Members
Currently the Society has over a hundred members. Some members have been studying local history for many years, others come to learn a little about their locality’s past. The Society is keen to involve members in activities and projects. Visitors are very welcome at our meetings for a small fee.
The Council 2026
The Council is elected at the March Annual General Meeting each year. It meets four or five times a year to organise activities, to discuss and respond to relevant local issues, and to share research interests.
President: Richard Knowles
Vice-Presidents: Brian Thomas, Stephen Hargrave, Lorraine Simpson
Honorary Secretary: Michael Rochford
Honorary Treasurer and Membership Secretary: Lorraine Simpson
Honorary Assistant Secretary: Stephen Hargrave
Honorary Lecture Secretary: Jody Ineson
Honorary Web Manager: Shirley Levon
Honorary Excursion Secretary: Sue Farman (in conjunction with Wakefield Civic Society)
Council members: Pam Judkins (Past President), Brian Thomas, Joanne Harrison, Jo Heron, Claire Pickering, Ken Rowley, Olivia Rowley, David Scriven, Peter Brears, Angie de Courcy Bower.
Our President
Richard Knowles
Richard Knowles, FSA ., has spent a lifetime career in senior positions within bookselling and has a near life-long interest in medieval armour and monumental effigies. He was editor of the Journal of the Church Monuments Society for sixteen years and has published a number of books and articles on medieval monuments and T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia).
Richard joined the Society by way of the Sandal Castle excavations in the late 1960s, he was Hon. Excursion Secretary in 1972 and became Hon. Secretary in 1973 a position that he was to hold for over twenty years. With the late John Goodchild he was a founding member of Wakefield Historical Publications in 1977.
An Honorary Life member of the Society, he is also an Honorary Life Member of the Church Monuments Society and elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1995, mainly for his work on church monuments.