Woodbrooke Study Centre is a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

college in

Selly Oak Selly Oak is an industrial and residential area in south-west Birmingham, England. The area gives its name to Selly Oak ward and includes the neighbourhoods of: Bournbrook, Selly Park, and Ten Acres. The adjoining wards of Edgbaston and Harborne ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The only Quaker Study Centre in Europe, it was founded by

George Cadbury George Cadbury (19 September 1839 – 24 October 1922) was the third son of John Cadbury, a Quaker who founded Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company in Britain. He was the husband of Dame Elizabeth Cadbury. Background He worked at the schoo ...

in 1903 and occupies his former home on the Bristol Road. Woodbrooke's first Director of Studies was the biblical scholar

J. Rendel Harris James Rendel Harris ( Plymouth, Devon, 27 January 1852 – 1 March 1941) was an English biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts, who was instrumental in bringing back to light many Syriac Scriptures and other early documents. His contacts at t ...

. Other early staff included

Horace Gundry Alexander Horace Gundry Alexander (18 April 1889 – 30 September 1989) was an English Quaker teacher, writer, pacifist and ornithologist. He was the youngest of four sons of Joseph Gundry Alexander (1848–1918), two other sons being the ornithologists W ...

and

Leyton Richards Leyton Price Richards (12 March 1879 – 22 August 1948) was an English Congregational minister and prominent pacifist. Early life Born in Ecclesall, Sheffield, in March 1879, Richards was a younger son of Charles Richards, a master clothier who i ...

, a prominent pacifist who was appointed as Warden in 1916. The college was extended between 1907 and 1914 by the addition of a new wing, a new common room and Holland House, a men's

hostel A hostel is a form of low-cost, short-term shared sociable lodging where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed in a dormitory, with shared use of a lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex and have private or shared b ...

. By 1922 it was estimated that 1,250 British students and 400 foreign students had attended the college. It was federated with eight other nearby colleges, known collectively as

Selly Oak Colleges Selly Oak Colleges was a federation of educational facilities which in the 1970s and 1980s was at the forefront of debates about ecumenism - the coming together of Christian churches and the creation of new united churches such as the Church of ...

. Woodbrooke provides short courses on personal spiritual growth, theology, creative arts, and training for Quaker roles. Its Centre for Research in Quaker Studies offers postgraduate taught and research degrees through the Universities of

and Lancaster. It is also available for conferences.

Notable alumni

Gertrud Luckner Gertrud Luckner (; born 26 September 1900 in Liverpool – died 31 August 1995 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was a Christian social worker involved in the German resistance to Nazism. A member of the banned German Catholic Peace Movement, she organi ...

, Christian social worker involved in the

German resistance German resistance can refer to: * Freikorps, German nationalist paramilitary groups resisting German communist uprisings and the Weimar Republic government * German resistance to Nazism * Landsturm, German resistance groups fighting against France d ...

to Nazism *

Alice Paul Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American Quaker, suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ...

, American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist *

Margaret Thorp Margaret Sturge Thorp (12 June 1892 – 5 May 1978), also known as "The Peace Angel", was a peace activist and labour activist active in Australia in the 20th century. A Quaker, her religious beliefs guided her to a life of advocating for a v ...

, Australian feminist and peace activist *

Hélène Monastier Hélène Monastier (2 December 1882 – 7 March 1976) was a Swiss peace activist and teacher in Lausanne. Life Hélène-Sophie Monastier was born in Payerne. Daughter of Charles Louis, Protestant pastor and librarian, and Marie Louise Gonin. ...

, Swiss peace activist

References

*''A History of Woodbrooke College 1953 - 1978'' by F Ralph Barlow

External links

* Quaker organisations based in the United Kingdom Education in Birmingham, West Midlands Quakerism in England Selly Oak {{Quaker-stub