FEBRUARY 8 will be a red-letter day for Bridgnorth and District Historical Society. For it will be 75 years to the day since a historical group for the town was formed.
The society is currently as strong as ever as it attracts members and visitors to its monthly meetings at the Castle Hall which are held on the third Monday of the month. We are grateful to society chair Joan Lawrence for this splendid and detailed account of the development of the society and the museum.
The Journal edition of January 27, 1934 gave a report about a well-attended public meeting in the town hall, addressed by Dr W Watkins-Pitchford with a paper on ‘The Historical Background of Bridgnorth.’ The meeting was called on the initiative of Mr J T Foxall to form a Bridgnorth branch of the National Historical Association.
The branch came into being the following month with Dr Watkins-Pitchford as the society’s first president, a position which he held until 1952. The seven vice-presidents suggested included Lord and Lady Boyne, Lord Acton, Major A W Foster and Captain G C Woolrych-Whitmore.
In was decided early on to remain separate, instead of part of the national association, to keep subscriptions lower, set at 2s 6d per annum. The society started with 31 members but had exactly doubled by the end of the first year.
Meetings were held at the Grammar School and there were two field excursions – the first to Upton Cressett, Aston Eyre and Morville, and the second to Wenlock and Uriconium.
The first annual statement of accounts records a total subscription income of £7 3s 10d and outgoings of £2 8s 0.5d, with £4.15s in the bank and 9.5d in hand.
In the early years the ‘papers’ read at winter lectures, committee and annual general meetings and excursions were fully reported in the press – the excursions only slowly venturing outside Shropshire.
The society proposed to acquire rooms for use as a museum and library in 1936 and the following year the town council offered the Burgess Hall, lately the borough surveyor’s office and above Northgate, although the Second World War delayed the project.
Society members were reminded in February 1939: “It is hoped that members will endeavour to be punctual to enable the speaker to return home in good time.” The final outing that year, to Lichfield Cathedral, returning via Cannock Chase, had to be abandoned because of the outbreak of war.
At the 1940 AGM the president announced: “Every effort will be made to have one or even two indoor addresses before the next annual outings, but, of course everything will depend upon war conditions.” The committee was re-elected “in order to retain the skeleton…of their society that it might be revived in more suitable times.”
In June 1945 it was agreed that any member of the committee seeing chairs and tables as a bargain, should buy them.
In November 1946 the Burgess Hall was handed over to the society for conversion to a museum and an appeal for funds was launched.
Display cases, which were in use until recently, were bought from Ludlow Museum and benches to seat 40 people.
The following year society meetings began to be held at Northgate and gradually the museum was built up, including a model of Trevithick’s 1808 engine, Catch Me Who Can.
The museum opened to the public in June 1951, at the time of the Festival of Britain celebrations.
That year, 50 society members attended the 300th anniversary of Charles II hiding in the oak tree at Boscobel, where an address was given by the Bishop of Lichfield, and the Earl of Bradford planted a sapling grown from an acorn of the Royal oak.
The society staged an exhibition in the town hall and provided ‘Guides for the purpose of taking visitors on historical tours of the town.’
There were 159 members in 1953 when a Loyal Address was presented to The Queen at her Coronation.
In 1957, another exhibition was staged to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the town’s charter.
The euphoria of the 1950s was replaced in the 1960s by grave concern over the museum’s future after a member of the borough council suggested the Burgess Hall be converted into a youth club.
The youth club, however, found alternative premises and the renewal of the lease to the society initiated a programme of improvements, with a view to handing over the museum to borough council control under the new Museum Act.
Rules and a constitution for the society were drawn up in 1966.
In 1968 the county council were approached, but stated that “they would not be able to take over running the museum for some considerable time, due to the stringent economic measures.” The museum was closed for renovation in 1968/69 and meetings returned to the Grammar School.
The society’s books were transferred to Bridgnorth Library as a reference collection, where they remain today for public benefit. When the museum re-opened the prospect of changes in local government left the status quo – an independently-run museum, as it remained, relying on donations.
In 1970 a visitors’ book was introduced at the museum which could not then accommodate lecture meetings.
The meetings were held at a variety of places, including the former Bridgnorth College of Further Education annexe in Listley Street, the College House annexe in St Leonard’s Close and the Innage Centre, before settling at the Castle Hall.
The museum, meanwhile, was plagued by a leaking roof and other problems over the years.
A series of important developments occurred from 1993 when the museum joined the West Midlands Area Museum Service. This was followed a year later by full Museums and Galleries Registration, providing access to curatorial advice and grants, with charitable status and a more favourable five-year lease of the museum premises.
In September 2007, full accredited registered museum status was awarded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, demonstrating that it conforms to the minimum standards for conservation and display, which apply to the British Museum, and are recognised by funding bodies – a tremendous achievement for a museum run entirely by volunteers.
Associated with these developments has been the creation of a website, which gives public access to the society’s collections and associated information and a history room at Bridgnorth Library.
The society has supported various projects over the years, including the Friary excavation. Its millennium project project provided Bridgnorth with new chronological boards under the town hall. Last year, the society helped sponsor the successful Trevithick 200 celebrations.
The society holds its programme of lectures from October to Easter. Visitors are welcome for a £3 fee.
Ken Perkins is manager of the museum and for further information about it log onto www.northgatemuseum.org.uk
