The present Society is an amalgam of the Great Chesterford Archaeology Group and the Chesterford & District Local History Society. The Archaeology Group is the older organisation, its separate history has been written up by the late 'Dick' Price.

The Origins
The origins of the Local History Society are to be found in the Ickleton and Chesterfords Branch of the Workers Education Association which falls in the Cambridge Federation of the WEA. The following is abstracted from the beginning of IR2 which is one of the publications of The Local History Group.

'The WEA is a national organisation for bringing the benefits of a wider education to adults in all walks of life. Any activity which stimulates the educative processes qualifies for support. The focal point of activities is the local branch. We are the Ickleton and Chesterfords Branch. In the past we usually ran what are known, rather ambiguously, as 'terminal courses'. In these, a tutor is appointed to guide us through a particular topic in ten or twelve 11/2 hour sessions taken at weekly intervals.'

The Federation holds Annual General Meetings, the venue being rotated around the various branches. In 1987 it was the turn of the Haddenham Branch to hold this meeting and the chairman of the Ick1eton & Chesterfords Branch, Ian Deatker, and the secretary, Ken Kilford, attended. During this meeting PauI Middleton, then the Tutor Organiser for Cambridgeshire, gave a talk about a project which he had run at Whittlesey.

The Project
This project involved a series of meetings of the local populace during which the villagers took turns to tell what they remembered of Whittlesey Mere in the past. These reminiscences were later edited to form a complete narrative. The result was an interesting booklet which impressed Ian and Ken so much that on their way back to Chesterford they decided that the branch needed some active involvement for its members and that a project similar to that of Whittlesey Mere could be part of it.

The first mention of this in the minutes of a Branch Committee Meeting occurs on Monday 23rd November 1987 when Ian and Ken reported on the proceedings of the Federation Meeting. Ken then 'passed round the Whittlesey Mere project and Ken thought we had at least as much history in the area containing the four villages (Ickleton, Hinxton, Great and Little Chesterford) as anywhere, and that he would dearly like to see a comp1ete history written; but for the present he was suggesting isolating a few narrow topics for research and write-up gradually adding more topics to achieve a much larger whole'.

Oral History
At the committee meeting on 10th February 1988 a discussion took place about the implementation of these ideas. The general concept was agreed and consideration of various topics followed. Natural History appeared the most favoured but it was also unanimously agreed that a scheme for recording the reminiscences of the elderly should be put in hand at once as this was a diminishing source of information. A steering committee was accordingly set up consisting of Christine Plumb, Christine Lightning, Rose Reynolds and Ken Kilford.

The idea of the project was introduced to a wider group of all members of the local branch at the Local WEA AGM held on the 15th March 1988 when Mr John Shaw-Ridler, the then Librarian at Saffron Walden Library, gave a talk on 'Undertaking a project on a local theme'. The history project was duly set up, and during the year 1988/9 the terminal courses ('The lcknield Way' and 'Wild Flowers') were chosen to sympathise with the local history idea.

It transpired that one villager, Christine Plumb, had considerable expertise in Oral History which could take care of the wish to record the reminiscences of natives of the villages, and she agreed to run a Day course (this is simply a course fitted into one day - usually a Saturday) as advised by Paul Middleton. Accordingly a Day Course was held in Great Chesterford School Hall on 11th June 1988.

This course was billed to launch the project 'History within Living Memory'. Some fifteen to twenty people were present and a keen interest was shown in the collection of old Chesterford photographs, which had already accumulated, and in Gilbert Stephenson's film which was mainly focused on the school and youth. Sue 0osthuizen talked about the lessons of the Whittlesey project in which each member in turn was interviewed by the others

ln the afternoon Christine Plumb said a few words about Oral History. The students (i.e. all those present) were then divided into groups of three for a practice session in which each member of a group was, in turn, interviewed by the others. This resulted in the discovery, amongst other things, of the fact that one student, Rose Reynolds, had been at Little Chesterford Park when it exploded. This discovery eventually resulted in the publication of the very successful Interim Report No 4.
A series of tutorials was held on the same theme and a list of 33 interviewees and 15 interviewers was drawn up. The accepted method of interviewing was to be that the interviewer should say only enough to prompt the interviewee whose responses would be recorded on a tape recorder - though some were, when the interviewee requested it, actually recorded in writing. By the Autumn interviews were under way and the Steering Committee had been empowered by the local WEA Committee to spend up to £5O of the Branch monies in addition to the (approximately) £40 already spent. Peter Gould’s (the local Branch Treasurer) offer to lend his tape recorder was accepted in preference to buying one for the project. In the beginning a number of individuals undertook the interviews but there were two, Alfred Levy and Gilbert Stephenson, who were particularly prolific. Some twenty tapes were obtained, most of which have been copied by Essex Record Office. The biggest difficulty was in finding volunteers to transcribe these tapes to hard copy.

