Review

A large audience braved the heat tonight, with a few smart people bringing fans, to keep cool, 24th May 2010, to hear PhD student Will Farrell talk on “Industrial Developments and the Spitalfields Weavers.”

Will showed examples of some of the products of the weavers dating to the 1750’s. He noted that most patterns reflected natural history. The materials used for men’s waistcoats and women’s dresses. Will did note that styles changed regularly, every decade or so between 1690 and 1800.

A large audience gathered to hear Dr David Peacock give a talk on the place names of Berkshire. David noted that whilst many names date to the Anglo-Saxon period, some have their roots much earlier dating from pre-Roman times. The later includes the River Thames (Temesa) and Rive Kennet (Cynetan). David noted several place names and where they originate from including: Combe – adapted in to Anglo-Saxon and means a bowl shaped valley. An example would be Combe Town, which today we know as Compton.

A packed room greeted Dan Allen on 19th October for his talk entitled “The Colonels' Lady and Judy O'Grady.” The talk looked at Women in the Victorian Army around the dates of 1850 to 1915. Dan described this as 35 years of research and a lifetime obsession.

Dan started his talk by noting that soldiers in the army were not allowed to marry unless they had permission to do so from their superior officer. Even if permission was given, marriage was discouraged. However the higher classes in the army, officers could marry depending on their rank. Captains could marry, majors should marry and colonels must marry.

William Morris was born on 24th March 1834 and died 3rd October 1896 and many people today fail to recognise just what a great man he was. Tonight’s talk (28th September 2009) by Dr Lois Pihlens uncovered the true extent of his accomplishments.

When William Morris was born, Britain was an industrial nation and a premier workshop of the world. However, Britain was losing its craftsmanship’s and starting to produce poorer products. A few people wanted to change this and William Morris was one of those.

There was a large audience gathered for tonight’s meeting (30th March 2009) to listen to a talk given by Brian Eighteen on the ”Pictures of Rural Life.”

Mr Eighteen started by showing photographs and postcards of life prior to the Second World War noting that farming was a family occupation and used horse and sometime oxen power. Some fantastic paintings of this period, by Nora Drummond, were shown. These showed the people within the landscape, the types of horses used and other rural scenes.

Fifty-three members and friends of Thatcham Historical Society visited St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh Life in Cardiff on 13th July 2008.

Founded in 1948, this open-air museum dominated by St Fagan’s Castle, consists of a collection of re-constructed buildings from all over Wales, spread over a site of some 42.3 hectares (104.5 acres).