Northfleet History Group - November 2013 Meeting.
GUY FAWKES and the GUNPOWDER PLOT
It was almost ‘standing room only’ in St Botolph’s church hall for our meeting on Tuesday 5th November when Anne Carter give a highly entertaining talk on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes and a group of disaffected members of the Catholic faith (which was being suppressed) hatched a plot to blow up King James I at the state opening of Parliament. The plot was uncovered when one of the group warned a member of his family not to attend, arousing the suspicion of the authorities and Guy was arrested as he was checking his barrels of gunpowder in the parliament building. The other conspirators were captured in due course, all of them being tried, found guilty and sentenced to being hanged, drawn and quartered - a grisly end. Anne gave a lot of background information to the plot and made what could have been a somewhat macabre story into an interesting and, at times, amusing presentation.
After the tea interval, our Chairman Ken McGoverin gave an illustrated talk on the life and career of local celebrity Arthur Gouge, a Northfleet boy who became famous as a designer of flying boats, which many of us remember seeing ‘parked’ in the Medway near the Short’s factory by Rochester Bridge in the 1940's. He also designed an innovative ‘wing flap’ used on conventional aircraft, and received a knighthood from King George VI in 1948.
After the tea interval, our Chairman Ken McGoverin gave an illustrated talk on the life and career of local celebrity Arthur Gouge, a Northfleet boy who became famous as a designer of flying boats, which many of us remember seeing ‘parked’ in the Medway near the Short’s factory by Rochester Bridge in the 1940's. He also designed an innovative ‘wing flap’ used on conventional aircraft, and received a knighthood from King George VI in 1948.