MEDWAY TOWNS PHILATELIC SOCIETY
Some Historical Notes
In the writer's opinion, the broad outlines and some of the details of the history on a Society such as ours are worthy of record, not only for the interest of members present and yet-to-come but also for the benefit and guidance of another historian who might wish to expand the notes up to some future date and who particularly might wish to delve back into the newspapers of the years leading up to WWII, or perhaps contemporary issues of stamp magazines, in the hope that some clue might be found to the activities of the society which existed from 1922 onwards.
The timing of these notes has not been deliberately chosen, though in the year of 1997 we shall celebrate the 75th. Anniversary of the Society so perhaps it is appropriate that they should appear now. But … is this truly the Society which was founded in 1922, which awakened in the 1945 after the enforced sleep of 6 years, or is it an entirely new body formed by interested parties, without reference to what had gone before? Readers must make up their own minds after reading the note on page five.
This is not an officially commissioned history, it has been prepared on the writer's own initiative and any comments and opinions are his alone. Nevertheless, he is grateful be the present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, for making available the Minute Books of the Society (from 1945 to date) and the yearly printed programmes from 1953 onwards, though there are some gaps. Other members, past and present, have provided information and this, too, is gratefully acknowledged; they are mentioned where appropriate.
The writer has long held the view - and is still not entirely unconvinced! - that a society may have been active in this area during the early years of this century. The Isle of Thanet society was certainly in being, it hosted 'Congress' (the annual meeting of the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain) in 1912, while Tunbridge Wells (almost certainly) and Folkestone (perhaps) were other possibilities. Added to this is the consideration of the sort of member who joined many of the societies of the day - doctors, lawyers (including eminent judges in some cases), gentleman of the cloth and officers of the Navy and Army. Our Towns, including a cathedral city and important naval and military bases, had their share of such people and could have provided a fertile ground for the growth of a society.
There appeared to be some support for this view when one-time member Edgar Hollands told the writer, probably during the 1960s, that he could remember attending meetings of the stamp club 'in the Museum' when a boy of 12. As Edgar was born in 1900 there seemed to be some hope. During the next few months the writer made a number of visits to Gillingham Reference Library, which held the original copies of the 'Chatham News', transferred there from the paper's offices in New Road. The issues of the paper for 1912 were scanned for some mention of the activities of a stamp club, but none was found. It has to be admitted that only news reports, even a short paragraph, or more obvious advertisements were looked for; if there had been small classified ads., say for an A.G.M. or the opening meeting of a new season, then they would have been missed. As a matter of interest, the writer was recently informed that the Chatham News files are now stored in the Library's basement and that some on the early issues are crumbling; however, all the issues are on microfilm and thus still available for study.
At around the same time that the writer was engaged in the Library, the then Secretary, H.C. (Hugh) Sharp, examined the City archives then held in the Guildhall, but found no reference to the letting of a room in the Museum at Eastgate House to a stamp club during the years around 1912.
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So, the verdict at present must be 'not proven', although for the record it has to be said that in his later years, he died in the early 1970s, Edgar's mind, sadly, had deteriorated.
One remote possibility occurs to the writer, to explain Edgar's remembered stamp club attendance. Our one-time member Arthur Jones, who lived in Seaview Rd. in Gillingham and who died, if memory serves correctly, in the late 1960s, was in later life and perhaps in the earlier years also the Curator of Gillingham Museum. That was opened in the Pavilion in Gillingham Park in 1916 and transferred to Woodlands House (near the present school) in 1927; it was closed when the house was demolished (in the 1950's?). If Arthur was the Curator in the early days or was employed by the Council in some other capacity, or if the first Curator was a collector and as Edgar seems to have been a local lad, did Arthur or someone else run a club for the boys and was Edgar's memory a few years out and have been thinking of the wrong Museum?
The Home Front in WWI had its share of privations such as rationing and it was spared much of the devastating bombing of the next war, though grieving families were the recipients of far more telegrams expressing the War 0ffice's regrets than were those of some 20-odd years later.
Whatever the mood of the people at the end of 1918, it took a little longer than it did in 1945 - as will be seen later - for things to get back to normal, philatelically speaking.
In both the 'Chatham News' and the 'Chatham Observer' dated 14 October 1921 there appeared a write-up referring to a proposed 'stamp collectors society'; interested persons were to contact Mr. H.W. Henbest at 17 Dickens Terrace, Wainscott. There must have been some worth while response to Mr. Henbest's proposal, for later reports known to the writer refer: on 3 October 1924 to the 23rd. ordinary meeting held on Wednesday (Observer); on 7 November 1924 to the meeting held on Wednesday (Observer); on 8 January 1926 to the first meeting of the Rochester and District Philatelic Society held in the New Year, the meeting having taken place on Wednesday (Observer); and on 11 November 1927 it was reported in the 'Chatham News' that the Rochester Philatelic Society hat row entered its 7th year ant that it met at the City Temperance Hotel.
The 23rd. ordinary meeting having been held on 3.10.24 can perhaps be explained if there had been one inaugural and three ordinary meetings in the early months of 1922 (the presently accepted year on foundation), then four in the last months of the year, followed by five plus four in 1923 then five plus September and October in 1924. This squares with 'had now entered' the 7th. year in November 1927 if the first part of 1922 was a 'short' year, followed by 1922-23, 1923-24 and so on.
The references cited above to newspaper reports were given to the writer by our one-time member, the late E.H. (Harold) Couchman, who died in 1994 when in his early 80s. Harold joined in November 1927 and could remember such names as J.L. Percival (the Town Clerk), Andrews, F. Kearnes, Buck, Miskin, Sheepwash, Mrs. Elliott and H.J. Graham.
That last name was already known to the writer, as a result of unexpected and pleasantly surprising acquisition. Some years ago he was given, by our members Joyce and Geoff Kemp, the cover and one surviving inner page of an exchange packet booklet, dated February 1925, for the Rochester & District Philatelic Society. The printed name and address of the 'Hon. Ex. Supt. (H.W. Henbest, already mentioned above) had been lined through and a faint rubber stamped H.J. Graham, 9 Watts Avenue, Rochester applied above it. Because of the possible coincidence which will be noted on the next page, it should be mentioned here that Joyce and Geoff were given the booklet remains by Martin Lynes, a friend of theirs - and of the writer - of long standing; Martin is at present a member of the Maidstone society and a dedicated and knowledgeable postal historian, who at the time of the gift was an employee - and is now a director - of the well-known firm on Argyll-Etkin.
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Martin had acquired the booklet, in his professional capacity, as part of a collection which had been in the West Country; there was no mention of any other items connected with this area.
It was surely more than mere coincidence that the club-book should surface in that part of the country to which the Secretary of the old society was said to have moved (see below). Was it part of his collection (or of his estate) or had it changed hands via a society auction or in some other way? 1f there had been any papers relating to the society to accompany that small item it would have been a nice gesture if the secretary, or his heirs, had made an effort to contact the society in this area with a view to passing them over, so ensuring some continuity of the records.
We - and our heirs and successors - should give careful thought when disposing of documents or even small items of memorabilia which might be of historical interest; much useful material must have been consigned to the dustbin over the years!
Some years later than the acquisition mentioned above, Joyce and Geoff came across another booklet cover, this time of the Chatham House Stamp Club and dating from some years prior to the previous one. It is tempting to make some connection between that title and this district. However, the writer is of the opinion that there is no link, Chatham: House is not an uncommon name, having been applied be a number of structures in the 19th. century in honour of the Earl of Chatham. Two such examples come to mind - the headquarters of the Commonwealth Institute in London and a well-known school in Thanet. One other building so- named does have local connections, but not in honour of the Earl, and that is the Chatham House which formed the core of one of the departments of the now-closed local business of Featherstones Ltd. in Rochester High St., just a new yards west on the boundary with Chatham. It still stands today, of course.
Only one other relic of the 'old' society is - or rather, was - known to the writer and that is a printed programme of the mid 1930s; its present location is not known. No paperwork, e.g. Minute Books etc., is held in the Society's archives today and the information detailed above relating to early meetings etc. is all that is known to the writer. Any more can only be acquired from a study of the newspaper files referred to or from contemporary issues of, say, 'Stamp Collecting' magazine, which had a long tradition of publishing meeting reports right up to the time it ceased publication many years ago.
This section dealing with the activities of the 'old' society can be fittingly brought to an end with a jump ahead to 1966, In that year the then Secretary, Hugh Sharp, was made aware that the local branch of the Westminster Bank was holding a sum of money in a dormant account in the name of the Rochester & District Philatelic Society. If the signed permission of any surviving Officer or of two committee members could be obtained, then the bank would be prepared to hand over the money to the existing society; the name and address of the last-known Secretary were given. The writer has now forgotten the name but he called at the address in Second Avenue, Gillingham, to be informed by the resident that the gentleman concerned had moved many years before to the Portsmouth/Devonport area (was that a posting from the dockyard?) but that no forwarding address was known. Subsequently, two of the previous committee members were traced, both by then being members of the Sittinghourne society. Their signatures being duly obtained, Hugh reported at the Committee meeting held on 7 November 1966 that the sum of £10-13-4 had been received from the bank and was now in our own Society's account. Which seems a good point to go on now to the next phase.
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A New Beginning
The lapse of time between the end of WWI and moves to form a society has already been commented on. Just ten and a half weeks after VE Day, on 20 July 1945, the 'Chatham News' carried a short note under the title 'Stamp Club for the Towns', suggesting that 'a long felt requirement in the Medway Towns amongst philatelists may now be filled as it is hoped that a club will be formed for all those interested in the hobby of stamp collecting'. It went on to comment on all those who had taken up the hobby to relieve the strain of the war years and all those members of the Forces who had found relief from monotony. All who were interested should contact Mr. Rowland S. Bernard at 17 New Road, Chatham.
The response to Mr. Bernard's overtures was at least as favorable as that to Mr. Henbest's nearly 24 years earlier, for on Wednesday 29 August 1945, as it is recorded in the first words in the Minutes, 'A meeting to inaugurate the Society was held in the Lecture Room at Eastgate House Rochester there being approximately 25 interested persons present'. The Mayor of Rochester, Cllr. Knight, was also present and 'in a few well-chosen words' he wished the new Society every success and stressed the point that any organization to promote education and learning in its widest sense would receive the utmost sympathy from the authorities in the three Boroughs (sic); he went on to say that in Rochester, particularly, every facility would be given.
Officers were elected; Mr. Bernard unanimously as President, Mr. R.W. Ellingham as Secretary (after several members had declined to accept the Office - nothing has changed!) and Mr. S.R. Roane as Treasurer (he actually offered his services!). It was resolved that the title should be The Medway Towns Philatelic Society and that for the time being a Junior Section should be incorporated into the Senior Section.
After some debate the annual subscription was fixed at 2/6 for those under 18 and 5/- for older members, this proposal defeating an alternative motion for a three tier structure. It was also proposed that a Committee on four members be appointed in addition to the Officers and Messrs. Couchman. Kearns, Ingram and Brooks were duly elected. After consultation with the Curator of the Museum, it was decided that further meetings should be held in the Museum on the first Tuesday in each month and finally, the Committee was 'empowered to arrange for a suitable speaker for the opening night', Thus ended, at 9.0 p.m., the first meeting of the new Society.
The proceedings of that first meeting have been dealt with in some detail because of their interest. The further affairs of the Society can be traced in considerable depth through the medium of the Minutes of the several hundred meetings which have taken place since then, though it has to be recorded that by 1970 the decision had apparently been taken, and not itself recorded, that the minutes on ordinary (display, competition etc.) meetings would no longer be taken; from then on only Committee, A.G.M. and E.G.M. minutes appear. Much of the detail of the Society's life is thereby lost, though sometimes events of the previous months can be gleaned from the Committee minutes. In defence of that decision, it has to be admitted that for a few years prior to the reduction of entries in the books the majority of meeting reports consisted of something like 'the President introduced the speaker who gave his display of Bongoland, which was much appreciated; Mr. A. expressed the thanks of the members, The raffle raised 4/6 for club funds' - and little more.
If this history were to continue with a month by month account of the Society's activities in chronological order it would probably be as boring to read as to type. For this reason, it is proposed to continue by considering the various aspects of activity under appropriate headings and, within each section, in more or less the order in which they occurred.
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But first - the reason for the point raised in the second paragraph of these notes, where doubt was cast on the direct succession of our Society from the earlier one. The note in the 'Chatham News' of 20 July 1945, already mentioned, made no reference to the proposed resumption of pre-war activities and at a Committee meeting held on the 26 March 1946 it was resolved that the Secretary should write to the last known Secretary of the Rochester & District Society - 'now dormant' - with a view to the amalgamation of the two Societies. This approach hardly suggests that the Society felt itself at one with the pre-war body, in spite of two members (Harold Couchman and Francis Kearns) and very possibly some others having been members in 1939. Perhaps feelers had been gut out and it was already known that to all intents and purposes the old Society was not even in a state of suspended animation.
What's in a Name
There was evidently something in the name which had been adopted at the inaugural meeting in 1945. By 1957 it was felt, by some members at least, that to inclusion of 'philatelic society' in the title might be a deterrent to prospective members. At the A.G.M. on 6 Nay 1957 it was therefore proposed that the Society's name be changed to the Medway Towns Stamp Club. However, it was finally agreed that the name should be the Rochester & District Stamp Club. That change lasted exactly 6 years to the day! At the A.G.M. held on 6 May 1963 attitudes had changed again and the name we still bear today was reinstated.
The Officers
The first-elected Officers have already been noted above and there have always been a President, Secretary and Treasurer, of course. A full list of these is given in the Appendix. In the early days, it was suggested that the three Mayors be invited to become Vice-Presidents of the Society and on one occasion the Bishop of Rochester also. There is no evidence in the Minutes that approaches were made or accepted and since no programmes survive before 1953 no check is possible. One or two of the more prominent members were, in fact, appointed and their names usually eventually appear as President. From 1958 onwards the practice, still followed today, was instituted whereby an incoming President (who from 1950 onwards has usually served for three years) served the previous three years as the (only) Vice-President. The proposal, made only two years before, that a1l Past-Presidents should be Vice-Presidents arrears to have been short-lived.
Before passing to the next section, mention should be made on the President's Medallion - his symbol on Office. The first mention on this decoration appears in the Minutes of the A.G.M. held in 1982. No further entry on the subject has been found until at the Committee meeting held on 21 September 1987 it was reported that a quotation of £75 for a medallion had been received the suggestion that one should be obtained having been made again some time previously. However, the President of the time, W. (Bill) Andrews, declared, in no uncertain terms, that so long as he was President he would not wear it! The matter was further discussed at an S.G.M. on 2 November 1987 and a decision deferred until the installation on the next President. No further mention of the matter appears in the Minutes, so the President remains unadorned - but no less respected.
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The Committee
Throughout the life of the Society, successive Committees have made a significant contribution to its affairs and have assisted the Officers with a wealth of knowledge and experience. To name all those who have served would take a formidable list and, with some regret, it has been decided that this will not be done. Such a list would have contained the names of many prominent members of the Society, a great many of whom, sadly, are no longer with us but who are not forgotten.
Four members formed the first Committee in 1945 and that number has formed the normal complement for most of the time since. For a number of years it was the practice for an outgoing President to become an ex-officio member of the Committee, for the three years until the next ex-President took his place. However, in May 1990 it was decided that this would not happen and that the Past-President would offer himself for election if he so wished. That decision was soon reversed though, for a new Constitution, ratified in 1996, reinstated the earlier position and the Committee comprises three members elected at the A.G.M. plus the outgoing President.
