, Géraldine Cadbury gave herself without reserve to her home, her meeting, and the underprivileged children of Birmingham. Hers wa9 the kind of light that cannot be kept under a bushel. In her husband, Barrow Cadbury, head of the great Cadbury firm, the cocoa works at Bournville, she found the most complete sympathy and the refreshment of mutual fun. Discipline was no problem in their family. She was the kind of person whom you naturally wanted to please. To her meeting she contributed the expertness which comes from the individual's willingness to devote real attention to this exacting service. By her city she early found herself "fastened to a career." This public life-work included promoting the development of a children 's court, the building and equipping of a detention home, an openair school, observation centers, short-term schools, and a hostel for young offenders. Health measures also claimed her attention. To make a delinquent child into a good citizen was the objective. Mrs. Cadbury saw the best accomplished through the family, even in a generation when the family was "losing its grip on society." For all children she coveted the security which her own children had in "the vibrant unity" of their family group. "To infiltrate stubborn magistrates with new ideas" was a steady challenge to her charm and tact. Finally, her retirement, five years before her death, from the magistrate's bench of the children's court enabled her "to knit up her work so that it should not unravel." Janet Whitney shows here as ably and clearly as she did in her Elizabeth Fry how religious zeal gives power to a non-professional service. She also emphasizes the democratic effort to bring long-range improvement by rousing the sense of responsibility of the ordinary people. Because of her large resources in wealth and influence, Mrs. Cadbury could set to work with all the joy of a creator. With full public approval she could outstrip the city's action in supplying facilities for reform. The government's recognition of her achievement came in 122Bulletin of Friends Historical Association the form of a title of honor. But best of all, Janet Whitney makes us feel that throughout Dame Geraldine's self-assumed responsibilities, however arduous they became, she carried joyousness with her. Pendle HillAnna Brinton Briefer Notices By Henry J. Cadbury Biographies of recent conservative Friends are few. One such is Memorial to Cyrus Cooper and Bertha A. Cooper, prepared and published by their son Samuel Cooper (Moorestown, New Jersey, 1948, 202 pages). Cyrus Cooper (1860-1940) had a varied life in Pennsylvania and Ohio and traveled in the ministry both there and in North Carolina and Canada. This tribute of filial piety contains mostly extracts first from his reminiscences and then from his letters and diary. Externally the life was not remarkable, but its inner self-conscious piety is brought out sympathetically.» » » C. W. Trow reports an excavation carried out in 1946 by the Felsted School Historical Society of "The 'Quakers' Mount,' Bannister Green, Felsted" (The Essex Review [England], 57, 1948, 100-103). The evidence is not conclusive, but it seems that the small mound is probably rightly named and was the scene of Quaker burials such as are mentioned in the Felsted Parish Church Register between 1679 and 1732 as "among the Quakers" or "at the Quakers Hill (or Mount) ." More than 25 such entries are quoted, supplied by C. Brightwen Rowntree.» * » A finely illustrated article entitled "A Day with the Quakers" and describing the meetings, the Barnesville Boarding School and the Walton Home for elderly Friends was published in the Pictorial Magazine of the Cleveland Plain Dealer for May 1, 1949.» » » Fully fifteen Friends meetinghouses or their sites...