Annual Report and Accounts for the Year 1946

ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR 1946. ( nxvii ) REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31ST DECEMBER, 1946. THE Council present their eighty-eighth R􀄢port, with the Accounts for 1946. It is satisfactory to be able to report not only a marked but a steady increase in the Society's membership since the end of the war. During the year under review as many as 107 new members were admitted, a figure which brings our present membership total to 888 as at 31st December, 1946. This gratifying result is due largely to the response to the request made last year by the Council, when members were asked · to do their best to interest their friends in the aims of the Society with a view to their joining ; and if such activities can be continued for another year or two, it is felt that even our large pre-war membership may soon be exceeded. The Council express their sincere appreciation of the action of well over 100 members in being willing to sign undertakings to continue payment of their subscriptions for a period of seven years, it being understood tha.t such undertakings a.utomatica.Ily lapse in the event of dea.th. The effect of this method of payment is that it enables the Society to reclaim Income Tax pa.id on a gross sum equivalent to the net amount of the subscription, without adding anythin g to the amount paid by the members concerned. New undertakings may be entered into by members at any time on forms obtainable from the Hon. General Secretary, and the Council sincerely trust that many more members will decide to pay their subscriptions in this way. The Council would stress the importance to the Society from a financial point of view, of members bging willing to sign such undertakings, especially in these days of high prices, when, for instance, the cost of the annual volume is more than double that of a p1'e-war issue of comparable content ; as in this way the fmances are benefited without any additional cost to members, as would be the case with an increased annual subscription. The death of Sir Charles Marston, F.S.A., a Vice-President of the Society, has been noted with regret, as has the resignation from the Council of Mr. Bryan Keith Lucas on his leaving the CO\mty. Lt.-Colonel S. H. Page has been compelled by private circumstances to give up the Hon. Excursion Secretaryship for East Kent, and Mr. A. H. Taylor has resigned his office as Collector. Mr. C. E. Fisher, the Society's Curator, has also resigned on obtaining an appointment in Yorkshire. To all these gentlemen the thanks of the Society are due for services in their several offices. Mr. F. C. Elliston Erwood, the Hon. Excursion Secretary for West Kent, has agreed to take over the work of organizing the excursions for East Kent also, and will in future cover the whole of the county. xxxviii REPORT, 1946. The successor to Mr. Taylor is Mr. C. W. Hopper, 14 Nunnery Road, Canterbury, to whom subscriptions should be paid. A new Curator has not yet been appointed. Members will be both interested and gratified to hear that Mr. Winston Spencer Churchill, O.M., C.H., M.P., Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports,. has honoured the Society by consenting. to become an honorary member and one of its Vice-Presidents. The Society may indeed count itself fortunate in having the support of such a distinguished historian and man of letters, and feel proud that the name of the greatest Englishman of the age is now inscribed on its roll of members. Sir Thomas C. Colyer-Fergusson, Bart., after many years' service on the Council, has been made a Vice-President. The great work he has done in copying and setting in order the ancient Registers of well over fifty parishes in the Rochester Diocese will prove of invaluable help to genealogists arid others in tracing family history. Mr. B. H. St. J. O'Neil, Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments and a Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries, has also accepted the office of a Vice-President of the Society, and Mr. R. H. D'Elboux, F.S.A., has been elected a Member of the Council in place of Mr. Keith Lucas. Kentish antiquaries, one and all, owe a deep debt of gratitude to Lt.-Colonel Sir Albert Stern, K.B.E., C.M.G., late High Sheriff of Kent, through whose generosity an original Charter of Wihtred, King of Kent, A.D. 699, has been secured for the County Archives. It is intended to publish, in the Society's volume for 1947, a full account of this interesting document. An event of 1946 that should not pass without notice was the centenary meeting at Lewes in June of the Sussex Archreological Society, a neighbour and an elder sister of the Kent Society, on whose rules our own first rules were based. The centenary celebrations included the opening to guests of the Sussex Society's Museums, a lunch and tea, a reception by the Mayor of Lewes and the Right Hon. Earl Winterton, President, and Dr. Eliot Curwen, Chairman of the Council of the Society, followed by addresses on the early history of Lewes Castle and visits to its ruins and precincts. The Kent Archreologioal Society was represented by its Hon. General Secretary, who was present by invitation, and conveyed on behalf of members suitable congratulations on the occasion and best wishes for the future. The President took the chair at the General Meeting on 30th April, when the members present reached the high level of about 60 in the morning and 120 in the afternoon. He reviewed the events of the year.as set out in the Report for 1946, particular attention being drawn to the "Seven. Year Covenants ", the adoption of which by members, if widespread, would, he Sitid, greatly help the finances of the Society. He also offered Mr. Charles Stokes the congratulations and the thanks of the Society on the completion of twenty-one years' service as Hon. Treasurer, with a special tribute to his skill and accuracy in keeping the accounts during that period. The usual formal business, including the elections to the Council, the re-election of officers and the admission of new members followed. After lunch, Mrs. Audrey Williams, F.S.A., delivered a loctw:e, well illustrated by la.ntern slides, on Roman Oanterbury, .lilxcavations 1944-6, detailing the progress so far made in the unfolding of the early history of the City. Dr. Gordon Ward having been prevented from giving his address, Miss Anne Roper, M.B.E., stepped into the breach and in a last· moment effort charmed her audience with an instructive and entertaining REl'ORT, 1946. xxxix talk on Some Church Ou$toms in Kent. · Both leoturers received the hearty thanks of the meeting. Gifts for the year ending 31st December, 1946, to the Library and Collections include the following: St. William of Perth; _His Story. Donor, the Author, the Rev. Canon S. W. Wheatley; All Saints Church, Birchington; Some notes concerning. Donor, the Author, Cyril A. G. Coles; Davis: MSS. Notebooks. Donor, B. F. Davis; Fairer by Time, Dartford. Donor, the Author, Harold :Mair ; Eas􀁶 Farleigh; Parish Magazine of. Donor, the Rev. E. R. Ridley Day; Collection of MSS. and, Drawings rel,ating to Kent Brasses by H. G. Belcher, Kentish Brasses, Vol. I, 1888, and Vol. II, 1905, by W. D. Belcher, Monumental BrMses in Kent, by Ralph Griffin and Mill Stephenson, Monumental Brasses 1891, by H. W. Macklin. Donor, T. Edward Belcher (five items); Records of Bucks., Vol. XIV, Pts. I and, 2. Donor, the Author, Christopher Hohler; Fant,asies of St. MG/Ty Or