The first recorded meeting of the club dates back to the August of 1944, when it was agreed that the Society’s funds should be lodged with the Post Office and letterheads be produced that would incorporate the Dudley Coat of Arms.
The Society held its first annual exhibition in the Dudley Art Gallery in the following year, by which time membership levels were up to twenty five.
Regular meetings at this time were being held in the Art Gallery, however with membership levels increasing it became necessary to move to larger premises, and the Society moved into The Castle Hotel in Castle Street Dudley, which it was to occupy for the next twelve years before the Brewery decided to develop the site and the building was demolished.
Since then the Society/Club had to move to various locations over the years until settling into its current location.
By 1950 The Society had begun to expand its activities and make its mark in the photography world, it had started to engage visiting lecturers to give demonstrations and talks on a wide variety of photography disciplines.
In 1968 following the forming of a new committee the name of the Society was changed to the DUDLEY CAMERA CLUB and with a new impetus developed the club to what it is today.
In the 1970s and 80s DCC was regarded as one of the leading Midland clubs for black and white print photography. In recent years the club has had to restructure its activities with the advent of digital photography.
Can You Help? Brief History of Dudley Camera Club John Smith is currently going through the club Archived files that are held by the club secretary Eric Broadbent, the earliest records on file dating back to 1944. The purpose of this exercise is in order to do a brief history of the club, covering its development and activities etc as appropriate over the years. He has been working on this intermittently now for the last 18 months and is currently up to 1982; however there are several gaps etc in the records especially in the early years for which no records survive in the archives. With this in mind, John would be grateful if any of the long standing members could help to fill these gaps in the records and he will hopefully be contacting each one in order to fill these gaps if possible. Any pictures etc of past activities or club HQ’s would be much appreciated. Please let him know if you feel you can help and he would arrange to meet up with you outside of the club night.