The 'Working Committee', on course, involves both the Officers and the four members mentioned above. In addition, three other members, also elected at the A.G.M., have in the past often sat in on the deliberations - the Press Correspondent or Secretary (first appointed in October 1945), the Packet Secretary (in November 1947) and the Librarian (not a formal appointment until 1987). One of the privileges (?) of all these good people was that they were expected to be the first to volunteer to undertake all the hard work involved when the Society was staging exhibitions etc. in addition to the normal monthly meetings, Some of these extra- mural activities are mentioned in later sections of these notes. Business and personal circumstances permitting, this help has always been forthcoming without question and the Society owes them a debt of gratitude.
The actual Committee meetings have been held in a variety of locations, ranging from the Society's normal meeting place to a room at the stamp shop just along the street from the Kings Head Hotel, an office on the first floor of Leonards of Rochester (the 'power base' of. our one time President John Leonard) and the home of the current President. This latter location, anywhere in a triangle covering Borstal, Strood and Rainham, has now been the norm for many years and the members owe their hostesses many a vote of thanks for numerous cups on tea and coffee - and occasionally something a little stronger!
The Membership
It has already been recorded that the inaugural meeting was attended by 'approximately 25 interested persons'; at the first ordinary meeting on 2 October 1945 there were 24 Senior and 4 Junior members present. In just under 2 years the membership had risen to 41 Senior and 4 Junior members, while attendances at meetings were fluctuating around 25-30, though a low point was reached when only 5 members attended the quiz night on 5 May 1947! During the next 5 years the number of members rose slightly, though attendances dropped and year by year average figures of around 14-18 were being recorded. At the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 it was reported that although on paper the membership was 48, only 26 had attended any meeting at all in the past season and only 16 had attended more than one third on the meetings; furthermore, only 28 subscriptions were being paid, which included 6 juniors. It was therefore decided that some 'weeding' of the membership list should be carried out so that it could be established exactly who were members.
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The membership list itself had been formalised in 1948. At the Committee meeting held on the 12th. July in that year, the Secretary was instructed to have printed, among other things, 200 membership application forms; these were being used by prospective new member by October and at a Committee meeting held on the 18th. of that month it was decided that existing members should be asked be complete a form for record purposes. This seemingly trivial matter is mentioned here because on its effect on early membership records and the writer will perhaps be forgiven if he quotes his own case as an example.
He has long been puzzled that the date of his joining the Society is recorded as 1.11.48, though memory was that he first attended at the opening meeting of the 1947-8 season - in September - which was, in fact, the first meeting to be held at the new venue of the Kings Head Hotel. Memory is now proved to be correct, as an application form to be signed was not available until the November meeting in 1948. If other existing members filled in a form at that time or at a subsequent meeting, then, unless they backdated the form, they too will appear to have joined some time, even years, later than they actually did. All the forms, even for these who are no longer members, are still held on file and a future historian should be wary when researching these early records.
A year after the 'weeding' was decided on it was reported to have been done and the list then contained only 'reliable' members; the average attendance during the 1952-3 season had been 17.4. Attendances and membership continued to decline; in 1957-8 the average attendance was down to 13, in 1958-9 it was 15 and the total membership only 21. On 1 January 1962 - admittedly because of bad weather - only 6 members turned up; presumably one of them was the President as it was his 'Night'; the meeting was abandoned - the only time in the history of the Society that this has happened.
From this time on, the Minutes carry no references to membership attendances until 1981 (except that the numbers, including visitors, at auction meetings are sometimes mentioned); from then on, copies of the Secretary's report are attached and mention is made of these 'vital statistics'. Since then, the average attendance at meetings year-on-year has remained remarkably constant, ranging from about 26 to 32. The actual membership, however, has steadily climbed, largely due to the great success of the Exchange Packet, which is dealt with later on; within the last two or three years it has reached the 100 mark, including about 10 'family' memberships. A simple subtraction shows that a large proportion of the total is only packet membership, welcome though this may be from a financial point of view.
Honorary Life Membership was bestowed on John Leonard at the Committee meeting held on 11 January 1962 (he was leaving the district) in recognition of his services to the Society. However, it was not until the Committee meeting of 23 November 1981 that it was agreed to recommend to the forthcoming A.G.M. that such an honour be formalised, This was done and on 10 May 1982 it was agreed that membership of the Society for 30 years - to include a term as President - would in future be recognised by the granting of Honorary Life Membership and two members - the present Secretary and the writer - were so appointed. Two other members have also been honoured - S.O. (Griffith) Sutton and H.C. (Hugh) Sharp.
The Finances
There are four main sources of income - annual subscriptions, profits from the monthly raffles, commission from the annual auctions and the exchange packet.
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At the inaugural meeting, as has already been noted, the annual subscription was set at 2/6 for members under 18 and 5/- for older ones. Just a year later, at the A.G.M. held on 24 September 1946, the senior element was increased to 7/6. This structure sufficed until 1953 when, at the A.G.M. held on 5th. May, the Treasurer noted that although the finances were in a healthy state, they allowed nothing to cover the entertainment and expenses given to visiting speakers, two courtesies which, the writer recalls, have frequently been the subject of discussion at county and society level. Accordingly, the subscriptions were raised to 10/- and 3/6 for senior and junior members respectively. At the next A.G.M., however, the junior rate reverted to its previous level of 2/6.
There was then a gap of almost 25 years before it became necessary to alter subscription rates again. Decimalization in 1971 had translated the figures to 50p and the not exact equivalent on 12p. Inflation, too, was a new word and we all began to find that money didn't seem to go as far as it use to. For that reason, the standard rate for senior members was raised to £1 and the junior rate to 25p; a new category was introduced - that for Senior citizens - and was set at 50p. For the increasing number of husband-and-wife members a further new category of Family Membership was introduced and the subscription for this was set at £1-50. The junior rate has not had occasion to be collected for many years, unfortunately, as there have been be individual junior members for a long time.
One other category of membership existed for a number of years - that of Country Member. This was introduced to cater for members of the exchange packet who were not local residents and therefore were not likely to attend meetings or to avail themselves of other facilities. They were nevertheless required to be members on the Society for insurance purposes and a concession rate of 25p was levied on them. It is not certain when this was instituted but, largely because of some misunderstanding of the intended purpose of the category, it was abolished as from 1 January 1988.
There is not a lot to be said on the subject on raffles - except that we have them regularly! They were first held in late 1951 as one measure to recoup a loss incurred as a result of the Society hosting Federation Day for the Kent Federation in the previous May, when John Leonard had been installed as its President. The loss was some £12: a significant amount for the Society and one which would not have been made had it not been that those were the days when dealers were not asked to such events. The suggestion then was that members should make up packets on stamps from their duplicates and these would be raffled one at a time at successive meetings. This scheme does not appear to have been too successful, for only a year later it was recorded that a raffle was not held every month owing to lack of material. A year later, at the A.G.M. on 5 May 1953, it was agreed that raffles should de discontinued and it seeds that by then the loss of £12 in 1951 had been cleared. Quite how is not recorded, but only 3 months later, at the Committee meeting on 16 August, it was decided to reinstate the monthly raffles and that, of course, is the pattern today - albeit the prices have been rather more worth having than little packets of members' duplicates, with all due respect! Fortunately, the Society's bank balance is not so dependent on the income from this 'fun' activity as it once was and it is to be hoped that it will continue for many years to come.
The first auction was held on the 5 March 1946, when the ambitious total of 120 lots was sold to the 21 senior and 5 junior members present, realising £8-5-9, of which 13/9 went to the Society's funds, Further sales were held on a regular basis and 1 March 1948 was the first occasion on which members of Gravesend, Maidstone and Sittingbourne societies were invited to attend; the total realisation for the evening was a little over £60 - including £3 for Lot 64, sold for the benefit of St, Barts Hospital. By 1953 the practice had begun of holding a short mini-auction before each meeting, subject to the availability on material and this activity, together with 'sale and exchange', was reflected in the preamble to the yearly printed programme.
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The commission on sales at auctions - and, incidentally, on sales of approvals at meetings when these two activities were featured - was fixed on 27 November 1945 at 1d in the 1/- for members and 'the best terms available' for non-members. At some unrecorded time later it was lowered to 5% but at the meeting held on 14 May 1953 it was decided to increase it to 10%. Just three years later, on 10 August 1956, the Committee raised it again to 2d. in the 1/-. It is not recorded when the level was reduced to the 10% which is still in force today - perhaps it was in 1971, with the onset of decimalization, for the calculation of five-sixths of one new penny in. five new pence would have strained the patience of the accountants at the end on a two-hour sale!
The commission derived from sales at successive auctions has sometimes provided a welcome boost to the funds - often amounting to the equivalent of some 30 or more annual subscriptions. The Minutes of many meetings include a reference to the amount raised from the mini-auctions at the start of meetings during the years when they were a regular feature; just one such reference is worthy of record - the threepence-ha'penny accruing to the funds on 2 November 1959 must have been very welcome to the Treasurer!
On a more serious note, mention should de made of the good that has come out of the auctions in the shape of the money that has been donated to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association; for many years now some 8-10 lots, assembled from various sources by L.C. (Les) Elmore, have been sold without deduction of commission, following very generous bidding from many members, and the proceeds passed on to the good cause. The thanks received from their H.O. have shown how much this gesture is appreciated.
The Exchange Packet has had a chequered history, its shaky beginnings giving no clue to the great success it was to become in later years. It began on 3 November 1947 when it was proposed that members should assemble booklets of about 25 stamps which would de circulated among those who were interested. The principle was to be truly one of exchange; members would remove any items which they wanted and replace them with items on equal or similar value. It does not take much imagination, perhaps, to see that this system was liable to 'misjudgment' of 'value', to put it kindly. There are frequent entries in the Minutes for the years which followed referring to the gradual deterioration of the quality of material in the booklets as they got further into the circuit. There was one query as to whether it was alright to replace colonial stamps with foreign ones; the answer was a firm NO! Members were asked on several occasions to make sure they abided by the spirit of the packet. In October 1950 it was proposed - the inference is obvious - to split the circuit into two parts, one for senior members and one for juniors though one has to doubt that the junior members were entirely to blame for the situation.
At the A.G.M. on 7 May 1956 a proposal was made that the packet in its existing form be abandoned and that a conventional cash-based one be set up. This was defeated, but it was decided that better quality material should be contributed and a close watch was to be kept on its progress. These high ideals did not last for long! At the next A.G.M., on 6 May 1957, it was decided that because of continued abuse the packet would be abandoned. The remaining booklets were auctioned off and fetched 7/6!
For several years prior to that time, the Sittingbourne packet had been available at meetings ant sales from it had been encouraging. No further mention of it appears in the Minutes after November 1962 and at the following A.G.M., on 6 May 1963, the Committee were instructed to organise a 'proper' packet. Just 9 days later - there must have been some preliminary investigation - the Committee were informed that the cost of setting up a packet, including blank booklets, would be £2-2-9. As the booklets would be sold to members the net cost of the setup would only be £1-2-9. There is no record of when the first packet was circulated but the first account was presented to the A.G.M. on 4 Nay 1964; sales had been 27.7% and the profit to the Society was £7-15-0.
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The new packet was not an unqualified success. Although for 1967-8 the sales were 35%, only 3 boxes had actually been circulated. This number fell to 2 in 1969-70 and only l in 1970-1. This state on affairs can perhaps be attributed to the fact that in those early days most booklets contributed came from a limited number of local members, unlike the position in later years. The low point had been reached and as time progressed, under successive changes of Packet Secretary - a list appears in the Appendix - matters improved. So much so that at the A.G.M. on 12 May 1986 it was proposed and agreed that in recognition of the greatly increased amount of work falling on the Packet Secretary, by then P.D. (Peter) Willard, an honorarium should go with the office; the annual amount was be 1% of the gross sales. Peter resigned from his onerous job in July 1991 and at the next A.G.M. was able to report that no less than £37000 of material had been circulated in the final 8 months on his stewardship, with sales a fraction over 50%. This was the high point of a period of some 3 or 4 years during which both circulation and sales steadily accelerated - with the result that the Society's funds received a considerable boost from the resulting commission, even though the amount paid by members of the Society, as opposed to outside contributors, was only 5%, to which level it had been dropped as long before as 1980.
For two or three years following that time the Packet continued at almost the same level of success but the sudden lost, within the space of about nine months, of the Packet's three biggest spenders - between them responsible for around a half of the total purchases - caused a very noticeable drop in sales and currently the average figure is no more than one half of the peak noted above, coupled with a similar drop in the amount of material being circulated. It is to be hoped that, for the sake of the Society's finances, the halcyon days will return.
Overall, the Society's bank balance has generally been enough - sometimes only just enough - to sustain it. After only 4 months of operation, the balance in hand declared for 1945 was the useful amount of £6-9-4. The amount varied by £2-3 either side of that for a few years but by 1951 the alarm bells must have started ringing, for at the A.G.M. on 7 May the Treasurer reported that no more than £l-10-10 remained in the kitty. Although there was a deficit of some £12 on the Federation Day account for the event hosted by the Society in May 1951 - as noted above - and the Treasurer was able to report to the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 that that had been cleared, there were but 2/- (and a ha'penny!) left to be going on with. Things could only get better - unless they got catastrophically worse! - and from then on there was a steady improvement, helped by increasing membership, successful auctions, the raffle and the improvement of exchange packet sales, coupled with modest outgoings for such things as room hire, entertainment, printing and so on. In addition, by the late 1960s it had been decided to place some of the Society's funds on deposit in the Rochester Diocesan Loan Fund, instead of allowing them to rest in an ordinary bank account collecting nothing but bank charges. That was a wise move, for the interest so gained improved year by year as deposit rates increased during the 1970s and by the 30th. anniversary of the 2/- low point the Treasurer could gain much satisfaction from a balance of well in excess of £500 - but then, 30 years is a long time.
The increasing success of the Exchange Packet has already been mentioned and during the 1980s the income from commission on sales steadily rose while an increasing sum was accruing by virtue of the fact that for some time the Society had to underwrite the insurance of its own packet, in the absence of suitable commercial cover. All this reflected in the Treasurer's annual statement. As early as 1979 he began to sing what was to become a familiar refrain at successive A.G.Ms. - we've got too much money! The immediate, and only, effect at that time was an agreement to increase the prize money which in those days was given to competition second and third runners-up.
In the following year, the response to the same refrain was a proposal that various catalogues should be purchased, to form the basis of a library; surprisingly, in view of later attitudes, the proposal was defeated at that time.
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The annual plea being made, it has to be recorded that proposals for spending some of the surplus funds by: reducing or abolishing the annual subscription; subsidising the annual cheese and wine meeting (which had taken the place of the annual dinner - of which more later); abolishing the annual subscription for retired members only; and purchasing further trophies for competition, were all detected at the A.G.M. on 10 May 1982 - thus supporting the recommendation from the Committee that they be rejected.
The reader will be spared a year-by-year account of the discussions attending the institution of additional benefits; suffice it to say that at the time of writing, the Society has funds in the region of f3400 and members now have the benefit of: a wide variety of catalogues, updated annually or every other year (sometimes as much as f100 a year has been spent); A U-V lamp and watermark detector; retention trophies for competition winners (the prize monies having been abolished in 1990) and a small prize for the one-sheet event; certificates for competition runners-up and also as mementos for visiting speakers; payment in full for the proper entertainment of the latter (whereas for many years the President was limited to a 'budget' for this); new, more convenient, frames for displays; a small subsidy towards the cost of the Annual Dinner; and, perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that there is a substantial buffer behind them to take care of any unexpected demands.
