Eastercon

Eastercon 1944 was a UK convention held April 8–9, 1944 (Easter weekend) sponsored by the Cosmos Club of Teddington, a suburb of London. Walter Gillings was the 'Convention President' and John Aiken the 'Organising Secretary'. The originally announced GoH (or dinner Guest Speaker) Professor A. M. Low was 'unable to be present under military exigiencies'.

Pages 9 and 10 of Cosmic Cuts #5 (December 1943) were issued separately as Convention Extra #1 and distributed as a rider alongsideFuturian War Digest #32, effectively a first progress report for the projected convention. Slated for Easter, the convention hall was reported booked and meals arranged for an expected attendance of 'some forty or even more, delegates'. Prospective attendees were encouraged to send a convention fee, refundable in the event of non-attendance, of 15/- for both days, including 'all meals and entertainment'. This may have been the first British convention to charge a membership fee.

Convention Extra #2 followed in February 1944, announcing Professor A. M. Low as a guest speaker and predicting 'dozens of famous British and overseas fan personalities to meet'. It also announced advertising rates for the projected souvenir book and invited attendees to lend items to 'The Convention Museum', a display of fan curios and treasures.

In April 1944 E. Frank Parker's Lamppost #3 included a map of the area around Shirley's Cafe and effectively acted as a third progress report.

Events on Saturday were to take place in central London. On Sunday, Shirley's Cafe on Park Road, Teddington, the regular meeting place of the Cosmos Club, was seemingly hired for the day. The convention was held in its upstairs room. In 2008 Rob Hansen confirmed that the building still exists and has become a chemists.

Rob Hansen has identified 26 attendees named in contemporary accounts:

• John Aiken
• Sydney Bounds
• Tommy Bullett
• Hal Chibbett
• W. A. Deveraux
• George Ellis
• Bruce Gaffron
• A. Gascoigne
• K. W. Gatland
• Walter Gillings
• Madeline Gillings *
• H. Gomberg
• Fred Goodier
• Peter Hawkins
• Arthur F. Hillman
• Gordon Holbrow
• Donald Houston
• Ron Lane
• Michael Lord
• John Millard
• S. G. J. Ouseley
• Mrs Ouseley *
• E. Frank Parker
• Laurence Sandfield
• Dennis Tucker
• Arthur Williams

For names marked *, John Aiken's report refer to 'the Ouseleys of the Stoke-on-Trent group' so the assumption is that Mrs Ouseley was present, as was Madeline Gillings, Walter's wife. There is however no evidence that either was a fan per se. Michiganian John Millard was in the UK serving in the Canadian airforce. Gus Willmorth from Los Angeles, also stationed in the UK, had hoped to attend but his leave was cancelled at the last minute, reportedly due to army-wide preparations for D-Day.

The Saturday afternoon session in central London 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 with a proper con programming started at noon at Shirley's Cafe: there was a comedy quiz panel, 'Presidential Address' by Gillings on future of fandom, auction, film show and a pub evening for those who didn't have to leave.

The advance publicity said some informal events were planned for the Monday but these did not happen based on reports.

A souvenir book Eastercon 1944 edited by Bruce Gaffron was published in November, 'badly delayed by the interference of doodle-bugs'.<ref I. e. the German V-1 flying bombs, launched mid-June; not only these disrupted life in London and around per se, but Cosmos Club was originally based around a fire watch unit.</ref>

Rob Hansen summed up his detailed history:

… 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.

Eastercon was the sixth UK convention ever (if the 1941 informal fan gathering Bombcon is discounted, as fanhistorians tend to), and as noted above, largest and most representative since the Third British Convention in May 1939. In spite of the con's name, it being de facto UK natcon, and second at Easter after 1943 Midvention, it was not included in the list of Eastercons (i. e. UK natcons) when their series was retroactively codified in 1971; the numbering started from the 1948 Whitcon notwithstanding their names, dates and the incredible 4 years separating them without any similar con despite the end of the war. Then again, perhaps the point is that it was Whitcon that started a new regular tradition in new conditions without such gaps.

• Eastercon 1944 detailed history at Rob Hansen's website. Includes the Programme Book but not the souvenir one
• "Eastercon Diary" by Aiken in Futurian War Digest 35 (Vol. 4, Number 5), June 1944 (summarised/quoted above)
• Summary/quotes of the above in Column 40 of Harry Warner, Jr.'s All Our Yesterdays dealing with the FWD in general

See also Early Conventions.

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Norcon	early conventions	Midventionette
	1944

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