The Bonfire Societies active in Sussex today represent only part of the county's Bonfire history.
Over the past 150 years, societies have appeared and disappeared in towns and villages across Sussex. Some lasted for generations. Others seem to have survived for only a few years.
A number eventually returned.
Others have been gone so long that little survives beyond a name in an old newspaper, photograph or village history.
Trying to produce a complete list is difficult. Records are scattered between society archives, local history groups, newspapers and private collections. Even the commonly published lists of defunct societies are incomplete.
The societies below are some of those we have been able to trace.
Horsham Bonfire Boys
Horsham had an organised Bonfire tradition by 1870.
The society appears to have been partly an attempt to bring some order to the town's Fifth of November celebrations. Like elsewhere in Sussex, earlier Bonfire nights could be unruly.
Organised processions continued into the 1880s, with the last known newspaper references appearing towards the end of that decade.
That was not the end of Horsham Bonfire.
The Bonfire Boys were revived in 1931. The revived celebrations grew quickly and attracted substantial crowds during the 1930s.
Once again, however, the society disappeared, apparently around the period of the Second World War.
Unlike several other Sussex societies that vanished at the same time, Horsham's Bonfire Society was never successfully re-established.
Newpound Bonfire Society
One of the more easily overlooked lost societies is Newpound, near Wisborough Green in West Sussex.
Newpound Bonfire Society was founded in 1938 and was based at the Bat and Ball.
Its members were known locally as the Newpound Bonfire Boys.
The society held torchlit processions around Newpound Common and Newpound Lane, accompanied by a band and people in fancy dress. An effigy of Guy Fawkes was also paraded.
Like many Bonfire Societies, Newpound collected money for charitable causes.
Local historical records confirm that the society eventually ceased to exist.
Today it is rarely included in lists of former Sussex Bonfire Societies.
Hooe Bonfire Society
Hooe provides an excellent example of just how widespread the Bonfire movement once was.
A surviving account from 1906 describes a village Bonfire Society with around 50 members.
The society met at the Red Lion and processed through the village accompanied by the Hooe Fife and Drum Band.
Money was collected for the East Sussex Hospital.
Fifty members represented a substantial organisation for a small Sussex village, yet Hooe Bonfire Society eventually disappeared.
Wadhurst Bonfire Society
Wadhurst is another society easily missed by modern lists.
The Wadhurst History Society archive contains numerous records relating to the Bonfire Society during the 1950s.
Surviving photographs and newspaper material show that the society was involved in far more than simply organising a November bonfire.
The archive contains references to the Bonfire Society in 1950, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1957 and 1959. Among the records are photographs of society activities, a hopping float and an old people's outing.
This charitable and social activity is typical of the wider Sussex Bonfire movement.
The Wadhurst society subsequently disappeared and is rarely mentioned in modern accounts of Sussex Bonfire.
Westfield Bonfire Society
Westfield, near Hastings, had a Bonfire Society by the early twentieth century.
One particularly memorable story concerns the celebrations of 1908.
On the night of 5 November, while the Bonfire Society was holding its torchlight procession, Westfield's last windmill caught fire and was destroyed.
Suspicion naturally fell on the Bonfire Boys, although nothing was proved.
The society itself has since disappeared.
Five Ashes Bonfire Society
Not all lost Bonfire Societies belong to the distant past.
Five Ashes Bonfire Society was formed much more recently and became part of the modern Sussex Bonfire circuit.
Its members adopted pirates as their principal costume.
The society subsequently ceased operating, making Five Ashes an interesting example of a Bonfire Society that appeared and disappeared within living memory.
Brighton's Bonfire Societies
Brighton once had its own organised Bonfire tradition.
Brighton Borough Bonfire Society was active during the nineteenth century, with large celebrations taking place on the Level.
Contemporary reports describe enormous crowds, processions, banners and effigies.
A Brighton Bonfire Boys organisation is also recorded.
The town's traditional Bonfire movement had largely disappeared by the beginning of the twentieth century.
Today Brighton is not generally thought of as a Bonfire town, but the nineteenth-century evidence shows that substantial Fifth of November celebrations once took place there.
Eastbourne's lost societies
Eastbourne presents a more complicated picture because there was not simply one Bonfire Society.
Historical accounts record a number of separate organisations, including the East Ward, West Ward and Central Ward groups, St Mary's Bonfire Boys, the Meads Mummers and the Original Bonfire Boys.
The Original Bonfire Boys and St Mary's were active during the nineteenth century.
Later societies continued the tradition, but it gradually declined. Old Town Bonfire Society held what is recorded as the last procession of the old Eastbourne tradition in 1966.
Bonfire eventually returned.
The present Eastbourne Bonfire Society was established in 2001, meaning the modern organisation should not be mistaken for an uninterrupted continuation of the nineteenth-century societies.
Newhaven
Newhaven also appears to have supported several Bonfire organisations.
Historical records refer to societies associated with the Blacksmiths Arms and the Jolly Sailor.
These were followed by Newhaven Carnival Society in the early twentieth century.
The Frog and Duck Bonfire Society is another later organisation that has since disappeared.
Further research is needed to establish exactly how these groups were related to one another.
Lewes societies that disappeared
Even Lewes has lost Bonfire Societies.
Landport Bonfire Society and St Anne's Bonfire Society are among the former Lewes organisations that no longer process.
There are also historical references to a Town Bonfire Society, although this name needs to be treated with some caution.