The Meeting Place
The Society started off by holding its meetings in the Museum at Eastgate House, but within just two months some members were arguing that the facilities there were not entirely adequate. Quotations for alternative accommodation had been obtained from Henderson House (at 6/- per night) and the Kings Head Hotel (10/-); it appears from the accounts that for the first nine months of meetings the charge for the Museum had been just £1, although by mid-1946 the rate seems to have been either 7/- or 9/- per meeting. When it was states (at the November meeting) that the Curator of the Museum had said that a trestle table could be made available, the objections evaporated and it has decided to continue as before.
Just a year later, it was noted in Committee that an offer of a room at the City Cafe (owned by a member) had been made. The Cafe was situated in Corporation St., up towards the Bridge end; it was demolished many years ago, presumably when the Street was dualled. The offer was accepted and the first meeting at the Cafe was held on 13 November 1946. Meetings there were held on the second Wednesday in each month, but meetings continued to be held at the Museum on the first Tuesday in each month, though these were to be solely for the purpose of Sale and Exchange. Members were to note that at Cafe meetings, smoking would not be allowed while stamps were on display; presumably it had been taboo at the Museum in any case. The Sale & Exchange nights at the Museum continued for only another few months, for the last mention of one was that for 3 June 1947. Meetings at the City Cafe did not last all that long in the event, for at the Committee meeting on 15 August 1947 it was noted that it had changed hands and was no longer available.
The decision was therefore taken to move to the Kings Head Hotel and the first meeting at that venue was held on 8 September 1947, when 28 members were present. Thus began the Society's long association with the Hotel which has continued to this day - with only brief breaks. By an unhappy coincidence, only after those last few lines had been typed and left on the computer overnight was it announced at the A.G.M. held on 12 May 1997 that, due to management changes and structural alterations to the Hotel it was not going to be possible for the Society to meet in its accustomed room when the new season began in September. It might be possible to meet in another part of the building retained by the Hotel's present management - but this is the future and not history.
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The first of the brief breaks mentioned above occurred on 3 October 1977. Due to the unavailability of the room at the Kings Head, the combined auction was held in the Fellowship Hall of the Baptist Church in Green St., Gillingham. This was a specious and well-lit room and the same venue was used for the auction in the following year, on 2 October. The experiment was not repeated in subsequent years.
The third, major, break came in 1984-5. For some two years previously the Hotel had been run by a manager acting, it is believed, for an agent, as the Hotel was no longer a Trust House. That gentleman, it must be said, was not the most pleasant person one could wish to meet and he appeared to have a fixation about the amount of electricity being used for lighting during meetings; many were the times when he would appear at the doorway at 9.30p.m. and draw attention to the clock - at that time the room was being paid for by the hour. The writer pointed out on more than one occasion that the cost of the electricity used for the (rather inadequate) lighting for just over two hours was at most 20p whereas we were paying £15 for the room; the logic of that fact seemed to escape him. On 4 June 1984, a night not to be forgotten by the secretary - Philip Tyrrell - or the writer, we were told at the time of paying the bill to collect our frames (they were then stored in an alcove upstairs), to get out and not to come back! Fortunately it was the last meeting of the season and there was time to look round.
Several possible venues were considered and the choice fell on the St. George Hotel in New Rd., Chatham. It turned out to be not a happy choice. Other bodies also met there on the same evening and we were often moved from room to room, having to negotiate a labyrinth of corridors in the process. On one notable occasion one member - no longer a young man - was physically removed from one room which he inadvertently entered, by the Masons who were occupying it, even though it was the room which we had originally booked. Fortunately, the Kings Head came under new management during the season 1984-5 and it was made known that we would be welcome if we wanted to return. We certainly did (!) and on 2 September 1985 we were back for the start of a new season; it has to de recorded here that the Society could not have received a better reception anywhere than it has had from mine host and his wife during the past 12 years.
In early 1981 the suggestion was made that the holding of meetings in Rochester might be dissuading some people living in Rainham from joining the society because of the time involved in travelling from there after late arrival home from 'the office'. It was therefore decided to hold six meetings at the White Horse in Rainham from September 1981 to February 1982 on the third Monday in each month. The accommodation there was such that visiting speakers could hardly be invited and members largely entertained themselves. The experiment was repeated in the following season, 1982-3, but it became obvious that those attending the Rainham meetings were almost entirely the same ones who attended Rochester meetings and at the A.G.M. on 9 May 1983 it was decided that no more meetings would be held there. The experiment had cost the Society about £120 and we appeared to have acquired no more than one or two new members
Although there is no record in the Minutes, the writer recalls that there was a series of informal meetings held in the shop premises of Ralph Griffiths, who was a partner in the stamp trade with G.H. (George) Bigsby. The shop was in Chatham High St., almost opposite No.30 - then the offices of the 'Chatham News' and later the first home of Radio Kent. The meetings were probably held in the late 1950s or early '60s, around the middle of the month and memory
is that they went on for no longer than a year or two. For the record, following the death of George Bigsby, Ralph teamed up with J.H. Greathead who had the stamp shop a few doors along the High St. from the Kings Head and this partnership lasted until Ralph, sadly, took his own life, probably on the late 1960s.
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The Meetings
It would be a very long list indeed if an attempt was made to record all the countries and themes of which we have seen displays. Suffice it to say that all the continents have been covered at one time or another and a good many of the constituent countries, from the large - U.S.A., China or Russia - to the small - Ascension or Tristan da Cunha. We have had many eminent speakers and many not so eminent, but all have been enthusiastic about their subject for all that.
The opening display of the 1945-6 season was given by Frank Godden, who showed 'Some pages from the Exhibition Collections'. The two local newspapers each devoted something like six column-inches to their reports - no doubt stimulated by 'copy' from the Secretary. It was recorded that Mr. Godden showed, among other things, 'the largest known block of the famous 1d Black and a genuinely used block of no fewer than 102 of the 2d Blue'. The whole display was said to have been valued at over £12000 - about a quarter of a million at 1997 prices!
That must have been a hard act to follow and for the remainder of the season, which went on to July 1946, the members seemed to have entertained themselves with displays by several of them, sales nights and an early use of technology when the President, Mr. Bernard, illustrated his talk on Germen stamps with the aid of an epidiascope. That was the first of a number of evenings in later years when displays were given with the aid of film or slides, either by individual speakers or films hired from sources such as Gibbons or in one occasion the Petroleum Information Bureau - who supplied a film on the subject of Oil and Stamps, which was presented by our late member D.V.S. (Des) Kill, it being his pet subject.
One meeting of those early days will always remain in the writer's memory; there had perhaps been a display like it before, on 1 January 1946, but there has certainly never been one since! Member Francis Kearns gave a display of air mails of the world on 3 November 1947. Francis was a well-known figure in Chatham town centre; he was a news vendor whose 'pitch' was at the junction on High St. and Military Rd.. His collection, which included many rarities of the aerophilatelic scene such as some or the Newfoundland overprints, South American issues, French and Italian overprints of the 1930s and so on, extended to over 600 pages - and we saw it; all on it; every page! In those days, displays were either passed round from hand to hand or laid on the tables. That night they were handed round and for just ever two hours sheets were quickly passed from one member to the next, with about 8 or 10 seconds to look at each one; it was an exhausting performance and the meeting closed at 10.10p.m.! Francis' commentary on the display consisted on a recital of the Sanabria catalogue value of almost every stamp in the collection; we saw many very valuable items that evening. But it has to be recorded that when Francis died a few years later his collection was auctioned by one of the London houses and fetched but a fraction of what it might have done; most of the stamps were mint and had been spoiled by over-enthusiastic licking of the mounts.
Mention was made above of the use of technology in the course of a display. Another, pioneer, use was the subject of a display given by member J.H. Greathead, the local dealer, who demonstrated the use of the 'sun-ray lamp' in the detection of forgeries, repairs etc.; this was a little too early for phosphors, the date being 5 January 1948. The evening had proved popular and a repeat performance occurred in February 1949.
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An even deeper incursion into the realms of science was made on 3 December 1956, when W.S. Cheavin, a well-known writer on the subject, gave a display entitled 'Atoms for Philately', illustrated with slides. This dealt with the use of X-rays and radioactive isotopes in detecting paper structure and also, as with U.V. light, the detection of forgeries and repairs. That, too, proved to be a popular display and although not many members had an X-ray machine or a collection of isotopes in their den, Mr. Cheavin made another visit on 1 December 1958 to demonstrate the advances in technique that had been made, with a display entitled 'Forgeries and Fakes by Modern Methods of Detection'; this too proved very popular.
Not so scientific, but equally baffling, was the half-hour display of prestidigitation given by a local magician on 6 November 1950 in what was otherwise a social evening.
A feature of many seasons during the 1950s and 60s was a night devoted to a Brains Trust or a general discussion on many philatelic topics. The first of these was on 6 February 1950 when, among others, the questions were asked: 'Why do people collect control blocks?' and 'Why do people collect the larger and more popular countries?'. After some debate, as recorded in the Minutes, it was decided that people collect control blocks because some people will collect anything and people collect the larger and more popular countries because they are larger and more popular! Further weighty discussions took place on 5 February 1951 to decide what were the contributions to philately of Rowland Hill and Archer; to which the answer seemed to be that the former contributed nothing and the latter only complicated matters by introducing perforations! It is also interesting to note that at the same meeting it emerged that only l member out of the 15 present could say on whose portrait of Queen Victoria the design of the 1d Black was based. One wonders what the percentage would be if the same question was asked today. A final example must be the debate held on 5 September 1960 when the motion was that 'This house would deplore the general issue of pictorial stamps by Great Britain'; this was defeated by 8 votes 3 - perhaps the eight members concerned were delighted with the trickle of issues in 1960 and 1961 which triggered the flood that developed in later years.
The early auctions were held in March and this practice continued up to 1965 - with one or two exceptions. In 1966 the change was made to October, by which time our friends from the three neighboring societies had been joining us for 9 years. At the Committee meeting on 14 April 1981 - confirmed at the A.G.M. a month later - a move was made again and the auction was held in December, as it still is today. And still, on course, we welcome our friends from the other societies; attendance at these evenings is well above average, as might be expected, but we do not often approach the record of 74 achieved in 1967 and again in 1969.
No season would nowadays be complete without its competition nights. This feature really began under unhappy circumstances. At the meeting held on 19 March 1947 came the sad news of the death of the President, R.S. Bernard, whose initiative had brought the Society into existence. At the A.G.M. held in the following July the suggestion was made - apparently by the late President's daughter - that some form of memorial be instituted; it was decided to obtain a Bernard Memorial Cup and that it should he awarded for 'the best 10-page display' on Members' Night annually. At the Committee meeting on 15 August following, a Cup was produced which would cost £1-14-0; it was agreed that it should be purchased. The first competition was held on 7 October and no less than 16 members out of the 27 who attended submitted entries. Harold Couchman was declared the winner with a display on airmail covers and five runners-up were given prices on packets of stamps which, by a fortunate coincidence, had just been received from a member together with his letter of resignation. The number of sheets for competition was reduced to 6 in 1952.
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The competition, of course, became an annual event, which was keenly contested - although some winners' names appeared on it more frequently than others. By 16 March 1970 it was reported to the Committee that the Cup was now fully engraved, following the competition held in the February just past. It was agreed to seek permission at the forthcoming A.G.M. for the purchase of another Cup at a cost of approximately £25-30. Permission was given but, as recorded, the amount was not to exceed £15. It was further agreed. that a Tankard would be awarded to the winner each year, as a retention trophy.
The absence of monthly Minutes at that time leaves some details to be the subject of conjecture, but a new Cup was obtained - at a cost of £12-60, we were now decimalised - and were on show at the A.G.M. on 3 May 1971. It was agreed at that meeting that there should be two competitions held on Members Night in February i.e. in 1972; these would be for the (new) Challenge Cup and for the Thematic Trophy, the latter being a newly instituted competition. It must therefore have been on l February 1971 that the last competition for the Bernard Cup itself was held. Although it is not minuted, the writer is aware that that event was won by the present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, and that he was presented with the Cup, to be held in perpetuity, as his name appeared on it more times than any other member's.
The Challenge Cup and Thematic Trophy competitions were both to be for entries of 9 sheets, to bring them in line with Kent Federation rules for similar competitions. At some time during the season 1972-3 it was evidently decided to add another competition to the list - the one-sheet event. At the A.G.M on 7 May 1973 the President apologised for the fact that the proposed thematic competition had not been held in the previous February due to a complete misunderstanding somewhere along the line, but it would definitely be held in the next season; the one-sheet competition was reported to have been a great success with no less than 10 entries, Mrs. M.J. (Joyce) Kemp had been the winner.
There remained but one more competition to make up the four that are held regularly to this day. At the A.G.M. on 14 May 1984 it was decided to add another meeting, in July, to the existing ten per year already held and that the evening should be devoted to a Cinderella competition. The first was held on 1 July 1985 as was also another innovation - the Novices Competition, for members who had never won either of the two main competitions. By 1988, however, the latter had been abandoned and was not held in that year.
The competitions have moved about in the calendar over the years, but February has been the month for the Bernard, later the Challenge Cup since 1968 and has always been so for the Thematic Trophy; the one-sheet event was moved from February to the night of the A.G.M. (May) in 1988 and was joined there by the Cinderella competition (which was saved from being dropped altogether by a 'pro' vote at the 1988 A.G.M.) in 1989 - and that is the position as it remains today.
Competitions have to be judged, of course, and the first one to be held - in 1947 as noted above - was assessed by Messrs. Altenheim and Styles from the Gravesend society. This practice did not last for long; at the meeting held on 7 November 1949 - an evening devoted partly to a 'Philatelic 20 Questions' - an hour's (!) debate was held on the subject 'Should the Bernard Cup Competition be judged by popular vote of the members or by judges from outside?' Popular vote won by 12 votes to 10 and this was the method from the 1950 competition onwards. That decision was overwhelmingly supported at the A.G.M. on 7 May 1951 when it was upheld by 14 votes to nil. It is not clear, because of the absence of monthly Minutes from the early 1970s, when second thoughts crept in but the present method of having one outside judge and one member for the two main competitions has been in place since about 1984.
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The Cinderella competition was judged by outside judges for the first two years but since then has been judged by the members present and that has always been the method used for the one-sheet event.
While the entries for the two main competitions were being judged, members were at a loose end and at one time the evening was partly taken up with members' displays. That changed in 1984 when the night on 'anything beginning with -' was moved to the February event; the 'alphabetical' night had first started in 1976, when on 7 June the advertised programme was actually 'Anything that starts with A'. In 1997 we have arrived at 'V'.
Displays and competitions need frames for mounting the sheets and comfortable viewing. It was not always thus, as has already been mentioned. To replace the then current methods of laying displays on tables or passing sheets from hand to hand between members seated at tables - the choice generally being left to the speaker for the evening - the matter of obtaining 'one or two' frames was discussed in Committee as early as 7 July 1947 and submitted to the A.G.M. just a week later, at which meeting if was agreed. It was not until a year later at the next A.G.M. that the President informed members that the cost involved was found to be too high.
