Fountains of ideas: being an Eva Koch Scholar

David Lockyer writes about his experience of six weeks in residence as an Eva Koch Scholar at Woodbrooke

The most unexpected gift of spending six weeks, as an Eva Koch Scholar, at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham was the stimulation of the seemingly free-form conversations with the other Scholars. These, on occasions, ran on late into the night, sparking off ideas left and right, and sometimes drawing in anyone who happened to be nearby: guests, Friends in Residence, Woodbrooke tutors and attenders on other courses. No one was truly safe, not even the gardeners. Woodbrooke seems to be a place that creates fountains of ideas.

We three 2014 Eva Koch Scholars were each immersed in our work in the library during the day, and sometimes into the evenings. We spent hours of diligent digging through books on the open shelves, or in the stacks, chasing references through journals, old tomes, even documents or letters long hidden in the archives, and dredging and trawling to find those gems of ideas or threads to weave into the fabric of the stories being uncovered.

In my case it was the story of a Quaker couple, Bertram and Irene Pickard, who met at the college during the first world war. Traces of them were elusive. The knowledge that they had been there seemed certain, but evidence to support that belief proved very hard to find. Without the great skills of the librarian I doubt the proof would ever have been uncovered; and without my tutor’s instincts about where else to look I suspect that clear confirmation of their presence would have remained undiscovered. It is the human as well as the physical resources at Woodbrooke that are so important.

I am interested in the Pickards because of the fascinating roles they both played in establishing the Quaker presence in Geneva, which still continues today in the form of the Quaker United Nations Office, and because of their contacts with the psychologist Carl Jung and his circle, which, in Irene’s case, led to a lifelong interest in the relationship between his ideas and Quakerism. Over the years she compiled an extensive archive of materials on the subject that is now held by the library of the University of Essex. I was granted the privilege of studying that archive before it was lodged with the university, and am now engaged in writing about the Pickards, and especially about Irene and the archive.

Woodbrooke is a place not just to research but also to absorb a singularly Quaker ambiance. Friends in Residence, in particular, add something special – each in their own way, coming as they do from all over the world to spend a few days or weeks tending to the needs of the establishment. They bring much more than just practical care. The kaleidoscope of personalities presented by these ever-changing guardians of the place deepens the appreciation of just how many ways there are of being a Quaker.

What did I gain from my time as an Eva Koch Scholar? Well, a thick wad of notes to add to my already voluminous resources relating to the Pickards; clarification of some lines of research to do with their lives; the need to completely re-write at least one section of the planned book in the light of what was uncovered; a much deeper understanding of the subject; invaluable insights into the wider significance of my subjects’ endeavours; filling in gaps in the story of their lives; tracing the effects they had on the Religious Society of Friends, right up to the twenty-first century; and the knowledge that it may well be a year or two before I have finished with this process and finally have something coherent to show for my time.

Published in the Friend 9 Jul 2015