The history of Lewes Borough Bonfire Society records the Town Bonfire Boys taking part in the first organised procession in 1853. By 1859 the Lewes Bonfire Society had adopted the name Lewes Borough Bonfire Society.
Town should therefore not simply be counted as another lost Lewes society without taking this organisational history into account.
The six principal societies active in Lewes today should not, however, be regarded as the complete historical list of Bonfire organisations in the town.
Other lost societies
A number of other Sussex societies are recorded as having existed but require further research before their histories can be reconstructed properly.
These include Arundel Bonfire Boys Society, Bognor Bonfire Society, Chichester Bonfire Society, Clapham and Patching Bonfire Club, Crawley Bonfire Society, Ridgewood Bonfire Society and Shoreham Bonfire Boys.
There are almost certainly others.
Old newspaper reports frequently use names such as "Bonfire Boys", "Bonfire Club" or simply "Bonfire Committee", rather than the formal names we would expect today. Small village societies can therefore be particularly difficult to identify.
The surviving evidence suggests the historical Bonfire movement was considerably larger than the modern list of societies might lead us to believe.
Robertsbridge returns
Disappearing did not always mean the end.
Several familiar Sussex Bonfire Societies have been dissolved or dormant for years, sometimes decades, before being revived.
Robertsbridge is a particularly good example.
According to the history of Robertsbridge Bonfire Society, its earliest known records date from 1895.
The society disbanded in 1906 when restrictions were introduced on street celebrations.
It returned in 1938, only for the outbreak of the Second World War the following year to bring Bonfire to an end once again.
More than 50 years later, the society was re-established on 6 December 1990.
Northiam
Northiam has an equally fragmented history.
The Northiam Bonfire Society history has traced the village's earlier Bonfire Boys through contemporary newspapers.
The first known demonstration of the Northiam Bonfire Boys took place in 1882. Members assembled at the Six Bells Inn before processing through the village in costume behind their banner and the Northiam Brass Band.
The earlier society eventually disappeared, was revived during the 1930s and then vanished again.
The present Northiam Bonfire Society was established much later, bringing organised Bonfire back to the village.
Firle
Firle has records of Bonfire activity dating back to the nineteenth century.
The society survived into the twentieth century but eventually folded in the early 1970s.
According to Firle Bonfire Society's own history, the reasons were straightforward: lack of support and lack of money.
The village did not entirely forget Bonfire.
In 1980 a few local families got together to build a bonfire in the park and set off their own fireworks.
The following year a meeting was called to resurrect the Bonfire Society.
Around 50 members processed in 1981 and Firle Bonfire Society was back.
Southover
Few societies demonstrate the cycle of decline and revival better than Southover in Lewes.
Southover Bonfire Society was founded in 1886.
It subsequently disappeared and reformed several times.
All of the Lewes societies suspended their activities during the First World War. Southover later returned, only for Bonfire to stop again during the Second World War.
The society reformed in 1950, but declining membership and a shortage of funds eventually caused it to disband once more.
Another attempt was made in 1985. It initially attracted support from other societies, but the lack of a secure membership, sufficient funds and a strong committee meant that it did not last.
Then, on 6 November 2004, a conversation in the Kings Head led to another attempt.
Southover returned to the streets for the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in 2005.
The full story can be read in this history of Southover Bonfire Society.
This time the revival lasted.
Why did societies disappear?
There was rarely a single reason.
Money was a constant problem. Bonfire celebrations were expensive to organise and depended heavily on fundraising.
Membership could rise and fall. A society with a strong committee might flourish for years, only to struggle when a small number of key people left.
Suitable firesites were another problem, particularly as towns expanded and open land disappeared.
Authorities also became less willing to tolerate street fires and some of the more dangerous elements of traditional Bonfire celebrations.
The restrictions introduced in 1906 were particularly damaging. Contemporary histories record societies disbanding because of them, including Robertsbridge. Even Battle's celebrations appear to have been interrupted for a period.
Then there were the wars.
The First and Second World Wars interrupted Bonfire across Sussex. Men were away serving, public celebrations were restricted and during the Second World War blackout conditions made traditional Bonfire celebrations impossible.
Some societies reformed when peace returned.
Others never did.
How many have been lost?
At present, there is no reliable answer.
Published lists of defunct Sussex Bonfire Societies are useful, but they are clearly incomplete.
Newpound is one example. Wadhurst is another.
The Wadhurst records are particularly interesting because they demonstrate how a functioning society can disappear from the standard histories while still leaving substantial evidence in a local archive.
There are likely to be more societies hidden in newspaper archives, parish records and collections of old photographs.
The same problem occurs when several societies existed in the same town. Eastbourne, Newhaven, Brighton and Lewes all demonstrate how complicated the history can become.
What looks today like one town and one society may once have been several competing groups.
Remembering the lost societies
It is tempting to judge the strength of Sussex Bonfire by looking at the societies that survive today.
Historically, the picture was much bigger.
For more than a century, Bonfire Boys and Bonfire Societies could be found in communities across Sussex. Some were substantial organisations with hundreds of supporters. Others belonged to small villages and may never have possessed much more than a committee, a collection tin, a few dozen torches and somewhere to build a fire.
Their members still marched through their villages, raised money for local causes and kept the Fifth.
Some of those societies have returned after decades away.
Others are now little more than names in the archives.
And there are almost certainly more still waiting to be rediscovered.