Buchman seems to have left the decision to those in Britain, and by the time of the January meeting at Lambeth, all were agreed that the Group was not then able to take on so large an establishment and, more importantly, that its mission was to a wider audience than could be reached through any one Church. Garrett Stearly remembers Buchman saying to him, 'We cannot afford to become the property of any one group.'

One line of the Bishop of Durham's attack which found many sympathetic ears was his reference to what he considered Buchman's 'assuming' the name 'Oxford' - something which he said had done 'yeoman's duty in South Africa and America'. The Times, which had frequently used the name 'Oxford Group' in previous years and, indeed, used it in the headline over the Bishop's letter, thereafter dropped the prefix 'Oxford' and wrote an editorial underlining its decision. The issue roused strong feelings. Many Oxford men opposed Buchman on this issue in the belief that he had personally invented the name for publicity purposes and that, the Bishop of Durham's account being true, the use of the word 'Oxford' could bring ill-repute to the University. Others felt that he should have renounced the name when it spontaneously came into general usage. A lively correspondence, pro and con, was published in The Times.

This question arose on 31 October 1933 at high table at Oriel College, where both Buchman and the Master of University College, Sir Michael Sadler, were dining. Buchman explained how the name had come into being, and said that he himself had no desire for his name to be central in anything God had done through him, that many Oxford men felt the Oxford Group had brought them nearer their University's motto, Dominus IlluminatioMea, than anything else had done, and that the Oxford undergraduate force was the largest in training anywhere.*

(* Martin reckoned that of the seven men visiting South Africa in 1928 six were from Oxford; of the twenty-one visiting Canada in 1933, thirteen; in 1934, eighteen out of twenty-seven; of 138 British who went to Denmark in 1935, seventy. In 1939, out of fifty-three men devoting their whole time in London, twenty-nine were graduates of the University.) (Martin MSS.)

When the public controversy was at its height Buchman wrote to Sadler. ’The Times’, he wrote, '. . . imputes dishonest motives to us, and this vitiates the challenge to a new level of honesty in commercial life. You will remember that at dinner that night in Oxford you told us not to yield an inch on the point. . . ,'33

Sadler's reply was both practical and prophetic: '. . . you and your friends were right in calling yourselves "The Oxford Group" because, at a critical time, your work here was of determinative importance to the future of the movement. The name is not copyright, and nobody can say Yea or Nay to your right of using it. I feel pragmatic about it. If there is anything essentially connected with Oxford in the movement, the name "The Oxford Group" will survive as representing one historical aspect in its growth. If, on the other hand, the Oxford connection is swallowed up in something bigger and more international, the name "Oxford Group" would be instinctively felt by writers all over the world to have become a misnomer. In the meantime I hope you will stick to it. As you know, I am thankful that Oxford has any share in this spiritual awakening.'34

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