Club History

Mitcham Camera Club was founded in 1948 by a group of like minded amateur photographers. They were Stan Hurkett, Anne Hurkett, R. Herbert, Joan Gillham, Mike Starks, E. King and J. Dixon, the purpose being 'the encouragement and study of still photography in all its branches'.

At the time of the Club's formation all the work produced was in the form of black & white prints. This was due mainly to the lack of other photographic media. Like most clubs at the time, this created a bias in competition for black and white or monochrome prints. It was only in relatively recent years that work in either colour prints or transparencies was thought
to be of comparable merit.

Because of this, colour prints were not entered into the same competition as monochrome prints in the early years and it was not until the late 70's or early 80's that they were allowed to compete against each other.

These early years in the Club were times of great enthusiasm for photography and there were many club outings to places of interest to help stimulate that enthusiasm. The Club archives show outings to such places as Mickleham Priory, Arundel, Kensington Gardens, Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens, Richmond Park and of course the Guinness Brewery at Park Royal.

Unfortunately, during more recent years, club outings have become less frequent, probably a sign of changing priorities.

During the late 60's and early 70's transparency work became more popular and competitions were introduced to further encourage work in this medium.

It is true to say that during the early years in the Club because of the lack of photographic laboratories, all the processing was done at home in the darkroom. This was not true when colour transparencies became popular as the chemical process was not readily available to amateur photographers and their work normally had to be processed at a film processing laboratory.

However, it was during this period that two members of Mitcham Camera Club, who were particularly innovative, devised and marketed a home processing kit for transparencies. These two were Tony Barden & Derek Fenton who between them were responsible for the home processing kits under the name of BARFEN.

The Club's first known meeting place (circa 1950) was at the Canons House in Madeira Road and one of our slide trophies, The Canons Colour Trophy, is named after the venue. Membership rose steadily for many years, until the 70's when the numbers started to fall and by 1975 the membership was at such a low level the Club decided to move headquarters in an effort to recruit new members. The new premises were at the Community Centre on the Phipps Bridge Estate.

This move proved almost fatal for the Club and after two years it returned to the Canons to persevere. Membership by this time was down to the order of between 12 - 15 with less than 10 active members. Things did not improve much during the late 70's and early 80's, but by the mid 80's the numbers suddenly started to rise noticeably. During the next decade the membership fluctuated between 30 - 40.

Over the next ten years the Club participated in several promotional activities including exhibitions with the Merton Arts Council and at the Mitcham Carnival, also a special exhibition at the Fairfield Halls and an interview with the local radio station, Eclipse FM.

In 1996 a fire at the Canons House forced the Club to take emergency measures to relocate their meeting place. A suitable venue was found at T.S. Benbow, the headquarters of Mitcham & Morden sea Cadets on Commonside West, only a short distance from the Canons House. From Nov. 2005 the current venue is now the Pollards Hill Community Centre, South Lodge Avenue, Mitcham

.

Mitcham is a friendly club and is still thriving and eager to encourage new members to enjoy their photography.

by W.L. and A.C. Hutchings