The Combined Societies

[Damian Hughes]

In an historiographical essay in his recently published book on The Gernsheim Collection, Roy Flukinger refers in passing to Gernsheim's association with the so-called Combined Societies The Combined Societies - established at a meeting in Cheltenham in March 1945 - was a grouping of disenchanted photographic societies which formed a kind of secession from the Royal Photographic Society. Key figures included the leaders of photographic societies in Hereford (A. Royce Willetts), Bristol (Stanley R. Strickland) and Wolverhampton (Unnamed by Flukinger, together with the photographer Hugo Van Wadenoyen.

Does anybody have any information on the Combined Societies, or any of these key figures? I know that Van Wadenoyen published a number of books (mostly on photographic technique) and, in particular, he is remembered for Wayside Snapshots and is said to have been an influence or mentor to both Ray Moore and Roger Mayne.

I would be grateful for any other information/pointers.

Thanks.

Damian.

[Kelvin Jouhar]

I know that it's a few years since we had this discussion, but now that the RPS has the online archive of the Journal, it is very interesting to be able to search the archive, and put some of what has been written here into context.

The March 1946 edition of the Photographic Journal contains a report and a discussion of Hugo van Wadenoyen's views of Pictorialism, which were given at a meeting of the Pictorial Group, in Dec 1945.

Well worth reading...   http://archive.rps.org/archive/volume_086/83521

 

Regards

Kelvin

[Michael Pritchard]

There's an interesting article here: http://archive.rps.org/view/76794 from 1953 mentioning the Combined Societies.