Salcombe History Society will close if it doesn't find more board members

Salcombe History Society is looking for new board members as the chairman looks to retire.

Salcombe History Society was founded by Ken Prowse in 2010 and launched at a public meeting at Salcombe Primary School, after growing out of the Facebook page Salcombe Old Locals and Yokels. 

It is now home to more than a thousand members and hosts more than 4,000 images as well as family and genealogy records for local families from Salcombe and the surrounding areas.

Ken Prowse has been the chair since the society’s formation and is now looking to retire. He said: “We are getting close to closing if we don’t get some new blood in some form.”

Essentially, the society needs a Membership Secretary and a Treasurer, who would probably only be really needed about four times a year, but other people willing to take on jobs of inputting information from local people about their family trees and genealogy information would also be warmly welcomed.

There are some more 21st century jobs to be done too, with digitising images, some social media posts and website updates to be done, but people who can get involved can do “as much or as little as they want”, according to Ken.

He said: “I still want to be involved with the society, but without any of the responsibility, it’s time for someone else to take over from me now.”

The society, as well as documenting local history, also have prominent positions at local events such as the Kingsbridge Show or the South Hams Vintage Machinery Rally, where they share their knowledge and information about the bygone days in the area. They have projectors, tables, chairs and computers, everything to keep themselves busy, they just need a couple of people at the helm.

Asked what was the most fascinating thing he had discovered while researching the history of the area, Ken couldn’t put a finger on a single thing but said he had come across “lots of scandals”.

He also noted the Salcombe Lifeboat Disaster and the lives of the American soldiers posted at Slapton and the surrounding villages during the Second World War as events he found fascinating.

The Salcombe History Society website is somewhere you could happily waste a couple of hours looking back over your family’s history and finding out who they were and what they did.

As Ken says in the introduction to the site: “Salcombe Maritime Museum has a lot of information on the shipbuilding and maritime history, cider production, grain and other goods exported from Salcombe. Our questions were: Where were the apples grown? Who picked them? Who crushed them to make into cider and who carted them to the quay?”

If you have any information about your family tree and would like it included in the Salcombe History Society, you can contact them through their website.

The society has always been well supported by local people, members of the public, its members and local councils and it would be a “real shame to see it go”.

If you would like more information about getting involved with Salcombe History Society, you can contact Ken at 01548 714365 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Image: Ken Prowse is looking to retire from the Salcombe History Society