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The Formation of BCRA
These notes, by John Wilcock, were part of the BCRA entry in the 1994
Cavers' Handbook, published by Ambit. |
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Club caving in Great Britain started around 1900 and at first progressed
slowly, with only about 30 clubs in existence by the 1930s. Eli Simpson, or
"Cymmie" as he preferred to be called, was a well-known caving organiser in the
Settle area of the Yorkshire Dales, before the Second World War. By 1935 he was
dreaming of a national caving organisation devoted to speleology. His
tremendous enthusiasm for such a venture led him to contact prominent cavers,
and the British Speleological Association (BSA) was born thanks to his drive
and energy. The first headquarters was an imposing building in Settle main
street, now the Police Station, from where nowadays the first cave rescue
callouts are coordinated. In pre-war days the BSA was strongly supported by
members referred to by Cymmie as "academics", not without some measure of
sneering scorn. However, the BSA organised a successful series of annual
conferences, at which a number of prominent people such as the Abbé
Breuil and Sir Arthur Keith gave lectures. Conferences were held in Buxton,
Bristol, Giggleswick and Swansea, and organised visits to the local caves were
well attended. Cymmie's field work included not only exploration in the Craven
area, but also cave surveying of a fairly good standard, and the assembly of a
mass of photographic and cartographic information. The BSA also supported the
formation of local cave exploration chapters in various regions, more akin to
modern caving clubs, but affiliated to BSA.
The war resulted in an almost complete suspension of cave exploration,
although Cymmie encouraged a number of youngsters, not yet involved in the
fighting Services, to keep activities going. By the time peace came, the BSA
had changed its character and was little more than a caving club. Cymmie,
however, continued as Recorder, handling many enquiries and large volumes of
information, mostly from abroad, while encouraging cave exploration by the
younger generation. Unfortunately he alienated a number of the more academic
pre-war members, and on their return from the war this resulted in the
formation of the Cave Research Group of Great Britain (CRG) by the disaffected
members, with the main object of promoting the scientific study of
caves. A dominant activity of CRG was its General Meetings, held alternately
north and south of the "Glennie Line", an artificial line on the map from
Lowestoft to Aberdovey, originated by Aubrey Glennie, which had the effect of
treating the Yorkshire Dales, Scottish, North Wales and Peak District caving
regions as "North" and South Wales, Mendip and Devon as "South".
The attempt to start a national organisation in 1935 had thus failed because
cavers were not ready for such a federal organisation with individual
membership. The explosive growth of caving clubs in the 1950s and 1960s led to
the formation of the regional councils of caving, concerned largely with
access. By the late 1960s it became obvious that a national organisation was
needed, and in 1968 the National Caving Association (NCA) was set up as a
federation of the existing autonomous caving organisations representing regions
or specialist interests at national level. It was deliberately constituted to
include both sporting and scientific interests because these were felt to be
inseparable in caving. CRG and BSA actively supported the setting up of NCA,
and were represented on its Council from the start.
The British Speleological Association and the Cave Research Group of Great
Britain formally agreed to merge, and both were wound up on Saturday 23rd June
1973 in Bakewell, Derbyshire. After 38 years of BSA and 25 years of CRG, it was
hoped that the existence of only one national body which was fully
representative of all the scientific aspects of caves, cavers and their
environment would lead to a more positive development of cave science in
Britain. The caretaker Council established by mutual agreement of the two
extinct bodies was replaced by the first elected Council at the AGM on 15th
December 1973 in Skipton. The combined organisation was named the British Cave
Research Association (BCRA), an amalgam of the two names. A consequence was
that BCRA now had three delegates to NCA Council, a fourth scientific delegate
being provided by the William Pengelly Cave Studies Trust. The Peak District
chapter of BSA, which had latterly been concerned with the development of
technical aids for caving, hived off at this time as the Technical Speleology
Group.
The first action of BCRA was to formally issue an invitation to the
International Union of Speleology for the 7th International Congress of
Speleology to be held in Sheffield in 1977. This application was accepted, and
a very successful Congress was held which promoted British speleological
achievements to the world.
The National Speleological Conferences formerly run by BSA were taken over
by BCRA, and the series of very successful conferences continue to the present
day. These have been augmented in recent years by regional meetings, after the
pattern of the CRG General Meetings. A novel venture in recent years has been
the Cavers' Fairs, run in conjunction with NCA and cave rescue organisations.
The BCRA Bulletin (name later changed to Caves & Caving)
took over the BSA Bulletin and the CRG Newsletter. The
Transactions of the British Cave Research Association (name later
changed to Cave Science) took over the Transactions of the Cave
Research Group of Great Britain and Cave Science (the Journal of
BSA).
British Cave Research Association (UK
registered charity 267828). Registered Office: Old Methodist Chapel,
Great Hucklow, BUXTON, SK17 8RG
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