The matter was raised again at the Committee meeting on 18 November 1955 but after some discussion it was decided to leave matters as they were. The final push to obtain frames was born out of necessity. The Society was due to host Kent Federation Day in 1962 and at one Committee meeting to talk over preliminary arrangements it was noted that some frames would have to be burrowed from Maidstone society and some from Woolwich; the remainder would have to be made by the members in a joint effort, 'each member providing the money to purchase the material for one frame'. It is not clear if that was to be each member of the Committee or of the Society, but there is be record of the levy being imposed. Ten double-sided frames were prepared during the following months and the finishing touches applied by a working party - J.L. (Jack) Edmonds, Hugh Sharp and the writer, all crammed together in the latter's shed - during Easter 1962. They have done good service, having graced many a Federation affair and other exhibitions, travelling hundreds of miles in the process, and are still in occasional use today. However, they were rather cumbersome for ordinary meeting use and in 1983 the present lighter and more convenient ones were produced.
The length of the season has varied over the years, as has the position in the programme of some regular features. The first season went on to July 1946, a break was taken in August and the first A.G.M. was held in September. The next A.G.M. was held in July 1947 but by 1950 (at an E.G.M. on 3 April) it was decided to bring the A.G.M. forward to May, where it has remained ever since, although the financial year was altered to coincide with the calendar year in 1983.
At the 1950 A.G.M. it was decided to discontinue the June and July meetings after that season, but to add mid-month meetings on the third Wednesday during the winter months. Winter stretched into Spring; the mid-month meetings ran from September 1950 to April 1951 and the same in 1951-2. However, at the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 it was decided to revert to one meeting per month in order to reduce expenses.
At the Committee meeting on 14 April 1959 it was proposed - and confirmed at the A.G.M. three weeks later - that the season should be extended to include June; that took immediate effect, for a meeting was held on the lst. June following. As already noted above, a July meeting was added in 1985 and we continue to hold eleven meetings a year to this present day.
It was agreed that meetings would be on Monday 'in the coming season' by a unanimous decision taken at the meeting on 3 May 1948, although it appears from the Minutes that they had been so already for a year.
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Inevitably there were clashes with Bank Holidays and yet it was not until 30 years later that the Committee recommended and the A.G.M. on the 1 May 1978 agreed that in such circumstances the meeting should be deferred by one week and so it has remained up to this day.
The Inner Man (and Woman)
Refreshments - nothing stronger than tea or coffee, by all accounts - were often a feature of early meetings. Indeed, one of the Committee's recommendations that were accepted at the A.G.M. on 14 July 1947 was for 'Meetings to commence at 7p.m. with bourse and general get- together; Minutes to be read at 7.45 and displays to commence at 8p.m.; tea to be available from 7-7.45'. But it has to be remembered that meetings were still being held at the City Café and it was just a month later that that venue became unavailable. Nevertheless, at later meetings, for a period of some years, when a general discussion or similar members' night was held then cups of tea were used to break up the proceedings, usually around 8-30.
Another occasion for refreshment was the combined auction, when visitors from the three neighbouring societies came along. Tea was available at such events - members often paying 1/6 or 2/-, visitors nothing, of course. This was not such a dangerous practice as it might sound; up until the time when a year's break at St. Georges Hotel was taken, the large room which is now used was divided into two by a partition which could be drawn back and auction lots were kept to the larger portion, tea to the smaller. This feature was discontinued with effect from the auction in October 1976.
The Society celebrated its Golden Jubilee at the A.G.M. on 10 May 1982 - the early Minutes had obviously not been studied at that time! - and members partook of champagne and cake, drinking a toast to the next 60 years. From memory, that is the last occasion on which refreshment was actually a formal part of the programme, although to this day members attend to their own refreshments in this respect.
The Annual Dinner now forms a very sociable addition to the season's meetings and it was at the A.G.M. on 4 May 1959 that the Committee's recommendation was accepted and it was agreed that a dinner should be held on the third Monday in October; the cost was expected to be about 10/- to 12/6 and it was decided to invite Leslie Meadows and his wife as guests, it being remembered that Les would at that time be President of the Kent Federation. It was even decided to have some special serviettes prepared for the occasion, a sample having been produced by a Committee member. In the event, the Dinner was held on 19 October, the cost was 11/6, there were 22 persons present of whom 12 were members of the Society and it seems that the guest list had increased by one, for Mr. L.M. Easton (a long-standing friend of the Society) from Sittingbourne replied to a toast be the Guests, the President having proposed the Loyal Toast
Year by year the Dinner was held but numbers were falling - and the speechifying was dropped from the proceedings; by 1970 it was obvious that for the past few years it was mostly Committee members only who had attended (there had been no more than 7 or 8 at times) and it was decided that a Dinner would not de held that year, for lack of general support. Interest seems to have been revived, however, for the Dinner in October 1971 was a success though numbers 'could have been greater'. It again became a regular feature of the programme but by 1981, perhaps because on increasing cost, it was proposed that either it should be partly subsidised or, alternatively, a cheese and wine evening should be held instead. The latter won the day and one was held on 26 October and again in October 1982, though it does not appear in the programme for 1983-4.
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In 1984, at the Committee meeting on 23 April, it was decided to revive the Dinner and one was held on 22 October at the Royal Victoria & Bull Hotel. Since then it has been held regularly with no further breaks, though interest has varied from year to year. Prior to the excursion to the Bull, the Dinners had always been held in one or other of three rooms at the Kings Head and members with long memories will recall the evening of the spicy prawn cocktail - which will have reminded them on an earlier Federation Day Luncheon and the episode of the frozen melon balls! In recent years we have sampled the delights of the Inner Dowsing lightship in Borstal and the Hastings Arms in Gillingham - no doubt future years will see us at other venues.
The Kent Federation of Philatelic Societies
These notes would not be complete without some reference to the organization which for the past 50 years - it celebrates its Golden Jubilee this year - has united the societies in this county; today there are 25 of them and 2 associated members.
At the meeting held on the 13 November 1946 a letter from the Maidstone society was read, proposing the formation of a county association and inviting our Society to send a representative to a meeting to be held there on the 30th of the month. The President, Mr. Bernard, attended and as a result of that meeting ours was one of 15 societies who founded the Kent Federation at the inaugural meeting held in Maidstone on 12 April 1947.
So began this Society's long and close involvement with the affairs of the Federation. Over the years we have provided 4 Presidents, 2 Secretary/Treasurers, 1 (separate) Treasurer, 1 Newsletter (later Bulletin) Editor, 3 Competition Secretaries and 2 Auditors - albeit that only 6 individuals have actually been involved. In the last three years we have added a seventh to the list for when it was decided that a Chairman should be added to the Federation roll of Officers our present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, was elected to fill the post.
Our society has been represented at all but a very few of the Council meetings of the Federation and, above all, it has acted as host society to many of the regular events - Federation Day (when one on our members has been installed as President), Spring Rally (formerly Junior Day when the annual competition for young collectors was held, before it was suspended tor lack of interest) and Autumn Rally. Indeed, at one time our Society had hosted more such events than any other in the county, though we have now been overhauled by one or two others.
All in all we have a record of which we can justly be proud.
Some Random Thoughts
Spending on the Library has already been touched on previously. This facility has not always been available to members and referenced to it in the Minutes are sketchy. As early as 20 January 1947 the Treasurer was asked to order the next edition of Gibbons' catalogue and also the 'Stamp Collecting Annual', but there is no mention of a formal library. At the first meeting held at the Kings Head (on 8 September 1947) the visiting speaker, Mr. Leslie Ray - who was the Vice-President on the Kent Federation - presented our President, D.R. Bull, with a pre-stamp cover bearing the Rochester/29 mileage mark and at the following meeting, in October, Mr. Bull said he was presenting the cover to the Society 'as a foundation for the Library'. However, the writer does not recall that there was a Library in any true sense at that time.
It was not until a Committee meeting on 14 May 1954 that the subject of a Library was again broached - though this would be one with a difference. The Secretary was asked to circulate members with a request that they submit a list of books in their possession which they would be willing to lend to other members; there would be no charge for borrowing but it was suggested that a donation be Society funds could be made for the privilege of borrowing a book.
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No response to this curious arrangement is recorded in the Minutes.
It was just 31 years before the matter was raised again - strangely with the same suggestion that members should list any books they were prepared to lend; the duties of a Librarian would also include holding copies of magazines and auction catalogues, for loan on request. Unsurprisingly there was no support for this idea, which was raised in Committee.
At the A.G.M. held on 11 May 1987 the elected Committee members included W. (Bill) Fletcher. No formal appointment of a Librarian appears to have been made at that meeting but at the Committee meeting held four months later, on 21 September, Bill was referred to as holder of the post and still holds it to this day. He now holds a considerable number of catalogues in addition to the UV lamp and watermark detector already mentioned; all of these items are regularly borrowed and the service is much appreciated by the members.
The Society was just 6 weeks old when the Committee produced a draft Constitution, at its meeting on 9 October 1945. After some discussion at the meeting held on 27 November it was ratified, although it was not produced as a small printed card until July 1951, an alternative to printing it on the annual programme card. Minor amendments were made from time to time and the whole document was redrafted some time between 1957 and 1963 (as it bore the title Rochester & District Stamp Club); There is no evidence in the Minutes that it was ever ratified in its new form. Nevertheless, that version stood for a very long time and fortunately its provisions were never called into question. It was not until 1995 that a move was made to bring it up to date - including the Society's correct name - and a new draft was ratified at the A.G.M. in May 1996.
The Society has played a small part in the cultural life of the Towns from time to time. At the Committee meeting held on 18 October 1948 it was agreed that the Society should affiliate to the recently-formed Rochester & District Arts Club (later Society of Arts?), a link which was terminated at the A.G.M. of 7 May 1956. During that time and in subsequent years it participated in one or two local exhibitions and arranged to put small displays in one or other of the local libraries, as well as giving short talks - by a member - to local schools. One such example was the 'Spotlight on Leisure' exhibition arranged by the Arts Club from 23-26 March 1949, when 9 of our members contributed displays of 2 to 4 pages on various topics. The Rotary Club organised a 'Citizens at Leisure' exhibition (at a venue which is not mentioned in the Minutes) on 28-29 October 1955, in which the Society took part, though we declined to participate in their 'Christmas Gift Tree' in Chatham a few months later. There is no evidence in the Minutes that any of these activities on our part resulted in the enrolment or any new members.
During the Medway Arts Festival in June and July 1966 we agreed to provide one-day displays at Rainham, Chatham and Walderslade Libraries, but there is no evidence to show that these were either a roaring success or a flop. There was a long gap before the Society participated in any more local public events and this arose through the visits by some of our members to the stamp festivals held at Valenciennes in France - that town being 'twinned' with Rochester - in 1988 and 1989. We had been asked by the organisers there if it would be possible for us to arrange a 'return' exhibition and the best way of doing this seemed to be that we should stage a display in connection with the annual Rochester Dickens Festival (held over a period of four days straddling the end of May and the beginning of June).
Our first venture into this field came in 1990 and it has now become a regular part of our yearly activities. It has meant some hard work on the part of a few members, one of whom has been required to organise the display material and others who have volunteered to act as stewards - but the writer ventures to suggest that it has been a pleasant social occasion for those taking part and it has actually netted us a few new members.
19
Visitor numbers from the general public have been encouraging, perhaps numbering some 3-400 over the four-day periods and this does not take account of all those who have poked their noses through the door, muttered something like 'only stamps' and gone on their day.
Today, we have become accustomed to all sorts of reasons (excuses?) for producing commemorative covers and/or special-event cancellations, sometimes on the flimsiest of pretexts. The Society has only ventured into this field twice, so far as it is possible to check - although, of course, our reasons were not flimsy! This country hosted the Olympic Games in 1948 and one enterprising member suggested that the Society should produce some suitable envelopes, of which he just happened to have a sample design. The cost of these to the Society would be £2-17-6 for 1000; the price included 5/- to the artist! These could be sold for ld. each to members and also to any 'outsiders' who might care to apply. The Minutes for 12 July 1948 record that the venture was not a success, there being a net loss of £1-5-0.
The Society's only other involvement in commemorative covers was on the occasion of Kent Federation Day, 19 May 1962, when the Society acted as host. 500 envelopes bearing a design featuring Rochester Castle were produced and it is recorded in the Minutes that the Head Postmaster would be asked if a special cancellation could be applied. Covers posted in a special box in the Queens Hall in the Corn Exchange on the 'Day' were cancelled with an ordinary cds plus a Rochester/29 mileage mark; unfortunately, that was unlikely to have been the original handstand! The view of the Castle was not that which forms the basis of the present-day badge or letter-heading, but was a view from ground level and not from above. It is not known if the venture was a financial success but it is unlikely that any loss would have been very great, as it is known that something like 200 of the envelopes were purchased by 'the trade'.
The surplus stock of badges, bearing the design mentioned above which were originally obtained in 1988, has for several years been applied to the retention trophies presented to the winners of the two main competitions.
The Epilogue
When the writer first considered producing some notes dealing with the history of the Society, based on his own recollection of events and some scanty information he already had, he thought that the result might perhaps run to 6 or 8 pages - if it was padded out a bit. Two or three years elapsed before thought become reality and it was found that the Minute books back to 1945 were available. A thorough reading of those produced some 10 pages of brief manuscript notes and it looked as if rather than padding out, the difficulty might be in applying some compression. At the keyboard stage, when the words began to flow, it soon became obvious that the original thoughts on size were an under estimate and these 20 pages are the result of the labours.
For the writer, it has been a trip down Memory Lane - and perhaps he will be forgiven for that. lf longer-serving members have had their memories re-kindled and newer members have learned something of the events which have led to the Society being where it is today, then the effort has been worth while,
Gillingham July 1997 V.A. Daniels
Appendix
Elections took place at the A.G.M., although the date of this varied in the early years, as noted in the main text. On a few occasions, positions fell vacant as a result of death, removal or resignation and this required the election or appointment of an alternate until a formal election could be arranged. The exact dates of service are not given in the following tables.
President Secretary
1945-46 R.S. Bernard. 1945-46 R.W. Ellingham.
1946-50 D.R. Bull. 1946 E.H. Couchman. (Acting).
1950-53 J. Leonard. 1946-49 J. Leonard.
1953-56 J.H. Greathead. 1949-57 V.A. Daniels.
1956-58 G.D. Sutton. 1957-70 H.C. Sharp.
1958-61 V.A. Daniels. 1970-77 J.L. Edmonds.
1961-64 C.A. Warren, 1977-78 P.J. Willis.
1964-67 J.L. Edmonds. 1978-79 G.A. Kemp. (Acting).
1967-70 A.C. Baker. 1979- P.J. Tyrrell.
1970-73 H.C. Sharp.
1973-76 P.J. Tyrrell.
1976-79 G.A. Kemp.
1979-81 F.J. Botterill.
1981-84 Mrs. R. Dellar
1984-87 D.V.S. Kill.
1987-90 W.J. Andrews.
1990-93 Dr. C.J.O. Tay1or.
1993-96 A. Howell.
1996- P.R. Mount.
Exchange Packet Secretary Treasurer
1948-57 J.H. Bullock. 1945-48 S.R. Roane.
1963-75 V.A. Daniels. 1948 E.H. Couchman. (Acting).
1975-81 D.V.S. Kill. 1948-52 A. Sinclair.
1981-83 R.A. Buck. 1952-58 H.G. Cooper.
1983-91 P.D. Willard. 1958-73 P.J. Tyrrell.
1991- V.A. Daniels. 1973-88 V.A. Daniels.
1988-90 R. Ellender.
