Annual Reports
These fascinating reports take us right into the beating heart of the vision and community of people who created together what became the Caldecott Community. Scanned by Robert Clark, they open up a world of and about discovery; of Summerhill before Summerhill; of women organising with women for social change; of women winning the Vote; of War, Depression, adaptation, survival and growth.
As of this writing two of the Annual Reports are missing, including the crucial 2nd, 1912-1913, which stands between the 1st, which reports the exciting first year of the Caldecott Nursery School, and the 3rd, which announces the birth of the Caldecott Community as such, in all the richness of its ideals and aspirations.
OCRed and corrected texts will be added as time permits. Please keep an eye out for those Annual Reports which are missing: If you come across one, or any Annual Reports or Caldecott documents and publications out in the world of personal effects and formal archives, please let us know.
The 16th, 1930-1931, crucially covers the onset of the Great Depression, and the resignation after 20 years of Phyllis Potter, and we have included an accompanying publication, "Caldecott Community: A Forecast 1932", which addresses the financial situation more directly - "In a crashing world of almost universal poverty and changing values..." It and the "Caldecott Community: A Forecast 1932" document which we include here among the Annual Reports, set out both basic principles and a significant change of direction in the children the Community would be taking.
The 17th Annual Report covers 1932-1933. The 18th, which is missing, would cover 1933-1935 (which may suggest there is a missing 19th as well). The next two reports we have aren't numbered, but instead are dated: 1935-1936, and 1937-1938. We have no more. Are they missing, or might the onset of the Second World War in 1939 have disrupted the cycle of annual/bi-annual reporting? Might there be no Annual Report for 1939-1940?
Questions questions questions. Meanwhile, enjoy. Where a page of an Annual Report has been skipped, it will be because it is blank in the original:
1st 1911-1912 |
2nd 1912-1913 Missing |
3rd 1913-1914 |
4th 1914-1915 |
5th 1915-1916 |
6th 1916-1917 |
7th 1917-1918 |
8th 1918-1919 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
18th? 1933-1935? Missing |
|
|