Forty-four people attended the 1989 AGM of the WEA Branch when Mr D. R. Wilson, curator of the Cambridge University Aerial Photography Library, gave a talk on 'How Air photographs can reveal the past'. At this meeting there was a display of work being done and it was reported that old photographs of the villages and of village life were being collected and that any contributions would be welcome. It was also announced that interviews had begun and tutorials were being held every other month.

At about this time Ken Kilford resigned as Secretary of the WEA Branch in order to concentrate his efforts on local history. Jeffrey Lowe took over as Secretary of the WEA Branch.

The Branch concentrates on local history & the Interim Reports
On the 12th of October 1990 a meeting was held expressly for the history project. There was an exhibition of the materials collected, including the photographs and tapes. Stacey Dyer's booklet was published and put on sale, it was called 'Stacey George Dyer - A Chronicle of the Village He Loved'. It was decided to consider this as the first of a series of small booklets which would eventually be grouped together to form a complete history of the villages. It was decided to call these booklets Interim Reports and to try to publish one every year. Accordingly the full title of this first IR became : 'W.E.A - Ickleton and Chesterfords Branch, - Interim Report No.1'. The sales were good and a further one hundred copies were ordered in November when it was decided to apply for an ISB number. All the paraphernalia relating to the publishing was done (as was that of all the subsequent IRs) by Elizabeth Marshall. This was the beginning of the work that would become the chief source of income.

A Village Video
At a committee meeting in June 1990 Gilbert Stephenson proposed that a village video of contemporary life should be made. 'This led Stuart Mortimer to make such a record for 1991, using his own equipment and buying his own tape. The result is that Stuart now has four video tapes which have yet (in 2005) to be edited. Unfortunately no one who knows how to do this can be found and to do it professionally would be prohibitively expensive. Worse still, Stuart’s equipment is now out of date so that the videos cannot even be viewed. In an effort to get things moving these video tapes were sent to Martin Astell of Essex Sound & Video Archive at Essex Record Office.

The Local Group
The term 'Local History Group' appears in the minute book for the first time on 4' March 1991.In this year a Summer Day School with Owen Mountford was well attended. The Group had a very successful annual meeting on 14th October 1991 when IR2 was published. This was entitled 'OUR VILLAGES - Their beginnings and now'. In many ways this should have been the first in the series - it begins with the quotation which appears near the start of this report and then gives a geographica1 background of the area. It also has contributions from Mary Symonds and a history of The Chesterford & Newmarket Railway 1846-58 by N.M. Carleton. ISB numbers were introduced with this publication and extended retrospectively to IR1. Like IR1 the second IR was comprised largely of previously existing material put together by Ken Kilford. This was also true to a lesser extent of IR3.
By May 1992 sales of IRs had reached £123 (gross) and the project was in profit by £24.15. However attendance at the regular meetings was disappointing and they were discontinued.

Proposal to change the National Constitution of the WEA
By this time a proposal to change the national constitution of the WEA was under discussion. As part of the re-organisation of the WEA Paul Middleton resigned as Secretary of the Cambridgeshire Federation and Sue Young took over as part-time secretary. By the time of the committee meeting of 15th February 1993, the effect of the changes in the constitution on the local branches was better known. It was understood that there was a clause to say that all branch assets belonged to the Association. Thus the photographs (of which there were now a considerable number) and other artefacts might be at risk of being taken away from village control. The committee agreed that there could be merit in allowing the Local History Group to disassociate itself from the WEA and possibly affiliate with another village organisation.
The following is abstracted from the minutes of the Branch Committee Meeting of 29th March 1993:

