Identity area
Reference code
AR479
Title
Date(s)
- 1943-1946 (Creation)
Level of description
Collection
Extent and medium
1 box
Context area
Name of creator
Administrative history
Location of Britannia Club 34 Surrey Street, corner of Bell Hill and Surrey Street.
Formerly Black Lion public house from 1682, renamed Britannia c.1844 closed c.1939
The building was refurbished and became the Britannia Club, a club for service women. It was opened on January 19th 1943 by HRH Princess Alice Duchess of Gloucester. It was also visited by HRH Princess Marina , Duchess of Kent at a later date.
It closed in 1946.
Croydon and the Second World War by Berwick Sayers page 80 1943 quotes;
On January 19th the Duchess of Gloucester opened the Britannia Club for the Womens Services. This had been a derelict public house in Surrey Street which a committee, with Councillor Basil Monk as its Chairman, acquired on loan from the Corporation. It was repaired, and the rooms were each treated as representing a part of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland by means of singularly effective and attractive wall paintings by Mr H. R. Hatch. It was comfortably furnished with the amenities of a residential club, a canteen service, sitting rooms, a library and sleeping accomodation for about forty girls who could stay there on those times of occasional leave which were not long enough for them to travel to their own homes. It was especialy useful for girls who came from overseas or who had no home of their own. Relays of voluntary women helpers assisted the residential hostess and did much to make the club one of the most popular and beneficent institutions of the time
The 1955 Street Directory lists the building as Britannia Club ( R.A.F. Association) .
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Club for women in the Services, opened 19 January 1943. Register of members 1943-46; album of photographs; loose photographs; 2 cuttings.