The following details about Phoebe Cusden are summarised from "A Bigness of Heart".
Phoebe Cusden (1887-1981) was the founder of the Reading Düsseldorf Association, and its Chairman from 1949 to 1970. She had a passionate commitment to peace and international friendship, and a deep concern for children. Originally an Anglican, she became a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers).
She was an active trade unionist, and in 1919 was elected to the Reading Board of Guardians together with Albert Cusden, whom she married in 1922. Albert had been a teacher of English in Germany, and had been interned there during the First World War.
In 1923 Phoebe was a Labour parliamentary candidate, and in 1931 was elected to Reading Council. Her principal interest on the Council was education, particularly nursery schools, but she was also involved in housing, town planning, health and related issues.
Phoebe became Organising Secretary of the Nursery Schools Association in 1933, and turned it into a high-profile campaigning body. She wrote "The English Nursery School", for many years the standard work on the subject. She also became a magistrate, and was a strong pacifist.
During the Second World War, Phoebe organised youth camps, served on the Reading Famine Committee, and was involved with those evacuated from London.
Phoebe Cusden was chosen as Mayor of Reading in November 1946. During her year she organised flood relief and was involved in the foundation of the Progress Theatre.
She led an appeal for help to people in Düsseldorf and visited the city to find out the conditions, and in the year after her mayoralty she invited six Düsseldorf children to stay in Reading for three months, and set up the Reading Düsseldorf Association to continue the link. For more about our history, go here.
In 1948 she also founded the Women's Peace Movement, but this was short-lived and she continued to work through the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, of which she was an International Vice-President and editor of its British magazine. She helped to set up a home for international students in Reading, Foley Hall.
In 1951, the King awarded Phoebe Cusden the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire).
By 1958 she was helping to organise support in Reading for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the second Aldermaston march (ill-health had prevented her from joining the first).
More locally, in 1977 she published "Coley: Portrait of an Urban Village", a history of her local area. She was active in the Reading Civic Society.
In 1977, the City of Düsseldorf awarded Phoebe Cusden its Verdienstplakette.
Phoebe receives the Verdienstplakette, 22 June 1977
A new walkway near her home was named Cusden Walk in 1978.
Phoebe Cusden's home in Castle Street, viewed from Cusden Walk
Phoebe died on 23 January 1981, having remained very active even in her last years.
In 1997, to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary, we commissioned Adam Stout to write a biography of Phoebe, which he entitled "A Bigness of Heart".
Printed copies of the book can be obtained from the Chairman. The price is £7.50 (UK postage and packing included): please send a cheque to "Reading Düsseldorf Association".
We have now scanned it as a set of PDF files and also obtained the original text from Adam.
You can download the complete set as a Zip file (9.6 Mb) here.
Or you can view each of the files here:
Text of book as PDF (searchable)
CHAPTER ONE - A Bigness of Heart
CHAPTER THREE - Nurseries for Citizens
CHAPTER FOUR - Love Thine Enemy
CHAPTER FIVE - Peace and Freedom
CHAPTER SIX - A Very Active Pacifist
CHAPTER SEVEN - Impetuous Idealism
The book in all its forms is copyright © Adam Stout 1997 and is reproduced here by permission.
