The history of the history!

The Wellington South Licensing Trust was established in 1972, ceased to operate in 1998, and was wound up in 2001. Its final act was to give a grant to the Newtown Residents’ Association to fund a history of the Trust. This was started, but time passed, people moved on, and the early efforts were lost. In 2012 Steve Dunn, who was then the Association President, undertook the task of reviving the History.  He commissioned historian and Association member Peter Cooke to make a fresh start. Peter accessed some documents from the National Archives, most importantly a list of the Trustees. He then taped intervews with the 12 of them he was able to contact and who agreed, and typed up transcripts. One of the trustees, John Gilberthorpe, was able to provide some publicity material and photographs from the 1970s.  Next, the material was passed on to Tony Pritchard to prepare a document that could be posted on our website. Tony wrote a short beginning-to-end history, with a little bit of the opinion and conjecture from the interviews. He also listened to the interviews, edited the transcripts, and produced a very lively story, which we have now published and recommend for your reading pleasure! Many thanks to Steve, Peter and Tony for keeping the project alive and bringing it to a conclusion, and also to  the Trustees for the original grant and for their cooperation in recalling and recording the stories of the Trust.

We have created a new page for Local History, where you will find this account.