Rev. Jimmy Butterworth and the activities of Clubland

Camping holidays, sports days and general mucking about all feature in this succession of films taken over several years at a south London youth club.

This contains several different films – some colour, some black and white – shot over several years of Clubland, a youth club for the underprivileged of Walworth, South London. It was started by the Rev Jimmy Butterworth, who features in several of the scenes, and the films show teenage boys and girls at sports days, on holiday (in France and the Lake District) and at the clubhouse on Camberwell Road.

Butterworth founded Clubland in 1922 for the deprived children of Walworth and became a well-known youth club, combining social and spiritual activities. Butterworth was an excellent fundraiser and received support from celebrities such as Bob Hope, John Mills, Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. These films show the teenage boys and girls engaged in a variety of activities, including a camping trip to France in 1966 and a chaotic sports day in Burgess Park in the early 1960s.