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Events

2009 Annual General Meeting

The 2009 AGM was held on Saturday 1st August at The Essex Police Sports & Social Pavilion, Chelmsford. Our President, Lord Petre, warmly welcomed a good attendance of 54 members. Following the business meeting members enjoyed afternoon tea, and a chance to talk, before a short walk to visit the Essex Police Museum.

The museum, a member of the Friends of Historic Essex, underwent major refurbishment in 2005 thanks to a £43,000 grant awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Since then visitor figures have continually increased, with close association with schools and education programmes, and a full range of activities for children during the summer. Their website provides further information, www.essex.police.uk/museum and also contains numerous History Notebook articles based on a variety of topics about the history of the Essex Police.

Displays are based around a large collection of objects and archives of the force dating from 1840. The photographs and items relating to case histories bring the fascinating stories to life. Members quickly became absorbed. Of course, some exhibits brought back lighter memories, like the police box that was a familiar sight to many and became an iconic item thanks to Doctor Who, or the LE Velocette motorcycle, once a popular method of police transport with a top speed of 50mph!

LE Velocette on display at the Essex Police Museum
LE Velocette on display at the Essex Police Museum

As well as permanent and temporary exhibitions, the museum also provides a service for research and family history enquiries. It holds detailed indexes on police officers in the Essex County Constabulary from the 1880s, Officers who served in the Southend Borough Police 1914-1969, Police War Reserves and Women Police Auxiliaries in World War II.

For wider research purposes, police archives held by the museum and at the Essex Record Office, give a truly enormous amount of information on many topics, for instance - the history of crime and punishment, medical practices, photography, land disputes, developments of forensic science, marine policing, preparations for possible invasion during WWII, cases that hit the headlines, unsolved mysteries, and the success stories leading to distinguished conduct awards. In fact, if you were to delve into the archives, or visit the museum, you would certainly be able to gain some nugget of new information, as well as a greater understanding of the varied workload and experiences of policing.

Our thanks to the Curator, Becky Wash, and staff at the museum for hosting our afternoon visit.

A lecture in memory of Nancy Edwards.

Building Georgian Essex, by Dr James Bettley. Essex Record Office, Monday 26th April, 7.00pm. Free, but tickets must be booked in advance. Tel: 01245 244620.

Return to Ingrave

An evening of songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Essex performed by Potiphar's Apprentices at Ingatestone Hall, Saturday 29th May, 7.30pm. Tickets £6, available from Sue Cubbin, Tel: 01277 221123, Email: cubbin.sue@gmail.com.

A song and heritage project arising from the publication of That Precious Legacy (ERO 2006) generously supported by The Friends of Historic Essex.


2010 AGM

Our Annual General Meeting for 2010 will be held at Valence House Museum, Archives and Local Studies Centre, Becontree Avenue, Dagenham, on Saturday 31st July, 2.00pm.


The committee meets formally every 3 months, although we all make use of email to discuss ongoing matters - what would we do without the internet? The dates scheduled for the committee to meet in 2010 are:

  • Monday 8th February
  • Monday 10th May
  • Monday 4th October

The time of meeting in each case is 5.15pm in the Essex Record Office.

 

 

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Friends of Historic Essex www.historicessex.org.uk