About the Publisher - The Stevenage Society for Local History
It is May 1959. At the Annual General Meeting of the Stevenage Society, the Secretary is able to report the usual full programme of winter talks and summer visits, as well as the success of the Society's first publication. It has been a brave venture for a small local group - the commissioning of a serious scholarly work from the eminent historian Robert Trow-Smith; but now all Stevenage people, whether of long-established local families, or of new families seeking to establish roots in what sometimes seemed to feel like a concrete jungle being developed on dull fields have, in "The History of Stevenage", a fascinating source-book of pride and delight in the common heritage. Not only is there gratifying local acclaim, with sales going well, but a copy of the book has been graciously accepted by Her Majesty the Queen Mother, and there have been reviews in learned journals.
But how did the Stevenage Society begin? In 1954, a few people of vision put in months of dedicated spare-time work in order that the Stevenage Museum should be opened in "The White Cottage", in fact a quite substantial old house, at the corner of London Road and Danestrete. These enthusiasts soon formed themselves into "The Friends of Stevenage Museum", which operated in parallel with the Museum Committee of the Urban District Council. Everyone recognised that a museum needs a professional curator, and the Friends were intended to operate as a supporting task-force. There followed a succession of lively and able young curators, who, with the Friends, did splendid things, but all of them left after a short while to better themselves.
Nevertheless, much was done. Display cases setting out Stevenage's history and archaeology were set up, and there was a strong Natural History presence, with many live exhibits. A great feature of 1956 was a nest of wood ants - and the nightmare episode of the ants escaping and taking over the building. Learning from this, the Friends overhauled the greenhouse and turned it into the Insect Gallery.
In 1957, the Museum began to be managed from Hitchin Museum, with a part-time assistant curator. The Friends, no longer involved in the management, reformed themselves into "The Stevenage Society for History, Art and Archaeology" and continued with the programme of lectures, visits and nature walks, while working parties continued to assist in setting up displays at the Museum, and also to help professional archaeologists with various "digs" in the district where archaeological remains were known - for example , trenching at Symonds Green to fix the exact line of the Roman road before it disappeared under the Stevenage By-pass.
The Stevenage Society also put much hard work into the rescue and restoration of the Westmill Collection, consisting of mainly Victorian domestic and agricultural articles, with a few older items. Westmill is a small village about ten miles east of Stevenage, where a museum had been set up, but had now fallen into neglect. Stevenage's curator negotiated the transfer of the collection to Stevenage Museum on permanent loan, and the Friends spent several weekends under his direction extracting the collection from under the collapsed rafters and disintegrating thatch of the Westmill building. They were in a fearful state of dirt, mildew and rust, and looked, when transported to Stevenage, like so much rubble, but the Society set to work, with professional tuition on conservation methods, and the pride in the resulting wonderful display comes shining through the Secretary's Report for that year.
Another rescue attempt, of an historic aircraft, was not so successful. The remains of the Stevenage Helicopter - flying around Stevenage about 1938 - were stored in an outhouse at "The Three Horseshoes", Pin Green- until 1966, when demolition contractors pounded them into rubble. Society members located a few fragments, but were unable to prevent the whole heap from being pushed down the well as infill! Oh dear, oh dear, what a puzzle for an archaeologist ten thousand years hence!
As the population of the New Town increased, more and more special-interest societies formed, and the Stevenage Society went through several changes of direction - and name - before settling into the study of local history - which is not at all a narrow specialism.
From its earliest days, the Society has been interested in the here-and-now, and kept a sharp look-out for threats to Stevenage's heritage. Take care of our woodlands! Don't build too close to our Six Hills! Restore that building - it's important in Stevenage's past! Use local names for streets! An input has always been made to Stevenage Borough Council's consultation processes, and from the inception of the Stevenage Conservation Liaison Committee - an umbrella organisation for all local groups with an interest in Stevenage's environment - the Society has sent representatives and taken a keen interest in their reports.
Recording the passing scene is important - as far back as the 1960's, Society members were making photographic records of buildings and taking tape recorders to the homes of older Stevenage residents. Several exhibitions of old photographs of the High Street elicited more memories.
A major aim of the Stevenage Society is to stimulate public interest in the town's history and current environment, and here publications are of use. A set of leaflets was produced for the Museum, each giving an account of some historic site in or near Stevenage. Stevenage Street Names proved very popular and went into several editions, as did The Changing Face of Stevenage High Street which gives a complete list of occupiers of all the High Street buildings, with maps, at intervals of a few years, from 1840 until now. Stevenage Society poster calendars had their day, but the notelets with historic scenes are still on sale. Research by individuals and by small groups, is a continual background, and new publications come along steadily.
Relationships with Stevenage Museum, whether at the White Cottage from 1954, "Woodstone" on Lytton Way from 1967, or St. George's Undercroft from 1977, have always been cordial. In 1954, the Chairman of the Museum Committee of Stevenage Urban District Council - who was also a very active and enthusiastic Friend - stated "A museum that is merely a set of exhibits set out in nice glass cases, this committee considers is not worthwhile. We want it to be a place where things happen; to deal with the present as well as the past. We do not want visitors to tiptoe quietly while they gaze at stuffed birds and Roman pots." Well, Stevenage's Museum has always been a pretty lively place. In its early days, it needed much amateur assistance, and even at the re-opening in 1977, Stevenage Society members supplied their own wood, flints, lime and cow-hair for demonstration sections of Tudor wall and Norman wall, and now, Stevenage's modern, professional museum, welcoming, attractive, with an imaginative programme of education for all, is an asset to the community, no question. As for the successive curators and their supporting staff, Stevenage has been fortunate in them all, and they have all been friends to the Stevenage Society.
The Society has not been inward looking; over the years it has taken part in the life of the town. It has exhibited regularly at Stevenage Day, run a symposium for the Hertfordshire Council for Local History in 1988, assisted in the St. Nicholas "850" celebrations in 1985, and vigorously supported the Friends of the Forster Country from 1989, when many members took part in the costume enactment of scenes from Howard's End (in the High Street, on a Saturday afternoon in October ) when the Chairman and Secretary appeared as Stevenage's own contribution to the national history of crime - the Fox Twins.
Ah yes, the Fox twins...In 1963, the Stevenage Society featured in the national press as leading a campaign to set up a memorial to these famous brothers, who are buried in known , but unmarked, graves in St. Nicholas' churchyard. The project hung fire for a very long time, but at last, in 1978, a framed account of the Fox twins, in beautiful calligraphy, was hung in St. Nicholas church. Sighing with relief, the Society threw a tremendous fancy-dress party - for poachers, highwaymen and footpads only.
To return to Robert Trow-Smith's The History of Stevenage. By 1976, the whole of the first edition had sold out - one hundred copies to the USA - and there were demands for a new edition, with an index. Well, time goes by... but the Stevenage Society is now proud to publish the second edition of the "History of Stevenage" and is grateful to Robert Trow-Smith for his generosity in allowing us to do so.
The book ends, as did the first edition, with the beginning of the New Town. Subsequent events - in which the planners did not always get their own way, and the excavations on building sites uncovered new clues to ancient life in the area - are vividly displayed in the Museum. The compiling of a coherent written account, sometime in the next century, is a challenge for some local historian - a Stevenage Society member, no doubt.
June R. Pitcher 1996