Book Sale - to support St Albans new museum 24th October

Saturday 24 October 2015 at the Old Town Hall, St Albans

The Society in partnership with the St Albans Civic Society is pleased to announce that it is holding a book sale in the Assembly Room of the Old Town Hall on Saturday 24 October 2015. It will be open between 10am and 4pm.

While there will be some older books, most are nearly new with others barely touched.

Please do come along with your spare pennies and pounds. Tea, coffee and buns available.

All proceeds go to the new museum and gallery fund.

SAHAAS Conference: St Albans at War 1914/15

Troops in St Albans Market
Picture from County Life, 1914

To commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the war, the Society is organising a conference on Saturday 20th September to consider how the inhabitants of St Albans responded in the difficult first eighteen months of the Great War.

An exciting program is planned:

• Britain on the Eve of War in 1914
• St Albans: A City on the Cusp of War
• “Saturday Night Soldiers” - The St Albans Territorials 1908-15
• The German City of Worms during the First World War
• The Army in St Albans
• Feeding the City
• The Response of Citizens to Wartime Challenges

If you are interested in the 20th century history of St Albans, or are carrying out research on other towns in Hertfordshire or elsewhere that became training camps for large numbers of territorial troops in 1914, this conference, with its high power speakers, is a must. Book now to ensure you get a place at what is bound to be a very popular conference. 

Having written the book The London Gunners come to Town about Hemel Hempstead during the same period I rushed to make sure I got a ticket before they sell out. I will be very interested to see how the neighbouring towns compared when the 2nd London Division of Territorials "took over" in August 1914. I will also be intrigued to here about how the German population, in the City of Worms, viewed what was happening at the same time.

A useful trip to St Albans

St Albans

Last Saturday I went to St Albans to visit some of the special events for residents which, I now learn are held every year on the final weekend in January, before going to the monthly meeting of the Herts Family History Society.

My first stop was to the North Transept of the Abbey where there was an exhibition of pictures of St Albans about 100 years ago put on by the SAHAAS. It included copies of many pictures by the local artist Holmes Winter, and I plan to do a page on his work later in the year. During the visit I had a talk with a number of members and Jon told me they have now located a map confirming the location of the Chalk Hill and Gorhambury Rifle Ranges.

I then went for a quick cup of hot chocolate in the Abbey Refectory (well worth a stop-over if you are visiting the Abbey).

As you enter the Refectory a doorway takes you upstairs to the Abbey Library where there was an exhibition celebrating the life of Matthew Paris. Matthew was a Benedictine monk who lived in St Albans Abbey - and was a very significant historian, although as he died in 1259 his works have little immediate relevance to most people researching their family history.

I then detoured to a bookshop in St Peters Street (with a small cafe!) where I spent a Christmas book token on a copy of Hertford - A landscape history. It looks like an important document for understanding the development of the county over the centuries - but is more for the local historian than than genealogist. It has been added to my "To review" list

Marlborough Street Methodist Church was next on my list. It was built in 1898 - almost certainly using Jacob Reynolds bricks from Bernards Heath. It has cast iron pillars supporting the gallery and a magnificent organ which was being played while  I was there. I took a number of pictures and have created a page for them and added a short historical text from their exhibition.

I then traveled to Woolmer Green to hear Jon Mein give a talk on the work being done by the First World War Team of the SAHAAS in recording the Military Tribunals during the First World War. Unfortunately the original Tribunal Record have not survived - but those of Middlesex have - showing how much information has been lost. He mentioned Arthur Tyler, who had been a milkman working for my great grandfather at the Heath  Farm Dairy, and who gave his life fighting.