Last week on the blog we looked at the origin of the practical psychology clubs that grew up in the UK, particularly in London, and mostly in the northeast and the northwest of England, in places like Leeds, Nelson in Lancashire, Halifax, and Preston. There were also a few clubs in the south of England, and some in Scotland, like Dundee, Fife, Perth and Kirkcaldy. In addition, there was a cluster of clubs in the Midlands, for example, in Leicester, Derby, Long Eaton, Nottingham, Coventry, and Loughborough.
Most clubs engaged a speaker for their regular meetings, the topics of the lectures either being part of a series based on the ‘practical psychology’ created and developed by Anna Maud Hallam, or they may have been on specific subjects of interest. If we look at the Loughborough club in the 1950s, we see that there were many talks, mostly given at the club’s monthly meetings. These are some of the topics that were covered in those meetings of the Loughborough club:
The art of resolution
Body, psychologically and
metaphysically considered
The seven systems of psychological
healing
Mind, psychologically and
metaphysically considered
Spirit, psychologically and
metaphysically considered
Inferiority
Resolution of conflict in human
experience
The law of compensation
Great minds
Hands – psychologically considered
Our many selves
Personal experiences
Nature as the great teacher
The mind of the child
Aspects of healing
Mind – mature and immature
Personal magnetism
How to store your new energy
The psychological progress of science
and religion
Psychotherapy
The scriptures of the human mind
People – their differences, and why
The law of supply
Like most societies, the practical psychology club had a committee and held an annual general meeting. At the AGM in July 1950, members who had borrowed books from the society’s library were encouraged to please return them!
Often, talks and lectures in Midlands towns and cities took place in cafes, for example in Coventry at the Geisha Cafe on Hertford Street, or the Savoy Cafe on South Parade in Nottingham. However, usually, the Loughborough club’s meetings were held in what was described as the Wood Gate Lecture Room. I believe this was a room attached to the Woodgate Baptist Chapel, which was situated next to Tudor Mansions. The chapel was built in 1878 and demolished in 1976, being replaced possibly by the NHS building which is to the left of the Beehive car park as you look across Wood Gate from the Wheeltapper pub.
That the practical psychology club were able to use the Wood Gate Lecture Room in the 1950s is thanks to the Loughborough Fire Brigade, who in September 1930, sprang into action when flames were reported as coming out of the roof of the lecture room. The roof had to be completely demolished, but the rest of the buildings were saved, as was the piano, and an organ, which was valued at £2,000, and which was being played at the time the fire broke out. Thankfully, there are no reports of injuries to people, and the chapel building itself appears not to have been damaged, as is evident from the report that appeared in the ‘Nottingham Journal’ on 22nd September 1930:
There were a variety of speakers who came to lecture at the Loughborough club, and these included:
Mr Milton Powell, N.D., D.O., at one
time Principal of the London School of Natural Therapeutics, Osteopathy, and
Psychotherapy, and President of the Nature Cure Association
Rev. C.W. Wall, Ps.F., of Harrogate
Dr Elizabeth Collie-Radford, M.A.,
E.Ed., Ph.D., Nottingham
Derek Neville (certainly associated
with a magazine called “Here and Now”,
and possibly associated with the Science of Thought review) – described as a
poet and mystic
Dr Edith Annie Folwell – long-time president of the Leicester practical psychology club
I’m hoping we’ll be able to find out more about one of these speakers in the next blog post!
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posted by lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for typos which are all mine!
Thank you for reading this blog. You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:
Lynne
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