In 1887 Manchester had an academic group, led by Spencer Wilkinson, with the grand name of the Manchester Tactical Society.  This group is long gone.

In 2000 Dr Paddy Griffith, renowned military historian, writer, and innovative wargamer, moved to Manchester.  He created the South Manchester Tactical Society (SMATS), a monthly group, hosted at his home.

Paddy knew a wide range of military historians, many being published authors, and other notables, who spoke at the group.  The meetings involved a prepared talk, often quite interactive, followed by a Q&A session.

Paddy died in 2010, leaving a large hole in the lives of his many friends.  Some of the SMATS (now MMHS) remnant did not want to imagine life without our monthly fix of erudite and esoteric military history, so there was a determination to keep MMHS going as our contribution to keeping Paddy's memory alive.

Paddy's personal web site preserved by archive.org

Ian Daglish had been an enthusiastic supporter of our MMHS military history group.

Ian published several books regarding the British Army's battles in Normandy, visiting the continent often, as a researcher and tour guide as well as working for the BBC.

He was the pilot of a light aircraft that crashed on take-off in Manchester on Friday 29th July 2011.

Ian was also very popular in his community and over 350 people gathered to pay their respects at the funeral. He is survived by his wife Joy and two teenage daughters, Hazel and Fiona.

We now dedicate our July lectures to his memory.