The Tewkesbury Historical Society
Welcome to our local History Society website
Woodard Award 2024
80th Anniversary of D-Day
Bishops Walk Plaque
April 2024 Meeting
GLHA Local History Day 2024
Gloucestershire Local History Association Local History Day was held on Saturday July 27th 2024. At the Graze building at Hartpury University, Gloucester.May Meeting - THS Annual General Meeting
Bulletin 33
34th Season - Programme of Talks
21 Nov 2024 Andrew Mellor - Cider Making in Gloucestershire - from Fox Whelps to Firkins!
23 Jan 2025 Social - For Members, Friends & Guests
20 Feb 2025 Carol Davies - Workhouse Songs
20 Mar 2025 Andrew Chapman - Imagining History: the case for Historical Fiction
24 Apr 2025 Steve Goodchild - The Battle of Tewkesbury newly r-examined
Lionel Perry
Sir George Dowty
Event at Pershore Abbey to commemorate Sir George Dowty and will include visiting the newly erected statue of him. Full Details.February Meeting
1832 Cholera Epidemic in Tewkesbury
One of our members, Dr Peter Raggatt, who is a retired NHS Clinical Biochemist at Addenbrookes Hospital and Lecturer in Cambridge University School, was moved to research and write an article about this epidemic with its comparisons with the present pandemic. [see attached PDF above] It links in with previous research on Cholera in Tewkesbury. Such was the impact of these two epidemics on the town that a monument was commissioned which now resides in the Cemetery, adjacent to the ‘Cholera Pit’ where many victims received a mass night burial [see attached]. Although John Snow, clean water for the Mythe Waterworks and improved housing conditions have ensured that 1849 was the last appearance of cholera, the brutality which occurred in World War II Japanese POW camps caused the death of several Tewkesbury soldiers of cholera in 1943-44. Here is a biography of one of them, Frederick Key.
Smallpox was another medical curse of the18-19th centuries but by the late 19thC vaccinations were made compulsory and a significant number of people in Tewkesbury became anti-vaccination. For more on this familiar tale, see Martin Holt's award winning article.
History is always so topical!
Joan Smith
Tewkesbury Workhouse
Aspects of Hidden Tewkesbury
Two large scale maps of Tewkesbury from 1811 and 1880
We are proud to present two maps on our site using new zoom and pan technology.We have the 1811 Enclosure Map of Tewkesbury and the huge 1:500 scale map of Tewkesbury created in the 1880s, both full of amazing detail. Use your mouse wheel to zoom and left mouse to drag.