Road Transport History Association (RTHA) Archive
Following the sad demise of the Road Transport History Association, the RCHS is pleased to have been offered and to be able to agree to host the RTHA archive of Newsletters, Journals and other papers on our website. The archive contains 110 editions of the RTHA Journal and 6 ‘Other Papers’.
Click here to go directly to the online Journal listing
For a searchable index of the complete RTHA Journal Archive click: RTHA index
Users of this archive, and former members of the RTHA, are encouraged to consider membership of this Society; in particular one of our ‘Special Interest Groups’ is devoted to Road Transport, and over the years has issued almost 650 papers on varying subjects. A list of these papers may be found here but one benefit of membership is full access to these papers, together with similar outputs from our other Special Interest Groups. An outline of the Road Transport SIG will be found here, and information on becoming a RCHS member here.
For background, here is an extract from the RTHA’s final Journal:
“Introduction to the final edition of the RTHA Journal by Rod Ashley, Chair
As members will know from previous correspondence, items in the Journal and the sole focus of our October 2022 meeting, the future options for the Association were reviewed over the summer and reported back to the membership. You will have received a copy of the working party report together with the November 2022 Extraordinary General Meeting voting papers. The clear conclusion of the working party, with the unanimous support of the Directors and the RTHA Committee, was that the association should wind up, ceasing its operations by the end of December 2022. The proposal to close was put to a vote at the EGM held on 5 November. This meeting (plus the proxy votes received) voted unanimously in favour of the proposal (31 votes cast in total, all
in favour of closure).
We acknowledge that this result is a sad one, given the great achievements of RTHA. The Association has achieved a great deal since it was established in 1992, when it was created (in preinternet days) to coordinate and recognise research being carried out by members. Our 100th edition of the Journal included a lively history of RTHA by Ken Swallow, one of our longest serving members.
RTHA served its purpose well, acting not only as a repository of published articles in the Journal, but as a forum for exchanging ideas, developing links and creating potential research, information and specific interest hubs for like-minded enthusiasts. The high point of the association was marked by two significant publications, The Companion to British Road Haulage History (2003) and The Companion to Road Passenger Transport History (2014). ……….
…….. The RTHA has a long association with the RCHS. The RTHA arose out of a conference in 1991. To quote the RTHA’s Newsletter no.1: ‘Its genesis can be traced back to discussions within the Railway & Canal Historical Society and an opinion survey of its members. A significant proportion of the membership declared a wish to widen their interests, to encompass other modes of transport that had operated in association or in competition with canals and railways.’ And the RCHS was a corporate member of the RTHA until corporate membership was abolished.”
Note: Issue 36 was originally delayed in production but in the end, never issued. Issue 29 is also missing from the following list, and were not amongst the archive sent to us by RTHA. If any former RTHA member out there has a copy of either of these two issues please contact roger.taylor@rchs.org.uk
To access the online Journals please select from the tabular listing below.