Seaton Museum meeting announced
The Axe Valley Heritage Association which runs Seaton Museum will hold its AGM, which was postponed during the final illness of Ted Gosling, on Wednesday 30th October at 2 pm in the United Reformed Church Hall, Cross Street, Seaton.
The Trustees have asked me to deliver a tribute to Ted, who founded the Museum and was its curator for a third of a century. The Acting Curator, Laura Hewitt, who is expected to be confirmed as Curator by the meeting, will talk about how she sees future of the Museum and what the next steps will be.
All Museum supporters are welcome and anyone who is not a member can join at the door (£10, or £12 for joint membership).
Tribute to Ted Gosling
I have written the following which has appeared in the Midweek Herald, from which this photo of Ted, taken in 2019 when Seaton Town Council congratulated him on his 90th birthday, is taken:
Ted Gosling, the Curator of Seaton Museum and the only person ever to be made a Freeman of Seaton, has died aged 95. Ted was a part of Seaton life for over 80 years and had a unique memory of its history from the 1930s onwards, which he was passionate about sharing. Over more than half a century, he collected material about the history of the town and his collection became the nucleus of the Seaton Museum, which he founded over thirty years ago and which is located on the top floor of Seaton Town Hall. He remained Curator until his death.
Prior to the foundation of Seaton Museum, Ted had been in business in Seaton and was Curator of Lyme Regis Museum. At Seaton Museum, and in the Axe Valley Heritage Association which he established to run and support it, Ted gathered around him a dedicated team of volunteers, and organised regular trips to places of interest around the County and beyond.
Ted had an encyclopedic memory, an enthusiasm for knowledge and a capacity for writing which led him to produce numerous books on the history of Seaton, Colyton, Axmouth and more widely East Devon and the County at large, most notably The Book of Seaton. He researched the early history of the town in the Roman and medieval eras and in its Victorian heyday after the coming of the railway in 1868. He also filled most of the pages of the Newsletter which he edited for the Museum and sent regularly to its supporters. In his 90s, he founded the Seaton Memories Facebook group which now has 3,500 members.
Ted was a witness to the transformation of Seaton, whose population trebled during its lifetime. He lived through and documented its role in the Second World War, when US troops were based in the town in the preparations for D-Day, the rise and fall of the holiday camp, the closure of the railway, and the building of Seaton Hospital.
Ted was aware of how valuable history could be in the present. In 2017, when Seaton Hospital’s beds were threatened with closure, he gave me a copy of Mary Wood’s pamphlet on the history of the Hospital, published by Seaton League of Friends in 1991. He told me that ‘the times when the town really came together were in 1940 when we were threatened with invasion and in the 1980s when we raised the funds for the Hospital’. Without that pamphlet, I would not have known that Seaton raised 100 per cent of the funds for the wing of the Hospital that was threatened in 2023.
Ted was greatly loved by many in Seaton and will be sorely missed. He is survived by his wife, Carol, children and grandchildren. A Book of Condolences is open for signature in Seaton Library.
The Museum’s Assistant Curator, Laura Hewitt, is currently the Acting Curator and its Trustees, of whom I am one, are meeting this week to plan its future, about which announcements will be made in due course.
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Ted Gosling has died
It is with great sadness that I inform readers of the death, at the age of 95, of Ted Gosling, the founder of Seaton Museum and author of many books on local history. An active member of the Seaton community for over 80 years, he was the town’s only Freeman. He will be greatly missed. A fuller appreciation will follow.
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Seaton & Colyton MATTERS 