News

Dear Members and Friends, I must start this newsletter by extending my thanks to Chris Mitchinson for his decade long stint as chair which is coming to an end this summer.  I am sure that you will agree that he has been an excellent chair and has continued to discover new and engaging lecturers, even during the challenging last couple ...
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We hope that the vast bulk of the meetings will be live at St. Nicolas Hall but we will finalise plans in the light of the latest covid background in mid-September. (Please watch out for confirmatory e mails). Options range from live meetings to Zoom or some combination of the two but it would greatly help if any member was ...
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The series of Zoom lectures that began in September as our safest and only permissible response to the Covid situation have provided some excellent presentations. One advantage of using Zoom is that the PowerPoint presentations can be seen with amazing clarity. One lecture suffered to a degree by an inadequate microphone on the presenter’s PC. The Committee have decided to ...
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Race, Region and Rebellion: The Origins of the American Civil War 1846-1861 by Prof Lawrence Goldman, University of London. The American civil war lasted for 4 years, in which 700,000 Americans lost their lives. The Battle of Gettysburg had armies of 100,000 on both sides. One of the consequences of the American civil war, led to a greater control of ...
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Accidental Death in Tudor Surrey: How People Died Reveals Much About How They Lived by Professor Steven Gunn, Professor of Early Modern History, Merton College, Oxford. Professor Steven Gunn is currently leading a research project, looking into 9,000 inquests from the 16th century. One may think that these 16th century inquests are just  routine reports  into the deaths of a ...
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Whose Heritage? