The inaugural meeting of the Coventry Astronomical and Meteorological Society was held in Room A5 of the Coventry Technical College, formerly at The Butts, Coventry, on Friday 20th November 1939 at 6.30pm. The location was due to the fact that many of the founder members were college staff. The meteorological element was apparently so that amateur meteorologists could contribute information to the “Air Ministry”.
That the Society began its existence some 2 1⁄2 months after war had been declared reflects the prevailing belief at the time that “it (the war) would be over by Christmas” but, as we all know now, this was not to be the case and after a meeting of the Junior Section on Friday 6th October 1940 had to be “cancelled owing to air raids”, an entry in the minutes book the following week – Friday 13th (what else!) – baldly states, “meetings abandoned for duration of war.”
It has since been remarked that “viewing conditions in the blacked out city must have been marvellous compared to those prevailing today”. It is not known how many members had their own telescopes, certainly nothing like the approximately 80% of current members, but it is documented that, at the Society’s second meeting of 30th November 1939, a Captain G. T. Smith-Clarke of Gibbet Hill, Coventry, expressed an intention to donate his own Solar Observatory complete with a telescope “a superb 6 1⁄2 “ Cooke refractor on an equatorial mount with clock drive” to the Society but, until that could be installed on the roof at the Technical College, observing sessions were arranged at his home.
After the war, meetings of the Society were resumed in the same room, at about the same hour, on Friday 7th November 1945 and the following year, Capt. Smith-Clarke became its President. In his address at the AGM of 4th October, “he stressed the necessity for members to possess their own telescopes however small and hoped that some members would be stimulated to make their own”.
He made good his offer of his telescope to the Society; its installation in its new location was duly completed and on Thursday 20th April 1947, it was declared open. (Newspaper article next page.)
The observatory was well used in this site for many years and many of the current members of the Coventry and Warwickshire Astronomical Society used it and remember it well. Unfortunately, increased developments of high rise buildings and increased street lighting in and around The Butts area eventually made observing from it less attractive and, in 1973, a merger with the Warwickshire Astronomical Society became a realistic solution as they were developing an observation facility at Coombe Park, just outside Coventry, and in 1974, Coventry’s 6 1⁄2” Cooke refractor was moved to Coombe Park and Warwickshire’s 10” reflector to the Technical College.
The merged societies – the Coventry and Warwickshire Astronomy Society (CAWAS) – produced a newsletter called “Stellar” and in its first edition, a line-drawing sketch map showed the location of the site – very close to a large fishing pool.
Sadly, the move to Coombe Park did not turn out well. A handwritten letter signed “Ted” indicates some frustration with Coventry City Council as the now late Capt. Smith-Clarke had apparently given his telescope to the Society “with the proviso that it be kept on City Council land under the auspices of the Education Committee. He wanted it available for public use and groups such as school parties, scouts etc.” He had not wanted it to end up in someone’s garden for private use. CAWAS had believed that the Council-owned Coombe Park site would be an isolated spot and that a nearby house would be available for a small rent as a club house and venue for public access activities when it became available. However, in 1981, following 2 attempted break-ins to the observatory; the house not becoming available; the rent for the site itself increasing, and the possibility of a caravan park being built adjacent to the site, it was decided to move the Cooke refractor back to the Technical College.
Some of the following information is extracted from a letter written by Mike Frost who remembers seeing Halley’s comet through the telescope in late 1985 and who was Chairman of the Society at the time of the sale of the telescope. It had remained on the roof of the Technical College until 1994 when the College revised its conditions for access to and use of the observatory. The revised conditions included: access to it only up to 9pm Mondays-Thursdays in term time; named persons to give reasonable advance notice to Reception before their visit; visitor’s passes to be obtained and signed for at each visit; no Society member should have their own key, and each person should pay £5 per hour or part hour. These revised conditions were not acceptable to the Society and, after some further debate as to the actual ownership of the telescope, CAWAS moved their meetings to Earlsdon Methodists’ Church hall and have been there ever since. A small team from CAWAS disassembled the telescope and it was put into storage. The dome of an about-to-be-demolished newspaper kiosk was acquired for free and put into storage too – then they ran out of enthusiasm!
In 1995, the telescope was then loaned to Warwick University who had plans to build an observatory for it but this never came to fruition. For several years, it was on display in the foyer of the Physics Department until CAWAS decided to put it on auction. It was bought by the Oxford Mills Observatory in Ontario, Canada and shipped there. The Oxford Mills Observatory is part of a hotel/homestead and the owners were keen for it to be used regularly by guests and others. Mike has recently checked their website – http/www.oxford-observatory.org – it came up with another, larger, vintage telescope under restoration.
Although CAWAS does have equipment that can be loaned to members – including, currently, a solar telescope – most members (approximately 80% of them) have their own and, where those telescopes have linked computers controlling their movements and displaying the observed events on their screens, observing the skies can be done from the comfort of an armchair in a living room.