Wartime papers documenting Dorking’s role as a refuge from Nazi oppression to be made publicly accessible

The Dorking and District Refugee Committee was established in 1938 to support people escaping Nazi oppression in central Europe. Operating throughout the Second World War, the committee found housing, work and medical care for refugees, and later helped Dorking’s German and Czech nationals apply to Home Office tribunals to avoid internment as enemy aliens. Its records – held by Dorking Museum – are of national and international significance, containing individual stories of displacement, solidarity and community response during one of the darkest periods in modern history. 

The project, Accessing Refugee History in Surrey, is funded by the Community Foundation for Surrey and led by Professor Constance Bantman and Dr Beth Palmer from the University of Surrey’s School of Arts, Humanities and Creative Industries. It will create a new web-based archive, making the committee’s records fully searchable and publicly available, alongside teaching and support resources for schools, researchers and community groups.  A launch event and other activities to publicise this significant resource will take place later in 2026.  

Among the stories contained in the records is that of Sir Erich Reich, who arrived in Britain on a Kindertransport in 1939, aged four. With his older brothers sent elsewhere, Vaughan Williams personally brought the young boy to Burchett House in Dorking – a hostel provided rent-free by the Duke of Newcastle – where refugees received support from the committee. Reich went on to become a successful entrepreneur and philanthropist, and credited Dorking with saving his life.  

The committee's work extended beyond housing. When war was declared in 1939, Dorking's German nationals faced internment. The committee intervened on behalf of individuals, including Erika Schmidt-Landry, a former journalist whose husband had been interned on the Isle of Man, and who faced the prospect of placing her three children in an orphanage. Forster and Vaughan Williams took up her case directly. 

The project will also produce teaching resources designed to support engagement with the collection, making the archive a practical tool for education alongside its research value.