Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society

From The Space Library

The British Interplanetary Society was formed in 1933 and during the course of the first 12 months of the organisation's existence monthly reports were issued to the members by Society Secretary Leslie J. Johnson. The monthly report was enlarged into the slightly larger Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society which may have first appeared as early as July 1934, although the "official" first edition was in October, and was also edited by Johnson. Perhaps five of the informal and numbered issues combined, appeared before the name was changed by committee vote on December 28th 1934 for one issue in January 1935 to "The New Columbus." In his biography Johnson claimed that New Columbus was never circulated officially, although he sent several copies to Edward John Carnell in London. Publication seems to have been suspended until March 1937 during which time the BIS moved its operations from Liverpool to London. Carnell began a new series of Bulletins from London. Carnell edited ten issues before handing it over to Arthur C. Clarke and Maurice K. Hanson. Clarke would edit the Bulletin for 17 issues until just before the outbreak of World War II. The last pre-war edition appearing in August 1939. There is some evidence in Clarke's diary that he was still mailing some form of Bulletin to his colleagues from his evacuation billet in Colwyn Bay North Wales as late as January of 1941. During the war those interested in following astronautics in Britain turned to the Manchester Interplanetary Society journal "Spacewards" edited by Eric Burgess and Trevor Cusack. Cusack was killed in action in 1940 but Burgess would continue to edit Spacewards until the end of the war, completing 20 more issues. The Bulletin of the BIS returned in January 1946 and ran until May 1947 before merging with the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society.