Cosmos Club

(Did you mean the some other cosmos?)

The Cosmos Club (CSC) was a UK fan group based in Teddington in south-west London. It was formed in 1943 when its predecessor, the Paint Research Station Science Fiction Library (PRSSFL), decided to sever its link with the Station where the original members were based and throw membership open to all fans in the district who care to join. At their second meeting on April 13, 'The total attendance matched the date' with three more unable to attend through illness (Futurian War Digest #28) and by August 1943 they were described as 'by far the largest group of fans in the country in reasonable meeting range of each other' (British Fantasy Society Bulletin #10). The club effectively ended by 1947.

The Cosmos Club continued the PRSSFL newsletter Memo Sheet, later evolving into Cosmic Cuts, and their single-copy fanzine The Beyond. John Aiken, writing in the Whitcon booklet, described its meetings as:

well-attended and of extreme variety, including film shows (with much trouble with sprockets and other intimacies of the projector), a seance (at which Benson Herbert performed prodigies of chicanery) an intelligence test, a homemade firework party, experiments on beer-divining (at the club's spiritual home, the King's Arms), water-divining (naturally a failure) and extra-sensory perception, fantasy music, debates, and a symposium of scientific papers (published in the Transactions of the club, a periodical whose success may be gauged from the fact that it ran no fewer than one issue). To commemorate the visit of Gus Willmorth a film was made – from the technical point of view easily the worst film ever produced in the whole history of the cinema, but an unfailing source of joy to members; frequently it would be called for twice or three times in an evening and, much-mended and long-suffering as it was, would run through its gamut of tricks: breaking, jamming, running partly upside down or backwards, or flooding the floor knee-deep with celluloid.

In 1944 they sponsored the Eastercon, the largest UK convention since 1939.

Aiken attributed their eventual demise to:

the gradual dispersal of the more active members to the Forces, to other jobs, and to increasing domestic responsibilities, and with the growth of that sloth which is now almost nationwide so far as any non-essential activity is concerned.

Members

• John Aiken
• Syd Bounds
• Tommy Bullett
• Jimmy Clay
• J. P. Doyle
• Bruce Gaffron
• A. Gascoigne
• H. Gomberg
• Peter Hawkins
• Gordon Holbrow
• Michael Lord
• Jean Murrey
• John Newman
• E. Frank Parker
• D. B. Powell
• Dennis Tucker

Possible members (they were active fans at the right time and lived in or near Teddington):

• H. S. Burton
• H. P. Freedman
• Fred Goodier
• H. M. Hawes
• Arthur J. Ridgway
• R. G. Stewart
• Victor S. Walton
• James R. Wiggins

From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944

A war-born local organization, affiliated with the BFS heading up in Teddington, a suburb of London. Among its more unusual activities is the movie of fan activities, which has been shown to varied audiences.

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Club

1943—1947

This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc. When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can!