Beatrice Boeke-Cadbury

Born to Richard Cadbury and Emma Richard Cadbury (née Wilson), and an heiress to the Cadbury chocolate fortune, Cadbury was raised in an ascetic Quaker household.[1] She was educated at Westfield College in London.[2]

She was involved in the Friends' Foreign Mission Association (FFMA), which is how she met her future husband, Cornelius "Kees" Boeke.[2] They married on December 19, 1911.[3]^:3 Between 1912 and 1914 they served as Quaker missionaries in Syria.[3]^:3, [1]

With the outbreak of World War I, the couple returned to England; Boeke taught briefly before being fired for his pacifist views and public protests against conscription and war, for which he was imprisoned and later, in 1918, deported to the Netherlands.[1] During the 1920s, the young couple protested against elections with anarchists and other left-wing radicals.[4]^:39

The couple had eight children between 1912 and 1927.[5] They resigned from the Religious Society of Friends during the 1920s, though Beatrice returned to the faith late in her life.[2]

Throughout the couple's lives, Boeke-Cadbury's inheritance financed their educational organizations and other endeavors, though this was indirect.[3]^:3 In 1921, the couple relinquished their shares and bonds because of their anti-capitalist views, but friends, in consultation with the workers' council at the Cadbury factory, who supported the couples' activism, set up a trust to fund their family and work.[1] In 1922, Boeke-Cadbury transferred many of her shares to Cadbury workers.[2] Boeke himself refused to pay taxes because of governmental military spending, which led to economic uncertainty throughout their lives.[1] The couple also did not recognize property ownership, which led to several evictions.[2]

Due to their refusal to pay money to the state, their children could not attend state-sponsored education, including the Montessori school in which they were enrolled, so the Boekes founded their own school in 1926.[1] This school was the Werkplaats Kindergemeenschap (Workshop Children's Community) in Bilthoven.[4]^:45,[6] Boeke-Cadbury also taught English at the school.[3]^:4

In 1938, the school began offering classes for German-Jewish refugee children fleeing from Nazi Germany.[5] After the Nazis ordered the segregation of schools in the Netherlands in 1941, Boeke-Cadbury wanted to close the school, but her husband convinced her that they would be able to make more of a difference if it remained open.[5] Boeke-Cadbury taught at a private Jewish school in Loosdrecht.[5]

In the fall of 1942, Boeke-Cadbury and her husband began hiding nine-year-old Norman Magnus and his six-year-old sister Anita; the children had false papers with false identities; they, and later, two of their sisters, remained with the Boeke family until 1944, when they rejoined their parents in hiding in Limburg.[5] During the time the children were staying with them, Boeke and other members of the school were arrested and questioned; two of their employees were murdered by the regime, but no one gave away the children.[5]

Dutch princesses Beatrix, Irene and Margriet attended the Werkplaats after the war.[3]^:5,[7]

In the 1950s, the couple moved to Lebanon to set up an international organization for the education of Arab refugees, but they quickly returned to the Netherlands when Boeke-Cadbury fell ill.[3]^:5, [1]

In June 1991, a portrait bust of Boeke-Cadbury by Fokke de Hoog was created for a reunion of the Werkplaats.[8]

On July 4, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Boeke-Cadbury and her husband as Righteous Among the Nations.[5] They are commemorated on the Wall of Honor.[5]