In the early 1980s, a group of enthusiastic local historians got together and formed the Bushey Museum Trust with a view to one day opening a museum in Bushey.

To this end, Anne Blessley, an art historian living in Bushey, put forward the idea of a Friends of Bushey Museum organisation and, after an inaugural meeting in Church House, the group grew to 500 by 1988. Today, it is one of the largest ‘friends’ groups in the country and its members are getting ready to celebrate its 30th birthday this year.

The friends supported the various exhibitions shown at the Lucy Kemp-Welch Memorial Gallery in Church House, and at the Local Studies Centre in the same venure. Later, when the museum opened in Rudolph Road in 1993, the friends continued to give support in many ways – stewarding at the museum, packaging cards, distributing posters, mounting exhibitions, keeping records, and organising meetings, outings, holidays and fund-raising activities.

Members also give their time to an education team, oral history project, and the Reveley Lodge and Garden, bequeathed to the museum by Eila Chewett.

To celebrate the group’s 30th anniversary, the museum is hosting an exhibition of works of art, chosen by members of the Friends of Bushey Museum, from the museum’s collection. Highlights include Out of True, a portrait of a silversmith who lived a few doors down from artist Lucy Kemp-Welch on Bushey High Street in the 1920s and 30s, which was acquired by the museum in 1998; Station Lamp with Bushey and Oxhey Sign (pictured left) by Robert Hill, a painter and teacher who lived in Watford; and Girl at a Dressing Table (pictured right) by Albert Ranney Chewett, which is thought to be set in Reveley Lodge in Bushey, the house that was owned by the artist and bequeathed to the museum.

l Chosen by Friends is at Bushey Museum, Rudolph Road, Bushey, until Saturday, June 28, Thursdays to Sundays, 11am-4pm. Details: 020 8420 4057, busheymuseum.org