Cosmos Club
(Did you mean the some other cosmos?)
The Cosmos Club (CSC) was a UK fan group based in Teddington in south-west London. It was formed in 1943 when its predecessor, the Paint Research Station Science Fiction Library (PRSSFL), decided to sever its link with the Station where the original members were based and throw membership open to all fans in the district who cared to join.
The final issue of Memo Sheet, previously the clubzine of the PRSSFL, set out a seven-point constitution for the CSC including name, purpose, officers, elections, publications, library, and subscription rates, the latter set at 2/6 per member per year. With the next issue, officially v2#1 (May 1943), the title changed to Cosmic Cuts[1]. The CSC also continued the PRSSFL carbonzine The Beyond and published two issues of the more sercon Transactions of the Cosmos Club in 1944.
CSC meetings took place at Shirley's Cafe in Teddington, later the venue for the 1944 Eastercon which was sponsored by the club. From 1945, some meetings also took place – implausibly – at Jose's Sweetshop, also in Teddington. Other meetings took place in pubs and the CSC arranged regular expeditions or 'rambles' as well as theatre trips.
At their second meeting on April 13, 'The total attendance matched the date' with three more unable to attend through illness (Futurian War Digest #28) and by August 1943 they were described as 'by far the largest group of fans in the country in reasonable meeting range of each other' (British Fantasy Society Bulletin #10).
John Aiken, writing in the Whitcon booklet, described its meetings as:
well-attended and of extreme variety, including film shows (with much trouble with sprockets and other intimacies of the projector), a seance (at which Benson Herbert performed prodigies of chicanery) an intelligence test, a homemade firework party, experiments on beer-divining (at the club's spiritual home, the King's Arms), water-divining (naturally a failure) and extra-sensory perception, fantasy music, debates, and a symposium of scientific papers (published in the Transactions of the club, a periodical whose success may be gauged from the fact that it ran no fewer than one issue). To commemorate the visit of Gus Willmorth a film was made – from the technical point of view easily the worst film ever produced in the whole history of the cinema, but an unfailing source of joy to members; frequently it would be called for twice or three times in an evening and, much-mended and long-suffering as it was, would run through its gamut of tricks: breaking, jamming, running partly upside down or backwards, or flooding the floor knee-deep with celluloid.
In 1944 they sponsored the Eastercon, the largest UK convention since 1939.
Aiken attributed their eventual demise to:
the gradual dispersal of the more active members to the Forces, to other jobs, and to increasing domestic responsibilities, and with the growth of that sloth which is now almost nationwide so far as any non-essential activity is concerned.
The final issue of Cosmic Cuts, v5#5 (December 1946), commented on 'the lack of Meetings News in recent issues' and wondered 'Have there been any?' Based on reports in Cosmic Cuts, the last group gathering may have been the 'June Ramble' on 29 June, 1946. The club effectively ended by 1947.
Members[edit]
Names marked (H) were honorary members.
- John Aiken
- Morris E. Allan
- Syd Bounds
- Tommy Bullett
- H. S. Burton
- G. Ken Chapman
- A. Bertram Chandler
- Jimmy Clay
- Sue Collins
- John Cunningham (H[2])
- T. W. Davies
- J. P. Doyle
- D. E. Eddowes
- D. J. Fabian
- E. Fissher
- E. W. Fowler
- Bruce Gaffron
- A. Gascoigne
- H. Gomberg[3]
- Fred Goodier
- H. M. Hawes
- Peter Hawkins
- C. Hipkin
- Gordon Holbrow
- Don Houston
- P. J. Humphris
- Tony Jarvis
- Inigo King
- R. E. Lackersteen
- Michael Lord
- D. Kedge
- Charles N. G. Matthews
- Eric Mendum
- John Millard (H?[4])
- Don Mortimer
- Jean Murrey
- John Newman
- E. Frank Parker
- Pamela Peck
- Paul Pereira
- D. B. Powell
- Arthur J. Ridgway
- H. A. Riggs
- John Sibley
- R. G. Stewart
- E. C. Tubb
- Dennis Tucker
- Victor S. Walton
- James R. Wiggins
- Gus Willmorth (H)
- Arthur Williams
H. P. Freedman and D. E. Melrose may have been members as they both lived in Teddington and were active at the right time. Norman Ames, Ian Fennimore, Henry Hughes and Julian Laurence all contributed to The Beyond (as did Melrose) and so similarly may have been members. Benson Herbert attended at least two meetings in 1946 although it's not clear whether he was simply a visitor.
| From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944 |
| A war-born local organization, affiliated with the BFS heading up in Teddington, a suburb of London. Among its more unusual activities is the movie of fan activities, which has been shown to varied audiences. |
____
- ↑ This and much other information here from the First Fandom Experience Archive (firstfandomexperience.org).
- ↑ Cunningham was made the first honorary member as he had been a significant donor to the club.
- ↑ Sometimes referred to as Gompertz.
- ↑ Millard may have been an honorary member in common with the other North Americans but this isn't explicit.
| Club | 1943—1947 |
| This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc.
When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can! |
