Club History

A recent examination of the old records of the club indicate that a meeting of the Committee of the Dudley Photographic Society was held at Holly Hall Vicarage on Thursday 3rd August 1944 when bank details were decided, letterheads were to be printed, membership cards were to be obtained and an outline programme prepared for fortnightly meetings to be held from September to December 1944.

Unfortunately there is no further written record until a “Council Meeting” was held on 1st February 1946.  Thereafter meetings were held on a more regular basis - -

22nd February 1946, 25th June 1946, 24th September 1946, 22nd July 1947, 16th September 1946, 22nd July 1947 - - - and so on.  The club had, by now, become well established.  Members met in the clubroom at the Castle Inn, in Castle Street, Dudley, having the exclusive use of the room (it is believed that one of the members was on the board of Hansons Brewery).  The room was large with open fires at either end in winter time, there was no central heating, it had display boards on the walls and after meetings had finished members could socialise in the bar downstairs.  Membership was around 75 with good attendances, the lecturers came from far and wide.  Every lecturer was taken to the Station Hotel for a meal by the Programme Secretary before the meeting.  Those lecturers travelling a long distance stayed at the hotel for the night.  This was a happy state of affairs until the sixties when the brewery decided to redevelop the site and the pub was to be pulled down.  The Club moved to various pub rooms, membership gradually fell away until it was decided to close the Society.  Six of the remaining members decided to form the Dudley Camera Club.  Of the present members only Derek Smith and Roland Clements of the founding members remain.  Stan Jones, also a founding member and writer of the original version of this potted history, maintained his membership until his death in December 2004.  Several early meetings were held in members’ houses.  The Rotary Club arranged a hobbies and leisure exhibition in the Town Hall and a stand and back projection unit was hired, spending all the remaining cash.

Resulting from that show the Club got two new members, a few weeks later and after a show at The Straits School another two members, with a membership of ten a room was hired at the Art Gallery which started a long association with the Gallery.  The Club has held an Annual Exhibition there ever since, the 2008 exhibition is thought to be the 65th, the exhibition has been welcomed by those managing the Art Gallery, by senior arts officers, by the Arts Council and by the general public.  The Club has also staged the Midland Salon and the London Salon, two of the most important photographic exhibitions in the country at that time.

The Club moved to the Central Library as membership grew but the limit of the room was forty persons and after a few years the limit was reached and potential members were being turned away.  The Club was then offered the use of the Allied Centre (behind the Malt Shovel) which had come under the control of Dudley M.B.C., it could hold up to one hundred people and on several occasions very nearly did.  Membership reached the high sixties during the seventies and early eighties.  The Club reached its peak in the exhibition world winning the MCPF Championships for colour and monochrome many times, at this time seven members possessed qualifications from the Royal Photographic Society.

The Council decided to relinquish its control of the Allied Centre and it was necessary to move back to the Central Library and membership steadily declined.  The Club later moved to The Brooke Robinson Room in the Town Hall but in 2003 due to building work in the Town Hall and the new regulations relating to access to buildings we again moved on, this time to the Central Methodist Church where the Club has the use of a very pleasant room with good facilities and a level access for the disabled.  Free car parking is also available.

Photography has moved very quickly into the digital age and there are very few traditional darkroom prints to be seen in our competitions or in our annual exhibition.  Almost all prints on display have been produced using digital imaging at some point in their production.  The first exhibition all those years ago had a section for “lantern slides”, quickly followed by years of “colour transparencies” whilst this year there are the prints but we now have “the projected image”.

The Club owns computer and digital projection equipment paid for by a grant from “Awards For All”.

Eric Broadbent, February 2008