Cumberland Lodge - History of The Foundation

History of The Foundation

In 1947, King George VI granted the use of the lodge to the St Katharine’s Foundation — now known as the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St Catharine’s. The foundation is a Christian educational trust which was the product of the imagination and insight of Miss Amy Buller. A commissioned portrait of Amy Buller by the Scottish painter Helen Wilson (RA)can be seen at the lodge. In 1968 it acquired a new appellation, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St. Catharine’s, Cumberland Lodge. In June 2005 a new incorporated charity, called simply Cumberland Lodge, assumed the operating role and the assets of the Foundation. However, the original charity continues to exist as the holder of the warrant for the property.

In 1943 Amy Buller’s book Darkness Over Germany was published.Drawing on her experiences in Germany between the two world wars, she believed that the rise of Nazism had been significantly aided by the great German universities not teaching students to use their critical judgment on the world around them and not providing an environment where the great issues of the day could be openly discussed. The book impressed leading people in a nation still at war. It led to a determination to set up a place where students, and those responsible for the guidance of young people, could meet to discuss what contribution they could make, through their studies, to the betterment of society and towards a lasting peace. Amy Buller conceived the idea of a residential centre where students could come with their teachers and, in a relaxed atmosphere, consider important ethical and social issues outside the normal confines of their degree courses. She gained the active support of the King and Queen. To recognise the prime role played by their Majesties in establishing the Trust, its name was changed in 1968 to the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St Catharine’s. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was Patron of the Foundation from 1947 until her death in 2002. In February 2003 she was succeeded in this role by her daughter, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The Foundation has developed its role with students, so that it now regularly organises cross-disciplinary postgraduate conferences. Since the 1980s it has also run over one hundred conferences, for a wider constituency than the universities, on moral, ethical, spiritual or social issues, publishing reports, blogs and podcasts on most of them.