Trumpington 100 Years Ago. Meeting on 4 April 2019

Poster for Trumpington 100 Years Ago, meeting on 4 April 2019. Designed by Sheila Glasswell and Howard Slatter.
Poster for Trumpington 100 Years Ago, meeting on 4 April 2019. Designed by Sheila Glasswell and Howard Slatter.

A presentation by Howard Slatter and Edmund Brookes based on Percy Robinson’s Trip Through Trumpington. A village history, with photographs and notes from the 1920s, with updates from recent history.

Howard explained that, in 1995, the then Vicar of Trumpington, Nicholas Thistlethwaite, had a visit from Reginald Robinson, who was born in the School House in 1909. Reginald brought with him his late father’s magic lantern slides and lecture notes. Reginald’s father, Percy Robinson, was the village schoolmaster from 1908 until his sudden death in 1943.

The vicar, with Edmund and Arthur Brookes, re-created one of his lectures, first copying the old slides into modern format. At the first meeting of the Local History Group on Friday 17 November 1995, they showed A Trip Through Trumpington to a packed hall. We called this 2019 talk Trumpington 100 Years Ago but this is only approximately correct. Some of Robinson’s slides are from the early 1920s and others are considerably older, probably from the 1880s. As far as we can tell, he gave his first talk with slides in 1924, and repeated it several times until at least 1931. The original Trip Through Trumpington travelled from the north of the parish, southwards through the village and on to what we now know as Trumpington Meadows Country Park, all of which was still in Trumpington parish in those days.

This is the route followed by Howard and Edmund in their new talk. They opened with an extract from Percy Robinson’s obituary and then continued with extracts from the original notes plus updates with current information. Percy Robinson’s original Trip Through Trumpington text and photographs have been annotated with the 2019 updates.

Trumpington Local History Group meeting, 4 April 2019, Trumpington Village Hall. Photo: Andrew Roberts, 4 April 2019.
Trumpington Local History Group meeting, 4 April 2019, Trumpington Village Hall. Photo: Andrew Roberts, 4 April 2019.
Edmund Brookes and Howard Slatter, speakers at the Local History Group meeting, 4 April 2019, Trumpington Village Hall. Photo: Andrew Roberts, 4 April 2019.
Edmund Brookes and Howard Slatter, speakers at the Local History Group meeting, 4 April 2019, Trumpington Village Hall. Photo: Andrew Roberts, 4 April 2019.