Welcome to the Dartmouth History Research Group
The Dartmouth History Research Group is a small voluntary and community group, founded in 1991. We research the history of Dartmouth and surrounding villages and make it available to the general public through publications, events and this website, to promote public understanding of local history and heritage. The “Dartmouth Archives” section provides resources enabling you to explore the rich and fascinating history of Dartmouth and the local area, and discover more about local people and places. It contains an extensive collection of documents and records, built up by members of the Group over several years and still growing. Other sections of the website tell you more about us and about what we do.
Our next meeting
Monday 4 November 2024
10:00 am to 12:00 noon
Our next meeting will be on Monday 4 November 2024. It will be a “history and cake meeting” at our usual venue. Amongst other things, we’ll be looking into topics which came up at our recent session at the Dartmouth Book Festival.
Everyone is welcome. If you are new to the group and plan to come, it would be helpful if you could email us by clicking this link so that we have some idea of numbers. We look forward to seeing you!
Join Us
Membership of DHRG is free and open to all and everyone is welcome at any of our meetings. We usually meet on the first Monday of each month in the Church Hall, Baptist Church, Carey Road, Townstal, 10.00 – 12.00 noon (see the “Contact” page for more details). As arrangements may change at short notice, please let us know if you plan to come to any of our meetings.
Our Books
The DHRG has published many books and booklets about aspects of the history of Dartmouth and surrounding villages. Books and booklets are sold at a price sufficient to cover our costs. Please go to the “DHRG Books” section of the website to see what’s available and for information about how to purchase our current titles. Out of print titles are free to download as PDFs from this website.
Latest DHRG News
The programme for the Group’s event “A History of Dartmouth in Four Houses” at the Flavel on 18 November 2023 can be found here. As part of the preparation for this event, a detailed guidance note has been produced on how to research the history of a house in Dartmouth. To access it, please visit our Guidance and FAQs page.
Following the sad death on 19 September 2023 of Ray Freeman, a founder and first Chair of the DHRG in 1991, we have published a page dedicated to her memory, giving an account of her life and work.
One of our publications – “A Wrens-Eye View of Wartime Dartmouth” compiled by Ray Freeman – is no longer in print and is now available as a free-of-charge download from our Books page.
Several items have been added to the Archive, including
- cine films showing Dartmouth taken in 1947 and 1950 kindly made available by the Arnold family
- the 1831 and 1868 reports on the proposed boundary of the borough of Dartmouth as a parliamentary constituency, taking account of population, including maps.