(Click the images to see the original minutes)The Society was founded on 7th October 1937 at an inaugural meeting held in the Hall of the Art Workers Guild, Bloomsbury, London attended by 60-70 people at which the name Society of Recorder Players was adopted. The main ‘schemes’ of the Society were proposed.
These included many features of today’s Society viz. raise the standard of playing, form groups of players in different districts, publish music for recorders, issue a yearly bulletin (now The Recorder Magazine) and to have no salaried posts. Officers and a Committee were appointed for one year.
Carl Dolmetsch and Edgar Hunt were the Musical Directors and Arnold Dolmetsch was the first President. The joint musical directors then played “a duet for two trebles, which was quite unrehearsed, though it did not sound so”. There followed two consorts, after which everyone joined in mass playing for the rest of the afternoon.
As a memento, Carl Dolmetsch and Edgar Hunt presented those present with two compositions, one by each of them. The evening ended with the enrolment of 57 new members.