1990- P.R. Mount
21
Some Historical Notes
In the writer's opinion, the broad outlines and some of the details of the history on a Society such as ours are worthy of record, not only for the interest of members present and yet-to-come but also for the benefit and guidance of another historian who might wish to expand the notes up to some future date and who particularly might wish to delve back into the newspapers of the years leading up to WWII, or perhaps contemporary issues of stamp magazines, in the hope that some clue might be found to the activities of the society which existed from 1922 onwards.
The timing of these notes has not been deliberately chosen, though in the year of 1997 we shall celebrate the 75th. Anniversary of the Society so perhaps it is appropriate that they should appear now. But … is this truly the Society which was founded in 1922, which awakened in the 1945 after the enforced sleep of 6 years, or is it an entirely new body formed by interested parties, without reference to what had gone before? Readers must make up their own minds after reading the note on page five.
This is not an officially commissioned history, it has been prepared on the writer's own initiative and any comments and opinions are his alone. Nevertheless, he is grateful be the present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, for making available the Minute Books of the Society (from 1945 to date) and the yearly printed programmes from 1953 onwards, though there are some gaps. Other members, past and present, have provided information and this, too, is gratefully acknowledged; they are mentioned where appropriate.
The writer has long held the view - and is still not entirely unconvinced! - that a society may have been active in this area during the early years of this century. The Isle of Thanet society was certainly in being, it hosted 'Congress' (the annual meeting of the Philatelic Congress of Great Britain) in 1912, while Tunbridge Wells (almost certainly) and Folkestone (perhaps) were other possibilities. Added to this is the consideration of the sort of member who joined many of the societies of the day - doctors, lawyers (including eminent judges in some cases), gentleman of the cloth and officers of the Navy and Army. Our Towns, including a cathedral city and important naval and military bases, had their share of such people and could have provided a fertile ground for the growth of a society.
There appeared to be some support for this view when one-time member Edgar Hollands told the writer, probably during the 1960s, that he could remember attending meetings of the stamp club 'in the Museum' when a boy of 12. As Edgar was born in 1900 there seemed to be some hope. During the next few months the writer made a number of visits to Gillingham Reference Library, which held the original copies of the 'Chatham News', transferred there from the paper's offices in New Road. The issues of the paper for 1912 were scanned for some mention of the activities of a stamp club, but none was found. It has to be admitted that only news reports, even a short paragraph, or more obvious advertisements were looked for; if there had been small classified ads., say for an A.G.M. or the opening meeting of a new season, then they would have been missed. As a matter of interest, the writer was recently informed that the Chatham News files are now stored in the Library's basement and that some on the early issues are crumbling; however, all the issues are on microfilm and thus still available for study.
At around the same time that the writer was engaged in the Library, the then Secretary, H.C. (Hugh) Sharp, examined the City archives then held in the Guildhall, but found no reference to the letting of a room in the Museum at Eastgate House to a stamp club during the years around 1912.
1
So, the verdict at present must be 'not proven', although for the record it has to be said that in his later years, he died in the early 1970s, Edgar's mind, sadly, had deteriorated.
One remote possibility occurs to the writer, to explain Edgar's remembered stamp club attendance. Our one-time member Arthur Jones, who lived in Seaview Rd. in Gillingham and who died, if memory serves correctly, in the late 1960s, was in later life and perhaps in the earlier years also the Curator of Gillingham Museum. That was opened in the Pavilion in Gillingham Park in 1916 and transferred to Woodlands House (near the present school) in 1927; it was closed when the house was demolished (in the 1950's?). If Arthur was the Curator in the early days or was employed by the Council in some other capacity, or if the first Curator was a collector and as Edgar seems to have been a local lad, did Arthur or someone else run a club for the boys and was Edgar's memory a few years out and have been thinking of the wrong Museum?
The Home Front in WWI had its share of privations such as rationing and it was spared much of the devastating bombing of the next war, though grieving families were the recipients of far more telegrams expressing the War 0ffice's regrets than were those of some 20-odd years later.
Whatever the mood of the people at the end of 1918, it took a little longer than it did in 1945 - as will be seen later - for things to get back to normal, philatelically speaking.
In both the 'Chatham News' and the 'Chatham Observer' dated 14 October 1921 there appeared a write-up referring to a proposed 'stamp collectors society'; interested persons were to contact Mr. H.W. Henbest at 17 Dickens Terrace, Wainscott. There must have been some worth while response to Mr. Henbest's proposal, for later reports known to the writer refer: on 3 October 1924 to the 23rd. ordinary meeting held on Wednesday (Observer); on 7 November 1924 to the meeting held on Wednesday (Observer); on 8 January 1926 to the first meeting of the Rochester and District Philatelic Society held in the New Year, the meeting having taken place on Wednesday (Observer); and on 11 November 1927 it was reported in the 'Chatham News' that the Rochester Philatelic Society hat row entered its 7th year ant that it met at the City Temperance Hotel.
The 23rd. ordinary meeting having been held on 3.10.24 can perhaps be explained if there had been one inaugural and three ordinary meetings in the early months of 1922 (the presently accepted year on foundation), then four in the last months of the year, followed by five plus four in 1923 then five plus September and October in 1924. This squares with 'had now entered' the 7th. year in November 1927 if the first part of 1922 was a 'short' year, followed by 1922-23, 1923-24 and so on.
The references cited above to newspaper reports were given to the writer by our one-time member, the late E.H. (Harold) Couchman, who died in 1994 when in his early 80s. Harold joined in November 1927 and could remember such names as J.L. Percival (the Town Clerk), Andrews, F. Kearnes, Buck, Miskin, Sheepwash, Mrs. Elliott and H.J. Graham.
That last name was already known to the writer, as a result of unexpected and pleasantly surprising acquisition. Some years ago he was given, by our members Joyce and Geoff Kemp, the cover and one surviving inner page of an exchange packet booklet, dated February 1925, for the Rochester & District Philatelic Society. The printed name and address of the 'Hon. Ex. Supt. (H.W. Henbest, already mentioned above) had been lined through and a faint rubber stamped H.J. Graham, 9 Watts Avenue, Rochester applied above it. Because of the possible coincidence which will be noted on the next page, it should be mentioned here that Joyce and Geoff were given the booklet remains by Martin Lynes, a friend of theirs - and of the writer - of long standing; Martin is at present a member of the Maidstone society and a dedicated and knowledgeable postal historian, who at the time of the gift was an employee - and is now a director - of the well-known firm on Argyll-Etkin.
2
Martin had acquired the booklet, in his professional capacity, as part of a collection which had been in the West Country; there was no mention of any other items connected with this area.
It was surely more than mere coincidence that the club-book should surface in that part of the country to which the Secretary of the old society was said to have moved (see below). Was it part of his collection (or of his estate) or had it changed hands via a society auction or in some other way? 1f there had been any papers relating to the society to accompany that small item it would have been a nice gesture if the secretary, or his heirs, had made an effort to contact the society in this area with a view to passing them over, so ensuring some continuity of the records.
We - and our heirs and successors - should give careful thought when disposing of documents or even small items of memorabilia which might be of historical interest; much useful material must have been consigned to the dustbin over the years!
Some years later than the acquisition mentioned above, Joyce and Geoff came across another booklet cover, this time of the Chatham House Stamp Club and dating from some years prior to the previous one. It is tempting to make some connection between that title and this district. However, the writer is of the opinion that there is no link, Chatham: House is not an uncommon name, having been applied be a number of structures in the 19th. century in honour of the Earl of Chatham. Two such examples come to mind - the headquarters of the Commonwealth Institute in London and a well-known school in Thanet. One other building so- named does have local connections, but not in honour of the Earl, and that is the Chatham House which formed the core of one of the departments of the now-closed local business of Featherstones Ltd. in Rochester High St., just a new yards west on the boundary with Chatham. It still stands today, of course.
Only one other relic of the 'old' society is - or rather, was - known to the writer and that is a printed programme of the mid 1930s; its present location is not known. No paperwork, e.g. Minute Books etc., is held in the Society's archives today and the information detailed above relating to early meetings etc. is all that is known to the writer. Any more can only be acquired from a study of the newspaper files referred to or from contemporary issues of, say, 'Stamp Collecting' magazine, which had a long tradition of publishing meeting reports right up to the time it ceased publication many years ago.
This section dealing with the activities of the 'old' society can be fittingly brought to an end with a jump ahead to 1966, In that year the then Secretary, Hugh Sharp, was made aware that the local branch of the Westminster Bank was holding a sum of money in a dormant account in the name of the Rochester & District Philatelic Society. If the signed permission of any surviving Officer or of two committee members could be obtained, then the bank would be prepared to hand over the money to the existing society; the name and address of the last-known Secretary were given. The writer has now forgotten the name but he called at the address in Second Avenue, Gillingham, to be informed by the resident that the gentleman concerned had moved many years before to the Portsmouth/Devonport area (was that a posting from the dockyard?) but that no forwarding address was known. Subsequently, two of the previous committee members were traced, both by then being members of the Sittinghourne society. Their signatures being duly obtained, Hugh reported at the Committee meeting held on 7 November 1966 that the sum of £10-13-4 had been received from the bank and was now in our own Society's account. Which seems a good point to go on now to the next phase.
3
A New Beginning
The lapse of time between the end of WWI and moves to form a society has already been commented on. Just ten and a half weeks after VE Day, on 20 July 1945, the 'Chatham News' carried a short note under the title 'Stamp Club for the Towns', suggesting that 'a long felt requirement in the Medway Towns amongst philatelists may now be filled as it is hoped that a club will be formed for all those interested in the hobby of stamp collecting'. It went on to comment on all those who had taken up the hobby to relieve the strain of the war years and all those members of the Forces who had found relief from monotony. All who were interested should contact Mr. Rowland S. Bernard at 17 New Road, Chatham.
The response to Mr. Bernard's overtures was at least as favorable as that to Mr. Henbest's nearly 24 years earlier, for on Wednesday 29 August 1945, as it is recorded in the first words in the Minutes, 'A meeting to inaugurate the Society was held in the Lecture Room at Eastgate House Rochester there being approximately 25 interested persons present'. The Mayor of Rochester, Cllr. Knight, was also present and 'in a few well-chosen words' he wished the new Society every success and stressed the point that any organization to promote education and learning in its widest sense would receive the utmost sympathy from the authorities in the three Boroughs (sic); he went on to say that in Rochester, particularly, every facility would be given.
Officers were elected; Mr. Bernard unanimously as President, Mr. R.W. Ellingham as Secretary (after several members had declined to accept the Office - nothing has changed!) and Mr. S.R. Roane as Treasurer (he actually offered his services!). It was resolved that the title should be The Medway Towns Philatelic Society and that for the time being a Junior Section should be incorporated into the Senior Section.
After some debate the annual subscription was fixed at 2/6 for those under 18 and 5/- for older members, this proposal defeating an alternative motion for a three tier structure. It was also proposed that a Committee on four members be appointed in addition to the Officers and Messrs. Couchman. Kearns, Ingram and Brooks were duly elected. After consultation with the Curator of the Museum, it was decided that further meetings should be held in the Museum on the first Tuesday in each month and finally, the Committee was 'empowered to arrange for a suitable speaker for the opening night', Thus ended, at 9.0 p.m., the first meeting of the new Society.
The proceedings of that first meeting have been dealt with in some detail because of their interest. The further affairs of the Society can be traced in considerable depth through the medium of the Minutes of the several hundred meetings which have taken place since then, though it has to be recorded that by 1970 the decision had apparently been taken, and not itself recorded, that the minutes on ordinary (display, competition etc.) meetings would no longer be taken; from then on only Committee, A.G.M. and E.G.M. minutes appear. Much of the detail of the Society's life is thereby lost, though sometimes events of the previous months can be gleaned from the Committee minutes. In defence of that decision, it has to be admitted that for a few years prior to the reduction of entries in the books the majority of meeting reports consisted of something like 'the President introduced the speaker who gave his display of Bongoland, which was much appreciated; Mr. A. expressed the thanks of the members, The raffle raised 4/6 for club funds' - and little more.
If this history were to continue with a month by month account of the Society's activities in chronological order it would probably be as boring to read as to type. For this reason, it is proposed to continue by considering the various aspects of activity under appropriate headings and, within each section, in more or less the order in which they occurred.
4
But first - the reason for the point raised in the second paragraph of these notes, where doubt was cast on the direct succession of our Society from the earlier one. The note in the 'Chatham News' of 20 July 1945, already mentioned, made no reference to the proposed resumption of pre-war activities and at a Committee meeting held on the 26 March 1946 it was resolved that the Secretary should write to the last known Secretary of the Rochester & District Society - 'now dormant' - with a view to the amalgamation of the two Societies. This approach hardly suggests that the Society felt itself at one with the pre-war body, in spite of two members (Harold Couchman and Francis Kearns) and very possibly some others having been members in 1939. Perhaps feelers had been gut out and it was already known that to all intents and purposes the old Society was not even in a state of suspended animation.
What's in a Name
There was evidently something in the name which had been adopted at the inaugural meeting in 1945. By 1957 it was felt, by some members at least, that to inclusion of 'philatelic society' in the title might be a deterrent to prospective members. At the A.G.M. on 6 Nay 1957 it was therefore proposed that the Society's name be changed to the Medway Towns Stamp Club. However, it was finally agreed that the name should be the Rochester & District Stamp Club. That change lasted exactly 6 years to the day! At the A.G.M. held on 6 May 1963 attitudes had changed again and the name we still bear today was reinstated.
The Officers
The first-elected Officers have already been noted above and there have always been a President, Secretary and Treasurer, of course. A full list of these is given in the Appendix. In the early days, it was suggested that the three Mayors be invited to become Vice-Presidents of the Society and on one occasion the Bishop of Rochester also. There is no evidence in the Minutes that approaches were made or accepted and since no programmes survive before 1953 no check is possible. One or two of the more prominent members were, in fact, appointed and their names usually eventually appear as President. From 1958 onwards the practice, still followed today, was instituted whereby an incoming President (who from 1950 onwards has usually served for three years) served the previous three years as the (only) Vice-President. The proposal, made only two years before, that a1l Past-Presidents should be Vice-Presidents arrears to have been short-lived.
Before passing to the next section, mention should be made on the President's Medallion - his symbol on Office. The first mention on this decoration appears in the Minutes of the A.G.M. held in 1982. No further entry on the subject has been found until at the Committee meeting held on 21 September 1987 it was reported that a quotation of £75 for a medallion had been received the suggestion that one should be obtained having been made again some time previously. However, the President of the time, W. (Bill) Andrews, declared, in no uncertain terms, that so long as he was President he would not wear it! The matter was further discussed at an S.G.M. on 2 November 1987 and a decision deferred until the installation on the next President. No further mention of the matter appears in the Minutes, so the President remains unadorned - but no less respected.
5
The Committee
Throughout the life of the Society, successive Committees have made a significant contribution to its affairs and have assisted the Officers with a wealth of knowledge and experience. To name all those who have served would take a formidable list and, with some regret, it has been decided that this will not be done. Such a list would have contained the names of many prominent members of the Society, a great many of whom, sadly, are no longer with us but who are not forgotten.
Four members formed the first Committee in 1945 and that number has formed the normal complement for most of the time since. For a number of years it was the practice for an outgoing President to become an ex-officio member of the Committee, for the three years until the next ex-President took his place. However, in May 1990 it was decided that this would not happen and that the Past-President would offer himself for election if he so wished. That decision was soon reversed though, for a new Constitution, ratified in 1996, reinstated the earlier position and the Committee comprises three members elected at the A.G.M. plus the outgoing President.
The 'Working Committee', on course, involves both the Officers and the four members mentioned above. In addition, three other members, also elected at the A.G.M., have in the past often sat in on the deliberations - the Press Correspondent or Secretary (first appointed in October 1945), the Packet Secretary (in November 1947) and the Librarian (not a formal appointment until 1987). One of the privileges (?) of all these good people was that they were expected to be the first to volunteer to undertake all the hard work involved when the Society was staging exhibitions etc. in addition to the normal monthly meetings, Some of these extra- mural activities are mentioned in later sections of these notes. Business and personal circumstances permitting, this help has always been forthcoming without question and the Society owes them a debt of gratitude.
The actual Committee meetings have been held in a variety of locations, ranging from the Society's normal meeting place to a room at the stamp shop just along the street from the Kings Head Hotel, an office on the first floor of Leonards of Rochester (the 'power base' of. our one time President John Leonard) and the home of the current President. This latter location, anywhere in a triangle covering Borstal, Strood and Rainham, has now been the norm for many years and the members owe their hostesses many a vote of thanks for numerous cups on tea and coffee - and occasionally something a little stronger!
The Membership
It has already been recorded that the inaugural meeting was attended by 'approximately 25 interested persons'; at the first ordinary meeting on 2 October 1945 there were 24 Senior and 4 Junior members present. In just under 2 years the membership had risen to 41 Senior and 4 Junior members, while attendances at meetings were fluctuating around 25-30, though a low point was reached when only 5 members attended the quiz night on 5 May 1947! During the next 5 years the number of members rose slightly, though attendances dropped and year by year average figures of around 14-18 were being recorded. At the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 it was reported that although on paper the membership was 48, only 26 had attended any meeting at all in the past season and only 16 had attended more than one third on the meetings; furthermore, only 28 subscriptions were being paid, which included 6 juniors. It was therefore decided that some 'weeding' of the membership list should be carried out so that it could be established exactly who were members.
6
The membership list itself had been formalised in 1948. At the Committee meeting held on the 12th. July in that year, the Secretary was instructed to have printed, among other things, 200 membership application forms; these were being used by prospective new member by October and at a Committee meeting held on the 18th. of that month it was decided that existing members should be asked be complete a form for record purposes. This seemingly trivial matter is mentioned here because on its effect on early membership records and the writer will perhaps be forgiven if he quotes his own case as an example.
He has long been puzzled that the date of his joining the Society is recorded as 1.11.48, though memory was that he first attended at the opening meeting of the 1947-8 season - in September - which was, in fact, the first meeting to be held at the new venue of the Kings Head Hotel. Memory is now proved to be correct, as an application form to be signed was not available until the November meeting in 1948. If other existing members filled in a form at that time or at a subsequent meeting, then, unless they backdated the form, they too will appear to have joined some time, even years, later than they actually did. All the forms, even for these who are no longer members, are still held on file and a future historian should be wary when researching these early records.
A year after the 'weeding' was decided on it was reported to have been done and the list then contained only 'reliable' members; the average attendance during the 1952-3 season had been 17.4. Attendances and membership continued to decline; in 1957-8 the average attendance was down to 13, in 1958-9 it was 15 and the total membership only 21. On 1 January 1962 - admittedly because of bad weather - only 6 members turned up; presumably one of them was the President as it was his 'Night'; the meeting was abandoned - the only time in the history of the Society that this has happened.
From this time on, the Minutes carry no references to membership attendances until 1981 (except that the numbers, including visitors, at auction meetings are sometimes mentioned); from then on, copies of the Secretary's report are attached and mention is made of these 'vital statistics'. Since then, the average attendance at meetings year-on-year has remained remarkably constant, ranging from about 26 to 32. The actual membership, however, has steadily climbed, largely due to the great success of the Exchange Packet, which is dealt with later on; within the last two or three years it has reached the 100 mark, including about 10 'family' memberships. A simple subtraction shows that a large proportion of the total is only packet membership, welcome though this may be from a financial point of view.
Honorary Life Membership was bestowed on John Leonard at the Committee meeting held on 11 January 1962 (he was leaving the district) in recognition of his services to the Society. However, it was not until the Committee meeting of 23 November 1981 that it was agreed to recommend to the forthcoming A.G.M. that such an honour be formalised, This was done and on 10 May 1982 it was agreed that membership of the Society for 30 years - to include a term as President - would in future be recognised by the granting of Honorary Life Membership and two members - the present Secretary and the writer - were so appointed. Two other members have also been honoured - S.O. (Griffith) Sutton and H.C. (Hugh) Sharp.
The Finances
There are four main sources of income - annual subscriptions, profits from the monthly raffles, commission from the annual auctions and the exchange packet.
7
At the inaugural meeting, as has already been noted, the annual subscription was set at 2/6 for members under 18 and 5/- for older ones. Just a year later, at the A.G.M. held on 24 September 1946, the senior element was increased to 7/6. This structure sufficed until 1953 when, at the A.G.M. held on 5th. May, the Treasurer noted that although the finances were in a healthy state, they allowed nothing to cover the entertainment and expenses given to visiting speakers, two courtesies which, the writer recalls, have frequently been the subject of discussion at county and society level. Accordingly, the subscriptions were raised to 10/- and 3/6 for senior and junior members respectively. At the next A.G.M., however, the junior rate reverted to its previous level of 2/6.
There was then a gap of almost 25 years before it became necessary to alter subscription rates again. Decimalization in 1971 had translated the figures to 50p and the not exact equivalent on 12p. Inflation, too, was a new word and we all began to find that money didn't seem to go as far as it use to. For that reason, the standard rate for senior members was raised to £1 and the junior rate to 25p; a new category was introduced - that for Senior citizens - and was set at 50p. For the increasing number of husband-and-wife members a further new category of Family Membership was introduced and the subscription for this was set at £1-50. The junior rate has not had occasion to be collected for many years, unfortunately, as there have been be individual junior members for a long time.
One other category of membership existed for a number of years - that of Country Member. This was introduced to cater for members of the exchange packet who were not local residents and therefore were not likely to attend meetings or to avail themselves of other facilities. They were nevertheless required to be members on the Society for insurance purposes and a concession rate of 25p was levied on them. It is not certain when this was instituted but, largely because of some misunderstanding of the intended purpose of the category, it was abolished as from 1 January 1988.
There is not a lot to be said on the subject on raffles - except that we have them regularly! They were first held in late 1951 as one measure to recoup a loss incurred as a result of the Society hosting Federation Day for the Kent Federation in the previous May, when John Leonard had been installed as its President. The loss was some £12: a significant amount for the Society and one which would not have been made had it not been that those were the days when dealers were not asked to such events. The suggestion then was that members should make up packets on stamps from their duplicates and these would be raffled one at a time at successive meetings. This scheme does not appear to have been too successful, for only a year later it was recorded that a raffle was not held every month owing to lack of material. A year later, at the A.G.M. on 5 May 1953, it was agreed that raffles should de discontinued and it seeds that by then the loss of £12 in 1951 had been cleared. Quite how is not recorded, but only 3 months later, at the Committee meeting on 16 August, it was decided to reinstate the monthly raffles and that, of course, is the pattern today - albeit the prices have been rather more worth having than little packets of members' duplicates, with all due respect! Fortunately, the Society's bank balance is not so dependent on the income from this 'fun' activity as it once was and it is to be hoped that it will continue for many years to come.
The first auction was held on the 5 March 1946, when the ambitious total of 120 lots was sold to the 21 senior and 5 junior members present, realising £8-5-9, of which 13/9 went to the Society's funds, Further sales were held on a regular basis and 1 March 1948 was the first occasion on which members of Gravesend, Maidstone and Sittingbourne societies were invited to attend; the total realisation for the evening was a little over £60 - including £3 for Lot 64, sold for the benefit of St, Barts Hospital. By 1953 the practice had begun of holding a short mini-auction before each meeting, subject to the availability on material and this activity, together with 'sale and exchange', was reflected in the preamble to the yearly printed programme.
8
The commission on sales at auctions - and, incidentally, on sales of approvals at meetings when these two activities were featured - was fixed on 27 November 1945 at 1d in the 1/- for members and 'the best terms available' for non-members. At some unrecorded time later it was lowered to 5% but at the meeting held on 14 May 1953 it was decided to increase it to 10%. Just three years later, on 10 August 1956, the Committee raised it again to 2d. in the 1/-. It is not recorded when the level was reduced to the 10% which is still in force today - perhaps it was in 1971, with the onset of decimalization, for the calculation of five-sixths of one new penny in. five new pence would have strained the patience of the accountants at the end on a two-hour sale!
The commission derived from sales at successive auctions has sometimes provided a welcome boost to the funds - often amounting to the equivalent of some 30 or more annual subscriptions. The Minutes of many meetings include a reference to the amount raised from the mini-auctions at the start of meetings during the years when they were a regular feature; just one such reference is worthy of record - the threepence-ha'penny accruing to the funds on 2 November 1959 must have been very welcome to the Treasurer!
On a more serious note, mention should de made of the good that has come out of the auctions in the shape of the money that has been donated to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association; for many years now some 8-10 lots, assembled from various sources by L.C. (Les) Elmore, have been sold without deduction of commission, following very generous bidding from many members, and the proceeds passed on to the good cause. The thanks received from their H.O. have shown how much this gesture is appreciated.
The Exchange Packet has had a chequered history, its shaky beginnings giving no clue to the great success it was to become in later years. It began on 3 November 1947 when it was proposed that members should assemble booklets of about 25 stamps which would de circulated among those who were interested. The principle was to be truly one of exchange; members would remove any items which they wanted and replace them with items on equal or similar value. It does not take much imagination, perhaps, to see that this system was liable to 'misjudgment' of 'value', to put it kindly. There are frequent entries in the Minutes for the years which followed referring to the gradual deterioration of the quality of material in the booklets as they got further into the circuit. There was one query as to whether it was alright to replace colonial stamps with foreign ones; the answer was a firm NO! Members were asked on several occasions to make sure they abided by the spirit of the packet. In October 1950 it was proposed - the inference is obvious - to split the circuit into two parts, one for senior members and one for juniors though one has to doubt that the junior members were entirely to blame for the situation.
At the A.G.M. on 7 May 1956 a proposal was made that the packet in its existing form be abandoned and that a conventional cash-based one be set up. This was defeated, but it was decided that better quality material should be contributed and a close watch was to be kept on its progress. These high ideals did not last for long! At the next A.G.M., on 6 May 1957, it was decided that because of continued abuse the packet would be abandoned. The remaining booklets were auctioned off and fetched 7/6!
For several years prior to that time, the Sittingbourne packet had been available at meetings ant sales from it had been encouraging. No further mention of it appears in the Minutes after November 1962 and at the following A.G.M., on 6 May 1963, the Committee were instructed to organise a 'proper' packet. Just 9 days later - there must have been some preliminary investigation - the Committee were informed that the cost of setting up a packet, including blank booklets, would be £2-2-9. As the booklets would be sold to members the net cost of the setup would only be £1-2-9. There is no record of when the first packet was circulated but the first account was presented to the A.G.M. on 4 Nay 1964; sales had been 27.7% and the profit to the Society was £7-15-0.
9
The new packet was not an unqualified success. Although for 1967-8 the sales were 35%, only 3 boxes had actually been circulated. This number fell to 2 in 1969-70 and only l in 1970-1. This state on affairs can perhaps be attributed to the fact that in those early days most booklets contributed came from a limited number of local members, unlike the position in later years. The low point had been reached and as time progressed, under successive changes of Packet Secretary - a list appears in the Appendix - matters improved. So much so that at the A.G.M. on 12 May 1986 it was proposed and agreed that in recognition of the greatly increased amount of work falling on the Packet Secretary, by then P.D. (Peter) Willard, an honorarium should go with the office; the annual amount was be 1% of the gross sales. Peter resigned from his onerous job in July 1991 and at the next A.G.M. was able to report that no less than £37000 of material had been circulated in the final 8 months on his stewardship, with sales a fraction over 50%. This was the high point of a period of some 3 or 4 years during which both circulation and sales steadily accelerated - with the result that the Society's funds received a considerable boost from the resulting commission, even though the amount paid by members of the Society, as opposed to outside contributors, was only 5%, to which level it had been dropped as long before as 1980.
For two or three years following that time the Packet continued at almost the same level of success but the sudden lost, within the space of about nine months, of the Packet's three biggest spenders - between them responsible for around a half of the total purchases - caused a very noticeable drop in sales and currently the average figure is no more than one half of the peak noted above, coupled with a similar drop in the amount of material being circulated. It is to be hoped that, for the sake of the Society's finances, the halcyon days will return.
Overall, the Society's bank balance has generally been enough - sometimes only just enough - to sustain it. After only 4 months of operation, the balance in hand declared for 1945 was the useful amount of £6-9-4. The amount varied by £2-3 either side of that for a few years but by 1951 the alarm bells must have started ringing, for at the A.G.M. on 7 May the Treasurer reported that no more than £l-10-10 remained in the kitty. Although there was a deficit of some £12 on the Federation Day account for the event hosted by the Society in May 1951 - as noted above - and the Treasurer was able to report to the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 that that had been cleared, there were but 2/- (and a ha'penny!) left to be going on with. Things could only get better - unless they got catastrophically worse! - and from then on there was a steady improvement, helped by increasing membership, successful auctions, the raffle and the improvement of exchange packet sales, coupled with modest outgoings for such things as room hire, entertainment, printing and so on. In addition, by the late 1960s it had been decided to place some of the Society's funds on deposit in the Rochester Diocesan Loan Fund, instead of allowing them to rest in an ordinary bank account collecting nothing but bank charges. That was a wise move, for the interest so gained improved year by year as deposit rates increased during the 1970s and by the 30th. anniversary of the 2/- low point the Treasurer could gain much satisfaction from a balance of well in excess of £500 - but then, 30 years is a long time.
The increasing success of the Exchange Packet has already been mentioned and during the 1980s the income from commission on sales steadily rose while an increasing sum was accruing by virtue of the fact that for some time the Society had to underwrite the insurance of its own packet, in the absence of suitable commercial cover. All this reflected in the Treasurer's annual statement. As early as 1979 he began to sing what was to become a familiar refrain at successive A.G.Ms. - we've got too much money! The immediate, and only, effect at that time was an agreement to increase the prize money which in those days was given to competition second and third runners-up.
In the following year, the response to the same refrain was a proposal that various catalogues should be purchased, to form the basis of a library; surprisingly, in view of later attitudes, the proposal was defeated at that time.
10
The annual plea being made, it has to be recorded that proposals for spending some of the surplus funds by: reducing or abolishing the annual subscription; subsidising the annual cheese and wine meeting (which had taken the place of the annual dinner - of which more later); abolishing the annual subscription for retired members only; and purchasing further trophies for competition, were all detected at the A.G.M. on 10 May 1982 - thus supporting the recommendation from the Committee that they be rejected.
The reader will be spared a year-by-year account of the discussions attending the institution of additional benefits; suffice it to say that at the time of writing, the Society has funds in the region of f3400 and members now have the benefit of: a wide variety of catalogues, updated annually or every other year (sometimes as much as f100 a year has been spent); A U-V lamp and watermark detector; retention trophies for competition winners (the prize monies having been abolished in 1990) and a small prize for the one-sheet event; certificates for competition runners-up and also as mementos for visiting speakers; payment in full for the proper entertainment of the latter (whereas for many years the President was limited to a 'budget' for this); new, more convenient, frames for displays; a small subsidy towards the cost of the Annual Dinner; and, perhaps most importantly, the knowledge that there is a substantial buffer behind them to take care of any unexpected demands.
The Meeting Place
The Society started off by holding its meetings in the Museum at Eastgate House, but within just two months some members were arguing that the facilities there were not entirely adequate. Quotations for alternative accommodation had been obtained from Henderson House (at 6/- per night) and the Kings Head Hotel (10/-); it appears from the accounts that for the first nine months of meetings the charge for the Museum had been just £1, although by mid-1946 the rate seems to have been either 7/- or 9/- per meeting. When it was states (at the November meeting) that the Curator of the Museum had said that a trestle table could be made available, the objections evaporated and it has decided to continue as before.
Just a year later, it was noted in Committee that an offer of a room at the City Cafe (owned by a member) had been made. The Cafe was situated in Corporation St., up towards the Bridge end; it was demolished many years ago, presumably when the Street was dualled. The offer was accepted and the first meeting at the Cafe was held on 13 November 1946. Meetings there were held on the second Wednesday in each month, but meetings continued to be held at the Museum on the first Tuesday in each month, though these were to be solely for the purpose of Sale and Exchange. Members were to note that at Cafe meetings, smoking would not be allowed while stamps were on display; presumably it had been taboo at the Museum in any case. The Sale & Exchange nights at the Museum continued for only another few months, for the last mention of one was that for 3 June 1947. Meetings at the City Cafe did not last all that long in the event, for at the Committee meeting on 15 August 1947 it was noted that it had changed hands and was no longer available.
The decision was therefore taken to move to the Kings Head Hotel and the first meeting at that venue was held on 8 September 1947, when 28 members were present. Thus began the Society's long association with the Hotel which has continued to this day - with only brief breaks. By an unhappy coincidence, only after those last few lines had been typed and left on the computer overnight was it announced at the A.G.M. held on 12 May 1997 that, due to management changes and structural alterations to the Hotel it was not going to be possible for the Society to meet in its accustomed room when the new season began in September. It might be possible to meet in another part of the building retained by the Hotel's present management - but this is the future and not history.
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The first of the brief breaks mentioned above occurred on 3 October 1977. Due to the unavailability of the room at the Kings Head, the combined auction was held in the Fellowship Hall of the Baptist Church in Green St., Gillingham. This was a specious and well-lit room and the same venue was used for the auction in the following year, on 2 October. The experiment was not repeated in subsequent years.
The third, major, break came in 1984-5. For some two years previously the Hotel had been run by a manager acting, it is believed, for an agent, as the Hotel was no longer a Trust House. That gentleman, it must be said, was not the most pleasant person one could wish to meet and he appeared to have a fixation about the amount of electricity being used for lighting during meetings; many were the times when he would appear at the doorway at 9.30p.m. and draw attention to the clock - at that time the room was being paid for by the hour. The writer pointed out on more than one occasion that the cost of the electricity used for the (rather inadequate) lighting for just over two hours was at most 20p whereas we were paying £15 for the room; the logic of that fact seemed to escape him. On 4 June 1984, a night not to be forgotten by the secretary - Philip Tyrrell - or the writer, we were told at the time of paying the bill to collect our frames (they were then stored in an alcove upstairs), to get out and not to come back! Fortunately it was the last meeting of the season and there was time to look round.
Several possible venues were considered and the choice fell on the St. George Hotel in New Rd., Chatham. It turned out to be not a happy choice. Other bodies also met there on the same evening and we were often moved from room to room, having to negotiate a labyrinth of corridors in the process. On one notable occasion one member - no longer a young man - was physically removed from one room which he inadvertently entered, by the Masons who were occupying it, even though it was the room which we had originally booked. Fortunately, the Kings Head came under new management during the season 1984-5 and it was made known that we would be welcome if we wanted to return. We certainly did (!) and on 2 September 1985 we were back for the start of a new season; it has to de recorded here that the Society could not have received a better reception anywhere than it has had from mine host and his wife during the past 12 years.
In early 1981 the suggestion was made that the holding of meetings in Rochester might be dissuading some people living in Rainham from joining the society because of the time involved in travelling from there after late arrival home from 'the office'. It was therefore decided to hold six meetings at the White Horse in Rainham from September 1981 to February 1982 on the third Monday in each month. The accommodation there was such that visiting speakers could hardly be invited and members largely entertained themselves. The experiment was repeated in the following season, 1982-3, but it became obvious that those attending the Rainham meetings were almost entirely the same ones who attended Rochester meetings and at the A.G.M. on 9 May 1983 it was decided that no more meetings would be held there. The experiment had cost the Society about £120 and we appeared to have acquired no more than one or two new members
Although there is no record in the Minutes, the writer recalls that there was a series of informal meetings held in the shop premises of Ralph Griffiths, who was a partner in the stamp trade with G.H. (George) Bigsby. The shop was in Chatham High St., almost opposite No.30 - then the offices of the 'Chatham News' and later the first home of Radio Kent. The meetings were probably held in the late 1950s or early '60s, around the middle of the month and memory
is that they went on for no longer than a year or two. For the record, following the death of George Bigsby, Ralph teamed up with J.H. Greathead who had the stamp shop a few doors along the High St. from the Kings Head and this partnership lasted until Ralph, sadly, took his own life, probably on the late 1960s.
12
The Meetings
It would be a very long list indeed if an attempt was made to record all the countries and themes of which we have seen displays. Suffice it to say that all the continents have been covered at one time or another and a good many of the constituent countries, from the large - U.S.A., China or Russia - to the small - Ascension or Tristan da Cunha. We have had many eminent speakers and many not so eminent, but all have been enthusiastic about their subject for all that.
The opening display of the 1945-6 season was given by Frank Godden, who showed 'Some pages from the Exhibition Collections'. The two local newspapers each devoted something like six column-inches to their reports - no doubt stimulated by 'copy' from the Secretary. It was recorded that Mr. Godden showed, among other things, 'the largest known block of the famous 1d Black and a genuinely used block of no fewer than 102 of the 2d Blue'. The whole display was said to have been valued at over £12000 - about a quarter of a million at 1997 prices!
That must have been a hard act to follow and for the remainder of the season, which went on to July 1946, the members seemed to have entertained themselves with displays by several of them, sales nights and an early use of technology when the President, Mr. Bernard, illustrated his talk on Germen stamps with the aid of an epidiascope. That was the first of a number of evenings in later years when displays were given with the aid of film or slides, either by individual speakers or films hired from sources such as Gibbons or in one occasion the Petroleum Information Bureau - who supplied a film on the subject of Oil and Stamps, which was presented by our late member D.V.S. (Des) Kill, it being his pet subject.
One meeting of those early days will always remain in the writer's memory; there had perhaps been a display like it before, on 1 January 1946, but there has certainly never been one since! Member Francis Kearns gave a display of air mails of the world on 3 November 1947. Francis was a well-known figure in Chatham town centre; he was a news vendor whose 'pitch' was at the junction on High St. and Military Rd.. His collection, which included many rarities of the aerophilatelic scene such as some or the Newfoundland overprints, South American issues, French and Italian overprints of the 1930s and so on, extended to over 600 pages - and we saw it; all on it; every page! In those days, displays were either passed round from hand to hand or laid on the tables. That night they were handed round and for just ever two hours sheets were quickly passed from one member to the next, with about 8 or 10 seconds to look at each one; it was an exhausting performance and the meeting closed at 10.10p.m.! Francis' commentary on the display consisted on a recital of the Sanabria catalogue value of almost every stamp in the collection; we saw many very valuable items that evening. But it has to be recorded that when Francis died a few years later his collection was auctioned by one of the London houses and fetched but a fraction of what it might have done; most of the stamps were mint and had been spoiled by over-enthusiastic licking of the mounts.
Mention was made above of the use of technology in the course of a display. Another, pioneer, use was the subject of a display given by member J.H. Greathead, the local dealer, who demonstrated the use of the 'sun-ray lamp' in the detection of forgeries, repairs etc.; this was a little too early for phosphors, the date being 5 January 1948. The evening had proved popular and a repeat performance occurred in February 1949.
13
An even deeper incursion into the realms of science was made on 3 December 1956, when W.S. Cheavin, a well-known writer on the subject, gave a display entitled 'Atoms for Philately', illustrated with slides. This dealt with the use of X-rays and radioactive isotopes in detecting paper structure and also, as with U.V. light, the detection of forgeries and repairs. That, too, proved to be a popular display and although not many members had an X-ray machine or a collection of isotopes in their den, Mr. Cheavin made another visit on 1 December 1958 to demonstrate the advances in technique that had been made, with a display entitled 'Forgeries and Fakes by Modern Methods of Detection'; this too proved very popular.
Not so scientific, but equally baffling, was the half-hour display of prestidigitation given by a local magician on 6 November 1950 in what was otherwise a social evening.
A feature of many seasons during the 1950s and 60s was a night devoted to a Brains Trust or a general discussion on many philatelic topics. The first of these was on 6 February 1950 when, among others, the questions were asked: 'Why do people collect control blocks?' and 'Why do people collect the larger and more popular countries?'. After some debate, as recorded in the Minutes, it was decided that people collect control blocks because some people will collect anything and people collect the larger and more popular countries because they are larger and more popular! Further weighty discussions took place on 5 February 1951 to decide what were the contributions to philately of Rowland Hill and Archer; to which the answer seemed to be that the former contributed nothing and the latter only complicated matters by introducing perforations! It is also interesting to note that at the same meeting it emerged that only l member out of the 15 present could say on whose portrait of Queen Victoria the design of the 1d Black was based. One wonders what the percentage would be if the same question was asked today. A final example must be the debate held on 5 September 1960 when the motion was that 'This house would deplore the general issue of pictorial stamps by Great Britain'; this was defeated by 8 votes 3 - perhaps the eight members concerned were delighted with the trickle of issues in 1960 and 1961 which triggered the flood that developed in later years.
The early auctions were held in March and this practice continued up to 1965 - with one or two exceptions. In 1966 the change was made to October, by which time our friends from the three neighboring societies had been joining us for 9 years. At the Committee meeting on 14 April 1981 - confirmed at the A.G.M. a month later - a move was made again and the auction was held in December, as it still is today. And still, on course, we welcome our friends from the other societies; attendance at these evenings is well above average, as might be expected, but we do not often approach the record of 74 achieved in 1967 and again in 1969.
No season would nowadays be complete without its competition nights. This feature really began under unhappy circumstances. At the meeting held on 19 March 1947 came the sad news of the death of the President, R.S. Bernard, whose initiative had brought the Society into existence. At the A.G.M. held in the following July the suggestion was made - apparently by the late President's daughter - that some form of memorial be instituted; it was decided to obtain a Bernard Memorial Cup and that it should he awarded for 'the best 10-page display' on Members' Night annually. At the Committee meeting on 15 August following, a Cup was produced which would cost £1-14-0; it was agreed that it should be purchased. The first competition was held on 7 October and no less than 16 members out of the 27 who attended submitted entries. Harold Couchman was declared the winner with a display on airmail covers and five runners-up were given prices on packets of stamps which, by a fortunate coincidence, had just been received from a member together with his letter of resignation. The number of sheets for competition was reduced to 6 in 1952.
14
The competition, of course, became an annual event, which was keenly contested - although some winners' names appeared on it more frequently than others. By 16 March 1970 it was reported to the Committee that the Cup was now fully engraved, following the competition held in the February just past. It was agreed to seek permission at the forthcoming A.G.M. for the purchase of another Cup at a cost of approximately £25-30. Permission was given but, as recorded, the amount was not to exceed £15. It was further agreed. that a Tankard would be awarded to the winner each year, as a retention trophy.
The absence of monthly Minutes at that time leaves some details to be the subject of conjecture, but a new Cup was obtained - at a cost of £12-60, we were now decimalised - and were on show at the A.G.M. on 3 May 1971. It was agreed at that meeting that there should be two competitions held on Members Night in February i.e. in 1972; these would be for the (new) Challenge Cup and for the Thematic Trophy, the latter being a newly instituted competition. It must therefore have been on l February 1971 that the last competition for the Bernard Cup itself was held. Although it is not minuted, the writer is aware that that event was won by the present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, and that he was presented with the Cup, to be held in perpetuity, as his name appeared on it more times than any other member's.
The Challenge Cup and Thematic Trophy competitions were both to be for entries of 9 sheets, to bring them in line with Kent Federation rules for similar competitions. At some time during the season 1972-3 it was evidently decided to add another competition to the list - the one-sheet event. At the A.G.M on 7 May 1973 the President apologised for the fact that the proposed thematic competition had not been held in the previous February due to a complete misunderstanding somewhere along the line, but it would definitely be held in the next season; the one-sheet competition was reported to have been a great success with no less than 10 entries, Mrs. M.J. (Joyce) Kemp had been the winner.
There remained but one more competition to make up the four that are held regularly to this day. At the A.G.M. on 14 May 1984 it was decided to add another meeting, in July, to the existing ten per year already held and that the evening should be devoted to a Cinderella competition. The first was held on 1 July 1985 as was also another innovation - the Novices Competition, for members who had never won either of the two main competitions. By 1988, however, the latter had been abandoned and was not held in that year.
The competitions have moved about in the calendar over the years, but February has been the month for the Bernard, later the Challenge Cup since 1968 and has always been so for the Thematic Trophy; the one-sheet event was moved from February to the night of the A.G.M. (May) in 1988 and was joined there by the Cinderella competition (which was saved from being dropped altogether by a 'pro' vote at the 1988 A.G.M.) in 1989 - and that is the position as it remains today.
Competitions have to be judged, of course, and the first one to be held - in 1947 as noted above - was assessed by Messrs. Altenheim and Styles from the Gravesend society. This practice did not last for long; at the meeting held on 7 November 1949 - an evening devoted partly to a 'Philatelic 20 Questions' - an hour's (!) debate was held on the subject 'Should the Bernard Cup Competition be judged by popular vote of the members or by judges from outside?' Popular vote won by 12 votes to 10 and this was the method from the 1950 competition onwards. That decision was overwhelmingly supported at the A.G.M. on 7 May 1951 when it was upheld by 14 votes to nil. It is not clear, because of the absence of monthly Minutes from the early 1970s, when second thoughts crept in but the present method of having one outside judge and one member for the two main competitions has been in place since about 1984.
15
The Cinderella competition was judged by outside judges for the first two years but since then has been judged by the members present and that has always been the method used for the one-sheet event.
While the entries for the two main competitions were being judged, members were at a loose end and at one time the evening was partly taken up with members' displays. That changed in 1984 when the night on 'anything beginning with -' was moved to the February event; the 'alphabetical' night had first started in 1976, when on 7 June the advertised programme was actually 'Anything that starts with A'. In 1997 we have arrived at 'V'.
Displays and competitions need frames for mounting the sheets and comfortable viewing. It was not always thus, as has already been mentioned. To replace the then current methods of laying displays on tables or passing sheets from hand to hand between members seated at tables - the choice generally being left to the speaker for the evening - the matter of obtaining 'one or two' frames was discussed in Committee as early as 7 July 1947 and submitted to the A.G.M. just a week later, at which meeting if was agreed. It was not until a year later at the next A.G.M. that the President informed members that the cost involved was found to be too high.
