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The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust,
Beverley House,
Shipton Road,
York.
Tel. YORK 22527
23rd March 1961
Keith Wedmore,
Stoneleigh,
Sheerwater Avenue,
West Byfleet,
Surrey
Dear Keith Wedmore,
The Quaker Group on Homosexuality, etc.
Your letter of the 21st February to my deputy, Trevor Jepson, was considered at a meeting of the J.R.C. Trustees held last Saturday. As you will be aware, there is much interest and support here for the work being done by the Group and you may count upon a renewal of the £100 grant, at any rate for the current year.
The question was asked, however, as to whether the Group is a permanent body or whether for example the publication of the booklet or book is likely to be the point at which it will either continue independently and in the process attempt to secure wider financial support, or alternatively, hand over its work to the nearest competent Quaker body. As you will probably sense, the Trust does not with to take up the position of being a regular subscribers to the funds of the Group but rather to assist it during the present formative period in terms of a limited commitment only. Perhaps you would comment on this.
I gather from your letter it will be suitable if I sent along the 1961 grant of £100 to the FTU, Reginald Smith, at the end of next month?
With kindly greetings.
Yours sincerely,
Eric Cleaver, secretary
_____________________________________
25 March 1961
Dear Eric Cleaver
Quaker Group on Homosexuality etc
Thank you so much for your letter, which I will lay before the Group on its next Meeting in late April. I am, as I am sure they will be, most grateful to your Trustees for their renewed generosity. I agreed that the appropriate course would be to send the cheque to Reginald Smith as you suggest.
The group is not and cannot be a Permanent body, although it is certainly an unconscionable time a-dying. Essentially I think that what you have here is a small body of concerned Friends (entirely unofficial) who first met for some years to arrive at a shared conclusion on the problems which concern them (which they have done), and who then decide that the best way of airing, and sharing, their approach to these problems would be to set it out in a pamphlet or book. That (as I say) is in sight of completion. The Group look no further than that I think; and would throw the future of the concern entirely at large after that. They obviously cannot indefinitely continue to spend the time this concern has demanded; and I doubt whether any one of them would wish to pursue this much further in any event without some kind of recognition or authority from the Society itself. If the Society takes up this concern (as we hope) but will be for it to say that form its future pursuit is to take, I imagine, and I would have thought that with such direction would come the adoption of financial responsibility.
I hope that meets your point adequately.
I am bound to add of course that I am only the Treasurer of this Group and that I send off the above commentary on the assumption that it is a fair one and that you would rather have a reply now than in (say) 6 weeks when the group have met. So the above are my own views; but your letter and the contents of this will be laid before my colleagues when we meet again and If I am instructed to add or vary anything of the above I will.
With best wishes, and thank for your continued interest (which is as much appreciated as the money!)
Yours sincerely,
