MALVERN'S NEW MEETING HOUSE.

From a report in the Gazette on July 9th 1938.
 
For eighty years Friends had met in an upper room furnished over a stable in Great Malvern.  

Cold and draughty it was, by then, in considerable need of repair.  A small but thriving Meeting 

set the Premises Committee the daunting task of finding a suitable piece of land on which to 

build their own Meeting House, and to discover ways in which to raise the money for the purchase

and the building.


A site was found at the top of Orchard Road and Malvern Preparative Meeting negotiated with 

Malvern Hills District Council for the purchase of the land on which to build a Meeting

House.  On the 26th July 1937 at a special Preparative Meeting it was announced that this was

agreed and building was to proceed to a plan produced by a Mr Armstrong.  Friends were warned that,

due to rearmament, costs could rise to £2,000 from the original estimate of between £1,200 and

£1,500.  An Appeal Fund was launched.  On October 22nd 1937 Mr James was asked to proceed at the

original estimate of £1,500.


At Preparative Meeting held on February 24th 1938 the opening date was fixed for July 2nd 1938.  

Elizabeth Cadbury, or Barrow Cadbury to be asked to open the new building and Charles, young son

of Paul Cadbury be asked to unlock the door.


Caroline Graveson, as clerk to the Premises Committee, presented a silver key to Charles Cadbury in 

gratitude for the encouragement to go forward which his parents and grandparents had given to 

Malvern Friends three years before when they were uncertain what steps to take.  She hoped that

Charles and his generation would open many doors to good things for the world in the years to come.

She spoke of the wonderfully prosperous voyage their enterprise had experienced, the good 

fellowship it had engendered and their hopes that the building might prove a stronghold in Malvern

for all causes of peace and international goodwill.  To illustrate this wide fellowship Caroline

Graveson made reference to the many places from which the timber for the fabric had come - Burma, USA, 

New Zealand, Austria, Sweden, Odessa, Archangel and Japan.


She thanked the architect, A H Armstrong of the Bournville Village Estate, and the builder, W James

of Colwall, also the workmen, most of whom where present, for their devoted work and friendliness.

A short Meeting for Worship followed.  then came tea and much talk.  About forty Friends were present

at Sunday Meeting for Worship the next day.  In the evening Geoffrey Holland presided over a packed 

meeting when Herbert G Wood gave an address on "The Message of Quakerism".


The Meeting House has oak beams and paneling and is furnished with chairs, tables and benches from the

Brynmawr Works in Breconshire, South Wales, which was set up in 1930 by Paul Matt, son of Charles

Matt, an immigrant from Poland interned in the 1914-18 War in the Isle of Man.  Released from internment,

a skilled furniture maker, he trained his son.  The Great Depression began in the autumn of 1929 with the 

collapse of the New York Stock Exchange, affecting all continents.  In this climate of disaster and 

human misery Brecon in South Wales was socially and economically derelict.  Unemployment reached 

appalling levels in the 1930's.


Among those organizations concerned to relieve this widespread unemployment was the Religious Society

of Friends.  One Peter Scott and his wife settled in South Wales and set up the Brynmawr Experiment, 

building civic amenities and later setting up light industries.  At a meeting to raise funds to support

these projects Paul Matt was moved to volunteer to serve.  He later set up a furniture-making factory

and it was from his Brynmawr Works that the Malvern Friends Meeting House was supplied and still uses

the original furniture.