Howard Spring and the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society // 1940

Howard Spring joined the RCPS shortly after he moved to Cornwall in 1939. During the war, the Society continued to put on lectures, but faced difficulties including the threat of requisition of the premises (in 1939 a detachment of Royal Engineers made use of the Hall for about 8 weeks; potential use by both the British and American Navy was reported in 1943 and 1944).

By 1944 the Annual Report noted that "little use was being made of the Society by its members... the Society was not serving the useful purpose that it should in the life of the community, the membership was slowly falling off and... the Society was not attracting younger members" (Annual Report 1944). After the War, the Society faced the challenge of restoring and using a deteriorating building.

Read more about Spring's involvement with RCPS here.

Location: Falmouth

Tags: RCPS, The Poly, Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, Howard Spring

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Falmouth and World War 1

Falmouth was not only a garrison town, with up to 14,000 soldiers at any one time, but also a defended port. Falmouth is the most westerly deep water port of the English Channel and Falmouth Bay was a strategic point for arrivals and departures. Early on in the War, photography and sketching became prohibited in the vicinity of the harbour and the coast for reasons of national security, so that we have very few visual records of the time.

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Maritime History

Falmouth Quay Punt sailing in Falmouth's Inner Harbour ca 1900
(from Brian Osborne's 'Images of the Past' collection #551)

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Local Personalities

An Edwardian Group ca 1908 (from Brian Osborne's 'Images of the Past' collection #1407)

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Notable Buildings

Arwenack Manor from the Harbour ca 1910 (from Brian Osborne's 'Images of the Past' collection #924)

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Archive records

Index of the Ordnance Survey 1:500 scale map series of Falmouth of 1880

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