by Bob Abel

THIS year Earby and District Local History Society is celebrating its Silver Jubilee.

It all began on a winter’s evening in 1995 when the then manager of the New Road Community Centre, Roy St Pierre, put forward a suggestion to start up a local history society as part of his initiative to attract more people to use the community centre.

Some seven people attended the feasibility discussion meeting from which four local residents formed the nucleus of a History Society.

A committee was set up to discuss the details, what should the new group be called, what area should it cover, what would be the objectives and how should it be organised.

It was agreed that the area should be the ancient parish of Thornton in Craven (Thornton, Earby, Kelbrook and Harden) plus Salterforth.

A regular meeting day (third Tuesday of the month) was agreed and the Earby and District Local History Society was born.

Members were finding their feet for the first few months, organising talks from within the growing membership, and a local history walk of the village was organised.

The first major event the Society was involved in was the celebration of the centenary, in 1996, of the former school building used as the New Road Community centre.

Membership continued to grow, peaking at some 132 members both from Earby and around the UK and the world.

Over the years the society has been involved in many events, the highlight probably being the World War I centenary commemoration in 2014.

The event was held over a weekend with exhibitions, World War One re-enactments and with contributions from Earby Brass Band and pupils from Earby’s Springfield School.

The following year a delegation went to Pendle’s twin town in Germany, Marl, taking some of the exhibition material to include in the Marl World War One exhibition.

One of the aims of the Society is to encourage people to research local history topics and get the results published either as stand-alone books or in the Society’s quarterly journal, Earby Chronicles.

To date the Society has produced some 28 books and pamphlets and is fast approaching the 100th edition of the Earby Chronicles.

The Society is custodian of a vast collection of documents and photographs relating to the area and is fortunate to have the use of a Community Archive room at the community centre.

The archive is available to the general public and there have been a good number of visitors, be they family or local historians or council officials consulting old maps. The room is generally open on Friday mornings from 10.00am until noon or by special arrangement.