The matter was raised again at the Committee meeting on 18 November 1955 but after some discussion it was decided to leave matters as they were. The final push to obtain frames was born out of necessity. The Society was due to host Kent Federation Day in 1962 and at one Committee meeting to talk over preliminary arrangements it was noted that some frames would have to be burrowed from Maidstone society and some from Woolwich; the remainder would have to be made by the members in a joint effort, 'each member providing the money to purchase the material for one frame'. It is not clear if that was to be each member of the Committee or of the Society, but there is be record of the levy being imposed. Ten double-sided frames were prepared during the following months and the finishing touches applied by a working party - J.L. (Jack) Edmonds, Hugh Sharp and the writer, all crammed together in the latter's shed - during Easter 1962. They have done good service, having graced many a Federation affair and other exhibitions, travelling hundreds of miles in the process, and are still in occasional use today. However, they were rather cumbersome for ordinary meeting use and in 1983 the present lighter and more convenient ones were produced.
The length of the season has varied over the years, as has the position in the programme of some regular features. The first season went on to July 1946, a break was taken in August and the first A.G.M. was held in September. The next A.G.M. was held in July 1947 but by 1950 (at an E.G.M. on 3 April) it was decided to bring the A.G.M. forward to May, where it has remained ever since, although the financial year was altered to coincide with the calendar year in 1983.
At the 1950 A.G.M. it was decided to discontinue the June and July meetings after that season, but to add mid-month meetings on the third Wednesday during the winter months. Winter stretched into Spring; the mid-month meetings ran from September 1950 to April 1951 and the same in 1951-2. However, at the A.G.M. on 5 May 1952 it was decided to revert to one meeting per month in order to reduce expenses.
At the Committee meeting on 14 April 1959 it was proposed - and confirmed at the A.G.M. three weeks later - that the season should be extended to include June; that took immediate effect, for a meeting was held on the lst. June following. As already noted above, a July meeting was added in 1985 and we continue to hold eleven meetings a year to this present day.
It was agreed that meetings would be on Monday 'in the coming season' by a unanimous decision taken at the meeting on 3 May 1948, although it appears from the Minutes that they had been so already for a year.
16
Inevitably there were clashes with Bank Holidays and yet it was not until 30 years later that the Committee recommended and the A.G.M. on the 1 May 1978 agreed that in such circumstances the meeting should be deferred by one week and so it has remained up to this day.
The Inner Man (and Woman)
Refreshments - nothing stronger than tea or coffee, by all accounts - were often a feature of early meetings. Indeed, one of the Committee's recommendations that were accepted at the A.G.M. on 14 July 1947 was for 'Meetings to commence at 7p.m. with bourse and general get- together; Minutes to be read at 7.45 and displays to commence at 8p.m.; tea to be available from 7-7.45'. But it has to be remembered that meetings were still being held at the City Café and it was just a month later that that venue became unavailable. Nevertheless, at later meetings, for a period of some years, when a general discussion or similar members' night was held then cups of tea were used to break up the proceedings, usually around 8-30.
Another occasion for refreshment was the combined auction, when visitors from the three neighbouring societies came along. Tea was available at such events - members often paying 1/6 or 2/-, visitors nothing, of course. This was not such a dangerous practice as it might sound; up until the time when a year's break at St. Georges Hotel was taken, the large room which is now used was divided into two by a partition which could be drawn back and auction lots were kept to the larger portion, tea to the smaller. This feature was discontinued with effect from the auction in October 1976.
The Society celebrated its Golden Jubilee at the A.G.M. on 10 May 1982 - the early Minutes had obviously not been studied at that time! - and members partook of champagne and cake, drinking a toast to the next 60 years. From memory, that is the last occasion on which refreshment was actually a formal part of the programme, although to this day members attend to their own refreshments in this respect.
The Annual Dinner now forms a very sociable addition to the season's meetings and it was at the A.G.M. on 4 May 1959 that the Committee's recommendation was accepted and it was agreed that a dinner should be held on the third Monday in October; the cost was expected to be about 10/- to 12/6 and it was decided to invite Leslie Meadows and his wife as guests, it being remembered that Les would at that time be President of the Kent Federation. It was even decided to have some special serviettes prepared for the occasion, a sample having been produced by a Committee member. In the event, the Dinner was held on 19 October, the cost was 11/6, there were 22 persons present of whom 12 were members of the Society and it seems that the guest list had increased by one, for Mr. L.M. Easton (a long-standing friend of the Society) from Sittingbourne replied to a toast be the Guests, the President having proposed the Loyal Toast
Year by year the Dinner was held but numbers were falling - and the speechifying was dropped from the proceedings; by 1970 it was obvious that for the past few years it was mostly Committee members only who had attended (there had been no more than 7 or 8 at times) and it was decided that a Dinner would not de held that year, for lack of general support. Interest seems to have been revived, however, for the Dinner in October 1971 was a success though numbers 'could have been greater'. It again became a regular feature of the programme but by 1981, perhaps because on increasing cost, it was proposed that either it should be partly subsidised or, alternatively, a cheese and wine evening should be held instead. The latter won the day and one was held on 26 October and again in October 1982, though it does not appear in the programme for 1983-4.
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In 1984, at the Committee meeting on 23 April, it was decided to revive the Dinner and one was held on 22 October at the Royal Victoria & Bull Hotel. Since then it has been held regularly with no further breaks, though interest has varied from year to year. Prior to the excursion to the Bull, the Dinners had always been held in one or other of three rooms at the Kings Head and members with long memories will recall the evening of the spicy prawn cocktail - which will have reminded them on an earlier Federation Day Luncheon and the episode of the frozen melon balls! In recent years we have sampled the delights of the Inner Dowsing lightship in Borstal and the Hastings Arms in Gillingham - no doubt future years will see us at other venues.
The Kent Federation of Philatelic Societies
These notes would not be complete without some reference to the organization which for the past 50 years - it celebrates its Golden Jubilee this year - has united the societies in this county; today there are 25 of them and 2 associated members.
At the meeting held on the 13 November 1946 a letter from the Maidstone society was read, proposing the formation of a county association and inviting our Society to send a representative to a meeting to be held there on the 30th of the month. The President, Mr. Bernard, attended and as a result of that meeting ours was one of 15 societies who founded the Kent Federation at the inaugural meeting held in Maidstone on 12 April 1947.
So began this Society's long and close involvement with the affairs of the Federation. Over the years we have provided 4 Presidents, 2 Secretary/Treasurers, 1 (separate) Treasurer, 1 Newsletter (later Bulletin) Editor, 3 Competition Secretaries and 2 Auditors - albeit that only 6 individuals have actually been involved. In the last three years we have added a seventh to the list for when it was decided that a Chairman should be added to the Federation roll of Officers our present Secretary, Philip Tyrrell, was elected to fill the post.
Our society has been represented at all but a very few of the Council meetings of the Federation and, above all, it has acted as host society to many of the regular events - Federation Day (when one on our members has been installed as President), Spring Rally (formerly Junior Day when the annual competition for young collectors was held, before it was suspended tor lack of interest) and Autumn Rally. Indeed, at one time our Society had hosted more such events than any other in the county, though we have now been overhauled by one or two others.
All in all we have a record of which we can justly be proud.
Some Random Thoughts
Spending on the Library has already been touched on previously. This facility has not always been available to members and referenced to it in the Minutes are sketchy. As early as 20 January 1947 the Treasurer was asked to order the next edition of Gibbons' catalogue and also the 'Stamp Collecting Annual', but there is no mention of a formal library. At the first meeting held at the Kings Head (on 8 September 1947) the visiting speaker, Mr. Leslie Ray - who was the Vice-President on the Kent Federation - presented our President, D.R. Bull, with a pre-stamp cover bearing the Rochester/29 mileage mark and at the following meeting, in October, Mr. Bull said he was presenting the cover to the Society 'as a foundation for the Library'. However, the writer does not recall that there was a Library in any true sense at that time.
It was not until a Committee meeting on 14 May 1954 that the subject of a Library was again broached - though this would be one with a difference. The Secretary was asked to circulate members with a request that they submit a list of books in their possession which they would be willing to lend to other members; there would be no charge for borrowing but it was suggested that a donation be Society funds could be made for the privilege of borrowing a book.
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No response to this curious arrangement is recorded in the Minutes.
It was just 31 years before the matter was raised again - strangely with the same suggestion that members should list any books they were prepared to lend; the duties of a Librarian would also include holding copies of magazines and auction catalogues, for loan on request. Unsurprisingly there was no support for this idea, which was raised in Committee.
At the A.G.M. held on 11 May 1987 the elected Committee members included W. (Bill) Fletcher. No formal appointment of a Librarian appears to have been made at that meeting but at the Committee meeting held four months later, on 21 September, Bill was referred to as holder of the post and still holds it to this day. He now holds a considerable number of catalogues in addition to the UV lamp and watermark detector already mentioned; all of these items are regularly borrowed and the service is much appreciated by the members.
The Society was just 6 weeks old when the Committee produced a draft Constitution, at its meeting on 9 October 1945. After some discussion at the meeting held on 27 November it was ratified, although it was not produced as a small printed card until July 1951, an alternative to printing it on the annual programme card. Minor amendments were made from time to time and the whole document was redrafted some time between 1957 and 1963 (as it bore the title Rochester & District Stamp Club); There is no evidence in the Minutes that it was ever ratified in its new form. Nevertheless, that version stood for a very long time and fortunately its provisions were never called into question. It was not until 1995 that a move was made to bring it up to date - including the Society's correct name - and a new draft was ratified at the A.G.M. in May 1996.
The Society has played a small part in the cultural life of the Towns from time to time. At the Committee meeting held on 18 October 1948 it was agreed that the Society should affiliate to the recently-formed Rochester & District Arts Club (later Society of Arts?), a link which was terminated at the A.G.M. of 7 May 1956. During that time and in subsequent years it participated in one or two local exhibitions and arranged to put small displays in one or other of the local libraries, as well as giving short talks - by a member - to local schools. One such example was the 'Spotlight on Leisure' exhibition arranged by the Arts Club from 23-26 March 1949, when 9 of our members contributed displays of 2 to 4 pages on various topics. The Rotary Club organised a 'Citizens at Leisure' exhibition (at a venue which is not mentioned in the Minutes) on 28-29 October 1955, in which the Society took part, though we declined to participate in their 'Christmas Gift Tree' in Chatham a few months later. There is no evidence in the Minutes that any of these activities on our part resulted in the enrolment or any new members.
During the Medway Arts Festival in June and July 1966 we agreed to provide one-day displays at Rainham, Chatham and Walderslade Libraries, but there is no evidence to show that these were either a roaring success or a flop. There was a long gap before the Society participated in any more local public events and this arose through the visits by some of our members to the stamp festivals held at Valenciennes in France - that town being 'twinned' with Rochester - in 1988 and 1989. We had been asked by the organisers there if it would be possible for us to arrange a 'return' exhibition and the best way of doing this seemed to be that we should stage a display in connection with the annual Rochester Dickens Festival (held over a period of four days straddling the end of May and the beginning of June).
Our first venture into this field came in 1990 and it has now become a regular part of our yearly activities. It has meant some hard work on the part of a few members, one of whom has been required to organise the display material and others who have volunteered to act as stewards - but the writer ventures to suggest that it has been a pleasant social occasion for those taking part and it has actually netted us a few new members.
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Visitor numbers from the general public have been encouraging, perhaps numbering some 3-400 over the four-day periods and this does not take account of all those who have poked their noses through the door, muttered something like 'only stamps' and gone on their day.
Today, we have become accustomed to all sorts of reasons (excuses?) for producing commemorative covers and/or special-event cancellations, sometimes on the flimsiest of pretexts. The Society has only ventured into this field twice, so far as it is possible to check - although, of course, our reasons were not flimsy! This country hosted the Olympic Games in 1948 and one enterprising member suggested that the Society should produce some suitable envelopes, of which he just happened to have a sample design. The cost of these to the Society would be £2-17-6 for 1000; the price included 5/- to the artist! These could be sold for ld. each to members and also to any 'outsiders' who might care to apply. The Minutes for 12 July 1948 record that the venture was not a success, there being a net loss of £1-5-0.
The Society's only other involvement in commemorative covers was on the occasion of Kent Federation Day, 19 May 1962, when the Society acted as host. 500 envelopes bearing a design featuring Rochester Castle were produced and it is recorded in the Minutes that the Head Postmaster would be asked if a special cancellation could be applied. Covers posted in a special box in the Queens Hall in the Corn Exchange on the 'Day' were cancelled with an ordinary cds plus a Rochester/29 mileage mark; unfortunately, that was unlikely to have been the original handstand! The view of the Castle was not that which forms the basis of the present-day badge or letter-heading, but was a view from ground level and not from above. It is not known if the venture was a financial success but it is unlikely that any loss would have been very great, as it is known that something like 200 of the envelopes were purchased by 'the trade'.
The surplus stock of badges, bearing the design mentioned above which were originally obtained in 1988, has for several years been applied to the retention trophies presented to the winners of the two main competitions.
The Epilogue
When the writer first considered producing some notes dealing with the history of the Society, based on his own recollection of events and some scanty information he already had, he thought that the result might perhaps run to 6 or 8 pages - if it was padded out a bit. Two or three years elapsed before thought become reality and it was found that the Minute books back to 1945 were available. A thorough reading of those produced some 10 pages of brief manuscript notes and it looked as if rather than padding out, the difficulty might be in applying some compression. At the keyboard stage, when the words began to flow, it soon became obvious that the original thoughts on size were an under estimate and these 20 pages are the result of the labours.
For the writer, it has been a trip down Memory Lane - and perhaps he will be forgiven for that. lf longer-serving members have had their memories re-kindled and newer members have learned something of the events which have led to the Society being where it is today, then the effort has been worth while,
Gillingham July 1997 V.A. Daniels
Appendix
Elections took place at the A.G.M., although the date of this varied in the early years, as noted in the main text. On a few occasions, positions fell vacant as a result of death, removal or resignation and this required the election or appointment of an alternate until a formal election could be arranged. The exact dates of service are not given in the following tables.
President Secretary
1945-46 R.S. Bernard. 1945-46 R.W. Ellingham.
1946-50 D.R. Bull. 1946 E.H. Couchman. (Acting).
1950-53 J. Leonard. 1946-49 J. Leonard.
1953-56 J.H. Greathead. 1949-57 V.A. Daniels.
1956-58 G.D. Sutton. 1957-70 H.C. Sharp.
1958-61 V.A. Daniels. 1970-77 J.L. Edmonds.
1961-64 C.A. Warren, 1977-78 P.J. Willis.
1964-67 J.L. Edmonds. 1978-79 G.A. Kemp. (Acting).
1967-70 A.C. Baker. 1979- P.J. Tyrrell.
1970-73 H.C. Sharp.
1973-76 P.J. Tyrrell.
1976-79 G.A. Kemp.
1979-81 F.J. Botterill.
1981-84 Mrs. R. Dellar
1984-87 D.V.S. Kill.
1987-90 W.J. Andrews.
1990-93 Dr. C.J.O. Tay1or.
1993-96 A. Howell.
1996- P.R. Mount.
Exchange Packet Secretary Treasurer
1948-57 J.H. Bullock. 1945-48 S.R. Roane.
1963-75 V.A. Daniels. 1948 E.H. Couchman. (Acting).
1975-81 D.V.S. Kill. 1948-52 A. Sinclair.
1981-83 R.A. Buck. 1952-58 H.G. Cooper.
1983-91 P.D. Willard. 1958-73 P.J. Tyrrell.
1991- V.A. Daniels. 1973-88 V.A. Daniels.
1988-90 R. Ellender.
1990- P.R. Mount
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