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
At the beginning of January 1903 Kenneth Mees, now 21, presented a paper on the Hurst and Driffield system of film speed testing (H&D) in which he paid tribute to Mr W. H. Wratten (of Wratten and Wainwright) for supplying for the trials such a large number of accurately coated plates.
At the AGM in 1903 Secretary E. A. Salt resigned with no stated reason but the surmise must be that he was out of tune with the President, whom he described as being "bossy"; and that it was he under the pseudonym of "Aquarius or the Man with the Watering Pot" who wrote an article in the BJ of 14th August 1903 which caused the rift and ultimate resignation of Hector MacLean.
Ripples of discontent had occurred at a Council Meeting at the end of March 1903 when reference was made to a speech by the President at the 6th Club Exhibition held from 18th to 21st March in which Kenneth Mees had three prints exhibited. The speech had evoked Press comment and also disturbed some members but the President justified his remarks by pleading he had spoken in his private capacity and not as President. E. A. Salt used his contact with the British Journal of Photography to publish a long fictional but thinly disguised account of a visit "to a saintly street in the purlieus of South East London where in Croydon was to be found that particular section of the photographic world which leads the rest and where on the topmost storey the Perpetual President holds sway!"
The account is of a fictitious meeting of a club where the President talks so much about the lecturers' prowess that the meeting has to close without the speaker being called! Underneath all fictitious events is usually a grain of truth and a good deal of unrest was felt in the Club about this time. The result was a sort of Cabal with the avowed intention of getting rid of the President.