7.30pm, 21 September 2026, Chiswick Memorial Club, Bourne Place W4 2EL

David Griffiths and Martin Kelly have recently published Coastal Motor Boats – Thornycroft and the Origins of Fast Attack Craft. In this illustrated talk they will present new information that has emerged from their research about the Thornycroft Chiswick connection, and also about the Thames boatyards (at Platt’s Eyot, at Thomas Bunn in Teddington and at Maynard’s in Chiswick) that were involved in production of the revolutionary, high speed, torpedo-carrying, Coastal Motor Boat during the Great War.

They will reveal John Thornycroft’s use of ground-breaking research methods to design the boats, and David’s experience of managing a team to build a replica Coastal Motor Boat! Copies of the book will be on sale at the meeting

Admission is free and all are welcome.

The Society’s annual wreath, commemorating those who died in the V2 which fell on Staveley Road, will be laid tomorrow evening, the anniversary of the date on which the rocket hit Chiswick in 1944.

The wreath will be placed at 6.44pm, the time it exploded. The memorial was unveiled in 2004 on the 60th anniversary, a joint project of the Society and the Battlefields Trust London Chapter. It is in Staveley Road near its junction with Burlington Lane

Local resident Derek Cowie came to the event for the first time and we asked him to lay the wreath (right).

We have assembled a brief newsletter which you can read online here. This has also been sent to our members via Mailchimp