The twentieth century is often called the century of the refugee (Myers, 2001), with the First World War as a “turning point where movement as migrants changed to movement as refugees” (Manning, 2005, p. 164). Belgium is a case in point: the war uprooted the community, causing 1.5 million Belgians to flee of whom Birmingham received nearly 5.000 refugees (Amara, 2008; Roberts, 2014). The War Refugees’ Committee Birmingham and District (WRCB) was established under the chairmanship of the Quaker activist Elizabeth Cadbury, who appealed to her personal network for help. In the first months, the influx of refugees was huge and the support offered by this committee was concerned with primary needs, such as accommodation, nourishment and clothing. In this phase, the relief was assumed to be temporary, as one believed that the Belgians would be home by Christmas. Growing awareness that “the poor things [would] have to wait a long time” to return (Cadbury, 1917, p. 1), however, caused a gradual shift in the refugee relief. The transition of an acute phase to a consolidation phase was characterised by a focus on self-support. The WRCB was increasingly concerned with education (e.g., a Belgian school) and the welfare of “refugees in the various difficulties” (WRCB, 1916, p. 5). Relief now had a marked educational agenda, embodying the question of learning to live together.

The refugee crisis could be considered a cross-cultural movement that needed a balanced approach between two cultures as the exile was temporary but a certain level of integration was necessary. This meant balancing between regulating and understanding (cultural) differences (Corrigan & Sayer, 1985). The Belgian refugee was seen as “the other”, “the alien” and even as a different “race”. On the one hand their “habits [differed] fundamentally and irreconcilably” (WRCB, 1916, p.8), on the other the Belgians were perceived as “absorbed into English life” (WRCB, 1915, p. 7). Thus the aim of the WRCB became to normalise them by stimulating self-support, finding employment or organising English lessons. Overall, following quote shows that Cadbury saw this transnational encounter as a positive intervention, especially in the Belgians’ lives:

“Most of our Belgians have improved so very much since they arrived, (…) and their views are also so much enlarged since living here, that I wonder how some of them will adapt themselves to their old environment on their return.” (Cadbury, 1918)

Cadbury, dedicating her life to philanthropic work, saw this as an expression of her Quaker belief (Dandelion & Smith, 2012; Smith, 2012). Quaker women often devoted themselves to a humanitarian educational activism, sharing concerns for the educational, spiritual, moral and physical welfare of youngsters in particular (Roberts, 2011, 2013). This stresses the broader educational scope of the Belgian exile in Birmingham, during which social problems often were translated into educational terms. This empirical study, which is part of a dissertation, aims to gain insight into this process. In order to do this, newspaper articles, reports and minute books of the WRCB as well as the personal memoires of Cadbury are analysed.