1985 to 2025 – 40th Anniversary

What is the Gosport Local History Luncheon Club?

The Gosport Local History Luncheon Club started out as a further education class at St Vincent College. The photo above is the frontage building of that college.

You can find a fuller history of the club in the about section of this site. Here all I need to say is the club is open to all with an interest in local history in, Gosport, the surrounding area and any form of links to Gosport and the area.

What is involved at the Gosport History Club meetings?

You can attend the meetings as you wish. A talk or presentation will take place either by an outside speaker or one or more of the members. The talk and/ or presentation will be of some research in many forms by themselves or others on a local topic. At the summer (July)  and Christmas (November) meeting a change may be made to the normal proceedings. Such as a local history quiz or discussions about items and photographs brought in by members.

You can, if you wish to stay to lunch. The lunch will be provided by Dolly’s Tearooms, tea / coffee will be available. If staying as well as the opportunity to discuss the talk, other areas of local history or anything else. A notice is sent out before the meeting and if you wish a lunch at the meeting please let me or Dot know,  details are on the notice.  

If you are interested in researching an area you will be able to find people to give as little or as much assistance as you wish and if you are not confident talking in front of a group, someone to read out your talk or present your presentation for you. You may wish to carry out joint research and talk with someone who has similar interests to you. If you are happy to have your, talks, presentation or research added to this website, please let me know.

If you would like to join the committee please let a committee member know, you will be very welcome. There are normally 4 to 5 meetings per year on a Monday morning from 10:30 am for 1 to 2 hours in the Gosport Discovery Centre (Community Hub)

You can even just go to the meetings and listen to the talks given by others. Programme for 2024 below, cost £2.50 per meeting, plus the lunch cost ( price to be added) no additional membership fee, just come when you can or are interested in the talk.

Sorry if you have come across problems with the website please let me know.
ian@gosport.info

GDPR General Data Protection Regulation from 25th May 2018

Meetings

If wet take care if going to the hall from Stoke Road

Meeting in Christchurch Parish Hall, (behind the Christchurch)  in Stoke Road every 3rd Thursday for 9 months of the year (excluding April, August, and December) 12noon talks start. £2.50 for each meeting.

2025 Programme Download Programmme in .pdf

20th February – Talk ‘The Man Who Challenged Darwin’ by Neil Spurgeon, who has given several talks to the club. This talk has a Gosport connection which involves St Mary’s Church Alverstoke. 

20th March – Talk ‘Gosport Since 1945 in Images’ by Peter Greenaway, who has a wealth of postcards and photographs of Gosport.

NO APRIL MEETING

15th May – Talk ‘Gosport Mayors’ by Denise Davis. Our Committee Secretary. She has carried out a lot of research into a number of local topics and given talks on them. A recent subject was Gosport Murders. So I wonder what she has found out about our past Mayors?

19th June – Talk ‘Pictures of Portsmouth 2’ by Bob Harrop another Committee Member. This is part 2 as the first part produced a lot of interest and discussion.

17th July -Talk ‘Gosport’s Forgotten Author – Arthur Upfield’ by our chairman Dot Bedenham. Son of a Gosport draper, Arthur settled in Australia in 1911 and became a writer of detective fiction. This talk also explores his family connections. 

NO AUGUST MEETING

18th September – The AGM, but don’t worry it normally doesn’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes, it is then followed by a talk or discussion (with photos) this year, ‘Memories of Clothes we wore’ all to contibute.

16th October – Talk ‘Stoke Road ‘ by members of the USA local history group. 

20th November -Quiz and Raffle, ‘How Well do you Know Gosport’ by Denise Davis, with Raffle organised by the Treasurer Pat Tilley. A wind-down towards Christmas.

NO DECEMBER MEETING

Next meeting in 2026 Thursday January 15th.

Friends of Gosport Museum Group of Supporters of The Gosport Museum, SEARCH and Gosport Gallery

Gosport.info  Gosport Information, Photos, History, and Memories.

Gosport HGS Family History Group Talks associated with Family History

Updated 26th January 2025