The History of the Essex Society for Family History
In 1974 John Rayment, our Founder, first Chairman and
late President attended a Genealogical Conference in Canterbury. Much to his
horror, so he said, he was talked into forming an Essex Family History Society.
A committee was arranged and John was asked to be the Chairman.
The inaugural meeting took place in the Shire hall,
Chelmsford, when it was decided that the name of the Society would be The
Essex Society for Family History. Dr. Emmison, then County Archivist,
agreed to be President and Donald Jarvis, our immediate past President was
elected Vice-Chairman.
About eighty people attended the inaugural meeting and
from this the Society was formed in September 1974. The first magazine was
published in November 1974.
At the beginning meetings were held in the evenings in
the Council Chambers, Basildon and then at the Quaker Meeting House, Rainsford
Road, Chelmsford, the usual evening meetings on Monday or Thursday. On
occasions meetings were held in other parts of the County.
During the first four years Sir John Ruggles-Brise was
our Patron. Since then the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford has been our Patron.
In 1977 the first Saturday afternoon meeting was held in Christ Church United Reformed Church, Chelmsford, in one small room. This quickly became too small and eventually we spread over the whole of the ground floor.
In 1984 we became a Registered Charity. In 1985 a
branch was formed at Colchester and since then three more have been set up in
Saffron Walden, Southend-on-Sea and Harlow.
In 1987 the Postal Book Service was started and this
is now firmly established, giving members who cannot get to a meeting a chance
to buy books which are of interest to Family Historians.
In July 2000 we opened the doors of our new Research
Centre which is located in the new Essex Record Office building in Wharf Road,
Chelmsford. We provide microfiche
viewers and computer facilities, our library is now located there and we also
offer book and microfiche sales. We
also operate from the Centre our e-commerce activities and our search and courier services which are provided to
obtain birth, marriage and death certificates.
From September 2000 we moved our Chelmsford meetings
into the Lecture Theatre of the new Essex Record Office with its state of the
art sound visual and computer facilities.
Over the years we have donated to various projects and it is hoped that we will be able to continue to do this. Since the inauguration of the Society, there have been many members without whose time and work the Society would not have remained in existence and become the largest Society in Essex with currently some 3,000 members.