'Peter (Gould - the branch treasurer) reported the gist of further discussions with Ann Diamond (of Cambridge District of the WEA). It was accepted that study of local history was a valid WEA Branch activity. No difficulty was seen in making occasional payments to the group to cover expenses etc. whilst the group remains in the Branch, but it would not be acceptable to use funds accumulated from past course activities to set up a trust or whatever. It had to be agreed that WEA funding was likely to become more difficult but no immediate threat was seen. There was considered to be no likelihood of the branch being asked to give up the physical assets e.g. photographs etc. .. '

In view of this it was agreed, after discussion, that there was no need to do anything about the Group yet but the AGM should be told of the possible difficulties, and that the Committee should watch the position and might bring a proposal to the meeting next year. his situation was accordingly conveyed to the AGM on 14th May 1993.

The Great Chesterford Carnival of 1993
During the Great Chesterford Carnival of 1993 a display of Local History Group materials was put on display in the Church at the same time as the Flower Show. On this occasion the village Recorder produced a copy of the original Great Chesterford Inclosure Plan of c.1810.

Local History sub-committee
The collection of photographs and other artefacts was now growing and at the committee meeting of 25th August 1993 the idea of a secure store (or even a small museum) was mooted. At this meeting it was also agreed that a sub-committee comprising Ken Kilford, Stuart Mortimer, Rose Reynolds, Ian Deatker and Janet Clark should be appointed to deal with Local History Group matters and make recommendations to the branch committee.This sub-committee appointed Ken Kilford to be Chairman and Althea Hickmott to be Secretary and they decided to meet at least four times per year. At this time the basis for membership of the local branch of the WEA was attendance at a recent terminal course and this was the qualification for voting at the AGM. This made it difficult for the Local History Group to introduce a separate fee and the Local WEA Branch Committee agreed that membership of the History Group should be separate from that of the Branch but arrangements were made for rebates on subscriptions.

More Interim Reports
Interim Report No 3 was published in 1992 - the title was 'The life of of a Young Farm Worker in the 1920s and the Fate of Many Chesterford Farmers' by Joe Wakefield, who was the last of the Chesterford Wakefields. The Wakefields had been an important family in the villages for a hundred years or more. In 1994 the very successful IR No 4, 'Disaster at the Park - Little Chesterford – 30th May 1944' was written by Janet Clark and published at the AGM on 29th April. In connection with this publication, Janet organised a party held at Schering (the firm then in possession of Little Chesterford Park) on 27th May and a picnic at The Delles on 9th July, when many who were affected by the explosions were brought together again. Both these occasions were very successful and enjoyable. In May 1994 it was noted that the sales of IR No 4 had reached about £300 and it was decided to order another fifty copies.

Position of the Group within the WEA
Discussion of the position of the Group within the WEA continued and at the Branch Committee Meeting on 6th April 1995 Ken Kilford proposed that the Local History Group should secede from the WEA and try to form a separate society. There was no opposition to this and it was agreed that the resolution be put to the AGM in May. Jeffrey Lowe, the Branch Secretary, made enquiries at Botolph House, HQ of the Cambridgeshire Federation, and now understood that the WEA would not agree to any transfer of existing funds to any new society since all earnings to date were deemed to have been made on behalf of the WEA.

The Group Secedes from the WEA
At the Branch AGM on Friday 12th May 1995 Elizabeth Marshall, then Branch Chairman, explained how the Local History Group working under the aegis of the WEA Branch had steadily grown and now felt that the time had come for it to stand on its own. The proposal that 'the time is ripe for the Group to secede from the WEA and to try to form a separate society' was supported by the committee and put to the meeting. After a short discussion the proposal was agreed. Ken then said that he would call an open meeting on 22nd September to launch a new society. He then gave a resume of the Group's activities over the past few years.

THE NEW SOCIETY.
At the time of secession the Group held the following:

1) Twenty tapes of interviews and lectures – Essex Records Office
2) Several hundred photographs. Elizabeth Marshall
3) Four Interim Reports.
4) A book presented to Mr Thewlis (School Headmaster) containing hundreds of names.
5) A framed picture of the first Rolls Royce in the villages.
6) A bicycle purported to be one used by a delivery Postman in the 1920s (then Ken’s garage)
7) Gilbert Stephenson’s Village Film
8) Stuart Mortimer’s 1991 Video

 

By Ken Kilford