Below you will find a brief history of the UK Nagarathar Sangam, formally known as the London Nagarathar Sangam. Including how, when, where and why the Nagarathar Sangam was set up in the U.K.

Please note, The London Nagarathar Sangam still exists as a separate entity, but shares the same roots as us.

We would like to thank Dr. Nachiappan Murugappan for this information.

The London Nagarathar Sangam was established on 3rd of August 1974 in London.
The objectives of the Sangam are:

• To provide facilities for the social gathering of the community members.
• To provide facilities for the observance of religious and national festivities and celebrations.

The need for a Sangam came about in a meeting at Dr M Thiagarajan's house. It was at this gathering that a meeting was arranged in India House. Messrs VE.Palaniappan of Kallal, Dr M Thiagarajan of Kallal, Mr. M Sethu of Kilasivalpatty, Mr. N Thiagarajan of Kallal, Mr. M Thenappan of O.Alagapuri, Mr. A Ramanathan of Kallal and Mr. M Meyappan of Karaikudi were all present at this meeting and were involved with the establishment of the London Nagarathar Sangam.

The first meeting was held in India Club, which is in 143, Strand on 3rd of August 1974.

Mr.Alagappan and Mr. Sethu were elected as President and Secretary unanimously.

It was decided that the Sangam should meet on three occasions to celebrate Pillayar Nonbu, Tamil New Year and Sangams Annual meeting. Recently, we have decided to meet twice only to celebrate Pillayar Nonbu and Tamil New Year each year.

It was decided in 1984 that out of the interest from the Sangam's fund, a donation would be made for one marriage in our community in India, every year. This has been followed until 1996. From 1997, it was decided to increase this to two marriages a year, as a separate donation was established to fund it.

Around 1988, the Sangam was completely inactive and it was due to the efforts of Mr. Sendhil Thiagarajan that the activities were revived.

The get togethers were held in London in the early years of the Sangam and subsequently it has moved to various places such as Birmingham, Cannock, Bolton, Halifax, Bury and Northampton, as to fulfill the wishes of the members.

History of the Nagarathar Sangam Website

The UK Nagarathar Sangam have had a web presence since 1995.

Over the years this website has be (re)create and maintained by many people including myself. With each of the new webmaster’s the site has been redesigned and re-organised. This has mainly been due to the facilities that have been available to the webmaster of the time.

I took over the running of the site in December 2004. While I gave the site a complete overhall, over the years it started to look dated. It also became clear that tasking a single individual to run the entire site was too much. It is for this reason, in the New Year Meeting of 2007, four other Nagarathars joined the development team. These additional members are listed below:

• Kannan Sockalingam
• Narayanan Muthiah
• Vairavan
• Nachiappan Arunachalam

The idea being to present a clean and efficient site that the majority of people can access. While a highly multimedia orientated site would be nice, it restricts the number of people who can view the site in its full glory.

We would thank to thank all the previous webmasters of UK Nagarathar Sangam websites. Information from previous websites has been incorporated into this website where possible.

Below is a brief history of the website

• 1995 - 2000 Designed and maintained by Ganesan Letchumanan
• 2000 - 2003 Website not under maintainance
• 2003 - 2004 Designed and maintained by Mr. Selvaganesan Ramanathan and Shanti
• 2004 - 2007 Designed and maintained by Chithamabaram Veerappan
• 2007 - 2008 Designed and maintained by the Web Team
• Late 2008/Early 2009 - onwards Designed and maintained by the Chithambaram Veerappan, content by sangam members
• November 2009 - Overhaul of website design.