WELCOME TO THE RICHMOND LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

Our Society explores the history of Richmond, Kew, Petersham and Ham and the people who have lived here.

We hold evening talks, usually on the second Monday of the month, organise walks and visits, and publish an award-winning journal (Richmond History) and books on topics of local interest.

Join us for free admission to our talks, an informative newsletter three times a year and discounts on most of our publications. 

TALKS

Find out more about our forthcoming talks

COMING NEXT Our May talk is about the future of family, local and community history

Our talk on Monday 13 May, which follows immediately after our Annual General Meeting, is by Dr Nick Barratt on The future of family, local and community history.

Dr Nick Barratt is an author, historian and broadcaster, best known for his work on the BBC television series Who Do You Think You Are? His most recent publication, The Restless Kings, tells the tangled family history of Henry II and his sons.

Nick’s talk will explore some of the changes that are shaping the way we research and share information about our families and communities – from the rise of the internet and commercial data providers to some of the extended reality tools that create new narratives about their lives.

Nick will also address how family, local and community groups will have an increasingly important role to play in education, societal change and well-being.

NOW ON YOUTUBE A big turnout for our Modernist house talk in February

There were at least 100 people in the audience at Duke Street Church and more than 30 log-ins on Zoom for Hilary Thomson’s talk on 12 February.

Hilary’s talk – 21 Ennerdale Road, Kew; or, how I became a Modernist house detective –  is available on our YouTube channel, which has video recordings of 19 of our talks.

Our website’s Archive section has written reports on many of our previous talks.

PUBLICATIONS

Have you visited our online bookshop?

All of the Richmond Local History Society’s publications still in print are available from our online bookshop.

You can also purchase our most popular publications from the bookstall at our monthly talks and from local independent bookshops.

Our latest publications

Richmond History 44, the latest issue of our journal, was published in November 2023. It includes articles on Kew Gardens, Richmond Park, Sudbrook Park and Ham House, on the explorer George Vancouver (who lived in Petersham and is buried there) and on attitudes in Richmond to the new Nazi regime in Germany in 1933.

Find out more about this issue and how to order a copy online.

Petersham: Radar, our most recent book, published in January 2024, is on the transformation of Petersham during the Second World War. Anti-Aircraft Command requisitioned several buildings, including All Saints Church and the vicarage. The  important experiments carried out there led to discoveries that made British radar such an effective instrument of war.

This second edition of Michael Lee’s book includes a new, additional appendix by Timothy M M Baker on Petersham as a birthplace of radio astronomy.

MEMBERSHIP

You can join the Society online

You can now join the Society or renew your membership online.  Annual membership is £12 single; £20 for two people at one address.

If you are already a member and have a standing order in place, this will renew automatically when your next subscription payment is due – there is no need to contact us unless you wish to cancel or to amend your personal details.

If you prefer to join by post, please download our membership form; then print it and fill it in, and send to us with an accompanying cheque or cash.

If you have any queries about membership, please email our Membership Secretary, Mark Lucas.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Resources on Richmond’s history are at your fingertips

Our website’s Resources section has articles on Richmond Park, Richmond’s almshouses, Richmond’s former Star and Garter Home, the history of Richmond’s Congregational Church in The Vineyard, and much more.

Saving Kew Gardens from development

Conor Mark Jameson, biographer of W H Hudson

The National Physical Laboratory in Teddington was originally planned to be built in the grounds of Kew Gardens.

In an extract adapted from his newly published biography of W H  Hudson, Conor Mark Jameson,  who gave us a talk on Hudson in September 2022, describes a long-forgotten campaign to save Kew from the threat of development.

Go to Saving Kew Gardens in the Resources section of our website.

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