Words and Woodbrooke

Antony Barlow regrets a change of name at the Birmingham centre

by Antony Barlow 9th June 2017

I am sure that I am not alone in feeling uneasy at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre’s decision to drop the word ‘Quaker’ from its new logo. It has overtones of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the wording of the ‘seven commandments’ is subtly changed to accommodate Napoleon and his comrades’ subversion of the values of the founders of the farm’s take-over. Incrementally, since Woodbrooke College became the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, and now just Woodbrooke, its connection to George Cadbury’s great idea has become ever more tenuous.