Tomorrow marks the centenary of a special day in Watford’s history – and you can learn more about some of the key milestones that have happened since at a new exhibition.
Events have been taking place to mark Watford’s centenary as a borough throughout this year, but tomorrow is exactly 100 years to the day since the town received its new status.
Children were given the day off school and High Street shops decorated as the charter document was presented to Watford’s first mayor, the Earl of Clarendon, in Haydon Road on Wednesday, October 18, 1922.
A procession then took place through the town centre and the celebrations culminated in a fireworks display in Cassiobury Park.
The granting of borough status marked the birth of Watford as a modern town and this centenary is being celebrated by the exhibition at Watford Museum.
Put together by collections officers Olivia Main and Carson Murphy, together with curator Sarah Priestley, the exhibition showcases a selection of artefacts from the last 100 years in Watford, with information boards also detailing some of the key events that have happened during each 20-year period.
The exhibition also recognises some of the ‘100 People who made Watford’, an online roll of honour that is being compiled throughout this year of those who have been an important part of the town’s history since 1922.
Carson admitted it had been hard deciding what facts should be included.
He said: “We were trying to pick ten to 12 facts per 20 years but people are very landmark driven, so it was very quickly turning into a list of buildings that were here and when they closed or pulled down, or when they were built, so we had to pair it that back to the major milestones.
“Then there were a few national events as well like decimalisation day and the conversion to the metric system, they were big things for Watford as well so they had to be included.”
The museum team began work on the exhibition in the spring and Carson, who is Canadian, came across some all too familiar issues in Watford’s history during his research which surprised him.
“I’ve worked for local council museums in Canada and it’s so funny to see the same cyclical things, he explained. “Watford has had a traffic problem since the 1930s, and they’ve had a housing shortage since before the 1900s, and so it’s a lot of the same problems today that they’ve always had to deal with.
“The thing that probably surprised me the most was how quickly the population has grown here. Sometimes by ten of thousands of people in some decades, then you can see in the 70s and 80s when it levels off and then picks up again and I hadn’t expected that.”
The museum is open Thursday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, and the Charter Centenary Exhibition celebrating Watford’s borough centenary is open until November 26.
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