The Society was formed in 1944 in a period of new optimism. World War II was not yet over, but the end was in sight. Perhaps our founders were concerned that it would be a case of ‘’out with the old and in with the new’’. Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, better known to us as Stanley Baldwin, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was the Society‘s first president and we are proud that Beatrice Grant, his great granddaughter, is our president today. We are pleased that Bewdley Town Council values greatly the role of the Society so much so that whoever is the current Mayor attends every meeting of the Society’s Executive Committee and takes an active role in its day to day operations.
There is no doubt that the Society has had a number of successes; many buildings have been preserved as a result of its intervention and there has been much more. Indeed, in many planning applications to Wyre Forest District Council the Society is treated as a statutory consultee.
As early as 1949 the society was responsible for the laying out of the former Wribbehnall burial ground as a garden of rest. 20 years later it made successful representation to Worcestershire County Council for the proposed Conservation Area in Bewdley and shortly afterwards launched a publicity campaign for a Bewdley bypass. Together with the Town Council the Society went on to campaign tirelessly for this project which finally came to fruition in 1987. In the meantime, the Society was instrumental in the creation of Bewdley Museum, which was formally opened in 1972. Unfortunately, there have been some failures, most notably, Telford‘s Toll House, which by the 1950s was suffering from subsidence and needed funding. At the time there were 38 ton steel lorries using the bridge on their way to South Wales from the Black country and the Toll house was seen as an obstruction owing to the narrowness of the road and pavement there. The County Council wanted it out of the way and, despite the Society raising a great deal of funds, it was demolished, leaving only an imprint in the pavement where it had been.
Arguably the Society’s greatest success was the erection of the Stanley Baldwin statue in 2018 where the Society raised some £120,000 by public subscription. We were delighted that The Duke of Gloucester accepted an invitation to unveil the statue.
In recent times as the work on the Beales Corner Flood Defences was being planned the Environment Agency liaised closely with Society and our input was kindly acknowledged in the Information board they erected on the site. Furthermore Bewdley has a flourishing and very active Dementia Support Group which was set up and is led by a member of the Society’s Executive Committee. The Society is pleased to financially support this extremely worthwhile venture.
The Society today has over 500 members and not only is it one of the oldest in the country, it is one of the largest.
