Swanley History Group – December 2017 meeting
Members and visitors were delighted to welcome Dr Gerald Cramp, the speaker at our December meeting, for a return visit. On this occasion the subject of his magic lantern slide show was The Rivers Thames and Medway.
Firstly we were given a brief overview of this form of entertainment which dates back to the seventeenth century – Samuel Pepys mentions seeing a show in his famous diary. The requirements are a lens, an intense light source and images to project – which became much easier and cheaper with the development of photography in the 1840’s/1850’s. Before the coming of electricity explosive substances such as limelight and paraffin were used.
We were amazed at the excellent clarity and quality of the extensive collection of slides from Victorian and Edwardian times and were reminded of the great changes that happened along the Thames during this period. The Embankment was constructed to accommodate new sewers following The Great Stink. Several new bridges were built – putting watermen out of work. The docks expanded and railway lines appeared. The Thames became popular for leisure and recreation.
Starting at Windsor and continuing downriver the slides showed pleasant rural scenes, picturesque Thames barges, paddle steamers and earlier bridges. St. Thomas’s Hospital looked very different pre WW2 and St Paul’s Cathedral stood out as the tallest building on the skyline. There were scenes of traffic jams of horse-drawn vehicles on London Bridge in the 1890’s. We admired views of imposing training ships and the docks showing a mass of tall masts and a slide of a frozen River Thames in 1895.
Several slides of The River Medway featured Rochester and its’ important bridge and also the medieval bridges of Aylesford and East Farleigh. The last slide showed The Great Bridge at Tonbridge Castle. There were some mysteries which we tried to solve – the location of a footbridge and of a riverside inn at Yalding.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
Members and visitors were delighted to welcome Dr Gerald Cramp, the speaker at our December meeting, for a return visit. On this occasion the subject of his magic lantern slide show was The Rivers Thames and Medway.
Firstly we were given a brief overview of this form of entertainment which dates back to the seventeenth century – Samuel Pepys mentions seeing a show in his famous diary. The requirements are a lens, an intense light source and images to project – which became much easier and cheaper with the development of photography in the 1840’s/1850’s. Before the coming of electricity explosive substances such as limelight and paraffin were used.
We were amazed at the excellent clarity and quality of the extensive collection of slides from Victorian and Edwardian times and were reminded of the great changes that happened along the Thames during this period. The Embankment was constructed to accommodate new sewers following The Great Stink. Several new bridges were built – putting watermen out of work. The docks expanded and railway lines appeared. The Thames became popular for leisure and recreation.
Starting at Windsor and continuing downriver the slides showed pleasant rural scenes, picturesque Thames barges, paddle steamers and earlier bridges. St. Thomas’s Hospital looked very different pre WW2 and St Paul’s Cathedral stood out as the tallest building on the skyline. There were scenes of traffic jams of horse-drawn vehicles on London Bridge in the 1890’s. We admired views of imposing training ships and the docks showing a mass of tall masts and a slide of a frozen River Thames in 1895.
Several slides of The River Medway featured Rochester and its’ important bridge and also the medieval bridges of Aylesford and East Farleigh. The last slide showed The Great Bridge at Tonbridge Castle. There were some mysteries which we tried to solve – the location of a footbridge and of a riverside inn at Yalding.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser