Herfst 2007 no.61
Alhoewel wij als Haarlem Branch bek
end staan als een bescheiden volkje, dat
wars is van iedere vorm van vleirerij, is
het toch leuk als men zelf vanuit
Headquarters meldt met genoegen
terug te kijken op de annual conference
in Amsterdam. Het onderstaande ver
slag uit The Dickensian zet onze
Branch danig in het zonnetje..
This year's Conference in Amsterdam cele
brated the fiftieth anniversary of the Haarlem
Branch of the Fellowship as well as commem
orating the centenary of the very first
Conference, held in Manchester on Saturday
27 October 1906, and over 130 Dickensians
attended at least some of the events.
It was the first annual Conference of delegates
from the various branches of the Fellowship,
which took place at Headquarters (then in
Whitcomb Street, London) on 2 September
1905, that decided that thereafter the
Conference should be "an annual and a mov
able one", and in Manchester the following
year Percy Fitzgerald, the first President of the
Fellowship, and "always one of its very best
friends", was the guest of the evening at the
dinner held at the Victoria Hotel. Sir William
Bailey proposed the toast to "The Immortal
Memory of Charles Dickens", which was
drunk in silence, a custom that prevailed for
many years.
The Rochester Conference and Festival in 1914
was the first to take place over more than one
day, with events being arranged throughout
the Whitsun weekend, and in the Autumn
1959 number of this journal Leslie Staples
recorded that "the eagerly-awaited 53rd
Annual Conference of the Dickens Fellowship,
held in Amsterdam at the invitation of the
barely three-year-old Haarlem Branch, was an
unqualified success, and a great landmark in
the history of the Fellowship, for never before
had Conference been held outside the United
Kingdom." He continued: "Officers and mem
bers of the Haarlem Branch spared no pains
to provide a splendid programme and ensure
that it worked throughout without a hitch",
and one can justifiably echo those sentiments
in reporting the 2006 centenary Conference.
From the outset it was most efficiently organ
ised, with information being easily obtainable
for many months beforehand, and with the
accommodation and catering arrangements
being excellent and conveniently flexible.
Although referred to frequently in the course
of the Conference, the fiftieth anniversary of
the Haarlem Branch was particularly featured
in Joop van Kessel's lecture "Dickens in
Diaspor: on Friday 28 July, which discussed
the career of Godfried Bomans and his impor
tance in the foundation of the Branch; its
organisation, meetings and outings; the range
of membership and previous Conferences held
in Holland, as well as considering the reputa
tion and fluctuating popularity of Dickens
with Dutch readers through the decades.
Conference officially opened in the evening of
Thursday 27 July with a reception and words
of welcome in the recently refurbished
Assembly Hall of the former Dutch East India
Company, where the catering was superb: a
lavish supply of drinks and canapés making an
evening meal virtually superfluous!
This occasion provided an excellent opportu
nity for social intercourse and the renewal of
friendships, and afterwards groups were
formed for delegates who wished to have din
ner in the city: a system which operated on
several evenings, and which proved enjoyable
and beneficial, an example of the flexibility
referred .0 earlier.
On Friday morning, owing to problems with
slide projectors predictable on these occa
sions, the order of lectures was changed, the
first being delivered by Professor Toru Sasaki
of Kyoto University. In "Edmund Wilson's
"The Two Scrooges" Reconsidered" he
stressed the importance of that seminal essay,
which presented a somewhat Dostoievskian
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXVII 20
The iooth Annual Conference of the Dickens Fellowship:
Amsterdam 27-31 July 2006
uit "The Dickenslan" (Winter 2006)
