Croydon Camera Club History: 1890-2000
Preface Introduction The Club Foundation 1809 Soiree 1899 Movies Member Prestige Council Meetings 1903 Founding President Mees Years 1904-12 The Great War Between The Wars Recorded Years Riots! Police! 1931 Edridge Road, 1932 1932 Nudes Ladies and Exhibitions Club Room eviction The Studio: 1933 Cine! Ladies! 1934 Highs and Lows, 1936 A/V, Stag Party, 1937 Freemasonry 1938 Baird Television 1938 War! 1940: Bombed ! Annual Report 1940-41 Making Do 1941 War Ends 1942-5 A War Retrospective Ladies? 1946 Ladies Admitted 1947-8 35mm Slides arrive Struggling 1949 SLF Out! 1949-50 Troubled 1950 Outings 1951 Winter Season 1951 Celebrations Mees Visits Croydon 1955 1956 Nonexistence 1957 1958-1959 1960 More Success 1961 The Darkroom 1961 Frivolity 1962 All Change 1963 1965-1967 Exhibitions 1967 Photeurop 1968 Photeurop 1969 Years 1970-1972 Terra Nova Years 1973 Years 1974-1975 19 Selsdon Road Years 1977-1979 Changes 1980 Friends Meeting House Close the Club 1983 Progress? 1984 Turnaround? 1985 Years 1987-1988 Slow Revival 1989 About Club Outings The Helpers Postscript
As well as promoting prints and slides the Club was interested in the new "Kinematography" and towards the end of 1896 a lecture was given by W. E. Friese Greene "Moving Pictures of his production were thrown on the screen and at the end of the evening several X-Rays of hands were made". To the credit of the Club and in appreciation of the man and his work at the next meeting Mr Friese Green was made an Honorary Life Member on a proposition by the President and seconded by Alderman Edridge. Now hooked on cine, 10 films were projected at the Club on 13th January 1897, one of which depicted the demolition of the Old Railway Station at Central Croydon.
At a lantern lecture later in the year. Miss Chambers of the Ladies' Banjo team was thanked for the "great satisfaction" to the evening and the team were then photographed by flashlight; the plate developed in the Dark Room by Mr Jenkins, a lantern slide made, fixed and dried and projected at the end of the show to the delight of the ladies! (And we think the D & P film one hour service today is an innovation!) All this when the horse drawn tramway outside the Club room door was still awaiting conversion to electric traction.
One evening when a Dr Hobson was to give a lecture on "The Whitgift Hospital" before a large gathering of members and friends "the gas ran out" and his lecture had to be postponed! For Croydon Camera Club to run out of gas was a remarkable achievement! For us today who take electricity as a matter of course, the difficulties of operating lanterns, enlargers and room illumination by gas would seem prodigious. It is therefore all the more remarkable to see the wonderful photographs created under such conditions.