The Wandsworth Historical Society's first talk was held on 8 December 1953 when the topic that night was 'A stroll around old Wandsworth and Putney'. Thirty years later, in October 1983, the Society celebrated its anniversary with a major exhibition at Battersea Library, giving it the title 'Wandsworth through the ages' and attracting over 1100 people, including large numbers of schoolchildren.
For its Golden Jubilee in 2003 the WHS organised a number of memorable events including a witty and erudite talk by Prof. Alan Crocker on the Wandsworth Paper Mills, and a fascinating exhibition at the old Wandsworth Museum about the Society's many achievements over five busy decades.
Celebrating its sixty years in October 2013 as the leading voice of local history and archaeology in the Borough the Society held a reception attended by more than eighty members and guests including the MP for Battersea at that time and the Mayor of Wandsworth, Cllr Angela Graham, who not only cut the commemorative cake but heightened the mood of the evening by passing slices of it around herself.
For its seventieth anniversary in the autumn of 2023 the Society produced a special issue of the 'Wandsworth Historian' containing the reprint of five early research articles written by its first wave of members, one of them dating back as far as the spring of 1956. In addition to that, it invited Justin Colson from the University of London to speak at a special celebratory meeting on a major initiative by the Institute for Historical Research to create a 'digitally layered history of London' for the future.
The poster dating from the winter of 1953 which advertised the WHS's very first lecture. (WHS Research Ephemera Collection) |
The Mayor of Wandsworth cutting the Society's sixtieth-birthday cake on 11 October 2013 (Wandsworth Historical Society) |