Origins of The Society

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The Origins of The Society

This being the 100th edition of the News-Sheet, I thought that it would be of interest to say a little on the subject of how the Society was formed and its early history. Sadly I was not involved in the very early days and so I am mostly relying on what was written in the first Broadsheets and News-Sheets.

Our letter-head proclaims that we were "Founded in 1980 to promote research into, and the modelling of, the 7' 0¼" Broad Gauge Railways of Great Britain. It would appear that the origins actually go back to a meeting between Iain Rice and Dave Stick at the Bodmin MRS exhibition in August 1979. Subsequently Cyril Freezer, Mike Sharman, Bill Salter and Pat English were brought into the discussions and a prospectus was issued in late 1979. The first Broadsheet, one double-sided A4 sheet, was issued by the acting secretary, lain Rice, early in 1980.

It is interesting to see that this stated that the primary aims of the proposed society were "of a practical nature" and the first priority was the production of "a comprehensive manual for intending broad gauge modellers". This was then in active preparation, I wonder what ever happened to it!

The dissemination of prototype information was seen as very much a secondary function of the society as it was felt that the H.M.R.S. already catered for this side of things.

The second issue of 'Broadsheet" appeared shortly afterwards announcing the inaugural meeting at the BR Staff Canteen, Bristol (Temple Meads) on 8th March 1980. This was attended by about 20 people and the society was formally launched as the "Broad Gauge Model Railway Society". The subscription was UKP 2.50 p.a. and a joining fee of UKP 2.50 was introduced to be paid into a "trade fund". This trade fund continued to operate as a separate entry in the accounts until 1984 when it was merged with the general fund largely because the latter was almost bankrupt!

Don Powell was our first chairman with lain Rice as Secretary and John Ely as Treasurer. The rest of the committee consisted of Dave Stick, Bill Salter and Nigel Daley.

At that point it appears that things rather went to sleep. John Ely produced a progress report in June 1980 and a mention of the inaugural meeting in the August 1980 "Railway Modeller" doubled the membership, but it was not until the Spring of 1981 that another "Broadsheet" appeared. Meanwhile John Ely produced the first "News-Sheet" in December 1980 and this rapidly became the bimonthly production that it has remained ever since.

A meeting was held at Keen House on 17th January 1981 and about 25 people attended, many bringing BG models. The Society also provided a display at the M.R.C. exhibition at Central Hall, Westminster at Easter. The first AGM followed on 9th May, but by then Don Powell and Bill Salter had already resigned from the committee. In fact only John Ely from that first committee attended the AGM and he was rapidly promoted to Chairman for his trouble. Other new committee members will mostly be all too familiar to you, Peter Totman as Secretary, Alan Garner as Treasurer/Membership Secretary plus Eddy Brown, Mike Jolly, Kelvin White and Pete Waterman.

It was in 1981 that Eddy Brown started producing his wonderful data sheets, which rapidly grew to over 200 before personal problems brought the first series to an end. Fortunately he is now back in harness and the second series is bringing more valuable information to us all.

Pete Waterman, who was then one half of "M & L", was trade officer and, with the help of Mike Jolly and John Ely, it was not long before the Society's first products appeared. Initially axleboxes and buffers plus some etched coach kits in 4mm scale were produced and, over the years, this has grown to the impressive range now on offer. Not only has this helped us modellers, but it has also produced considerable profits for the Society.

Iain Rice continued to produce the Broadsheet and numbers 3 - 5 all appeared in 1981, the latter a bumper 27 page issue with photographs (though still photocopied). He resigned at the second AGM in April 1982 and Mike Jolly took over as editor with issue no. 6 enigmatically dated July 1981! He optimistically hoped to produce four issues a year, but an offer to have them printed professionally caused endless problems in 1983 and in 1984 it officially became the twice yearly publication (printed by David Miles) which it has remained ever since.

The 1985 AGM brought a change in the Society's name with the "Model Railway" being dropped from the title in favour of the simpler "Broad Gauge Society". This reflects the change in attitude away from purely modelling towards publication of the results of people's research into the prototype, but there are still a few who regret the change. Another matter agreed to was the purchase of a photo-copier. This has been an excellent buy and much reduced the problems of keeping old publications in print as well as bringing in funds for the Society.

Meanwhile the membership grew rapidly and, with the help of GW 150, by the end of 1985 it had topped 200. In fact 62 members joined in the year to 28th February 1986, a record which has never been equalled since.

In terms of numbers, membership then seemed to reach a plateau and we settled down to the regular diet of bimonthly News-sheets, Spring and Autumn Broadsheets plus regular data sheets, data file sheets and A3 drawings to fill the gaps. Sadly many of those early members are no longer in the Society, but on the other hand some of us seem to go on forever. Who knows what the next 100 News-sheets will bring us, will Mike ever give up as Broadsheet editor, will Eddy ever run out of Data Sheets, will I still be Membership Secretary??

ALAN GARNER