The following proposal was placed before the membership and accepted at the 2007 AGM held at Llandudno Town Hall

 

Our Society was founded on Thursday, 28th June 1906. At a meeting convened in Llandudno Town Hall a group of intellectually minded local citizens responded positively to Dr William Duncan Lawrie’s suggestion that, “a combination of local effort to study the surroundings would not only be of great interest to the individual, but also by making Llandudno a scientific centre, would popularise the town both as a place for permanent residence, and as a part from which to explore the surrounding district”.

Adopting the title, Llandudno & District Field Club, within a year they had enrolled almost a hundred members including archaeological pioneers Dr Willoughby Gardner and Walter Bezant Lowe, leading Arts & Craft architect and historian Herbert Luck North, radical artist, poet and potter Harold Rathbone and feminist initiator of the schoolgirl novel, Angela Brazil.

The Field Club, as it was popularly known,rapidly established itself as a powerhouse of intellectual activity, research and fellowship. Frequent forays from Llandudno along the coast and into Snowdonia investigated topics as diverse as The Roman Fort at Caerhun, Sea Birds at Llanfairfechan, The Uplands Near Ffynon Bedr, Atmospheric Pollution and The Botany of Llyn Ogwen and Llyn Idwal.

Field Club outings were supplemented, particularly during the winter months with conversaziones, lectures, exhibitions and competitions. From the outset the Field Club engaged in conservation work, enclosing Llandudno’s Neolithic cromlech, preserving the post-Roman Tyddyn Holland memorial stone and protecting Llandudno’s ravens, peregrine falcons and extremely rare Cotoneaster vulgaris.

As the range of local interest and membership widened in 1923 the Society decided to reflect this by amending its title to, Llandudno, Colwyn Bay and District Field Club. The renamed Society continued to expand attaining a peak membership of almost 300 before undergoing a gradual decline. Re-launched in the 1980’s the old connection with Colwyn Bay was unfortunately abandoned and the Field Club became Llandudno and District Historical Society. Now I suggest we go back to the future, revisit those pioneering days and reinstate the 1923 amendment. I propose to this AGM that we embrace our seaside neighbour and re-incorporate Colwyn Bay into our title, programme and field of activities.