Eastercon
Eastercon 1944 was a convention held April 8–9, 1944 (Easter weekend) in London by the Cosmos Club of Teddington. The GoH was Professor A. M. Low and Walter Gillings was the 'Convention President'. Rob Hansen has identified 25 known attendees including John Millard, then serving in the Canadian airforce. Gus Willmorth from Los Angeles, also then stationed in the UK, had also hoped to attend but his leave was cancelled, likely because of the preparations for D-Day.
It seems to have been the first British convention to charge a membership fee. This was 15/- for both days (15 shillings, equivalent to about £66 in 2024) and included 'all meals and entertainment'.
The Saturday session was held in central London and involved a visit to the bookshops of Charing Cross Road, a screening of some Disney shorts at the Cameo News Theatre, and a trip to the Pillars of Hercules pub followed by dinner in the Shanghai Restaurant.
The Sunday session was at Shirley's, a cafe in Teddington where the Cosmos Club was located.
The advance publicity said some informal events were planned for the Monday but these seem not to have happened based on reports.
A souvenir book, Eastercon 1944, was edited by Bruce Gaffron and issued in November, its publication 'badly delayed by the interference of doodle-bugs'.
Writing on his website in 2010, Rob Hansen said:
Looking back on the convention from 2010, the thing that most impresses about it is that it happened at all. The other wartime cons were small affairs, but the 1944 Eastercon was as full and complete a convention as any that had been seen in Britain to that point. Organising and running it under wartime conditions was a magnificent achievement. Both it and those responsible for it, the Cosmos Club, deserve to be better remembered and more celebrated than they have been.
In spite of its name ("Eastercon") and its date (Easter) and its location (the UK), it's not considered an Eastercon as when the series was codified in 1971 the numbering started from Whitcon in 1948.
- Report of the convention in Futurian War Digest.
- Efanzines content.
- Fiawol content
- Account in Then.
See also Early Conventions
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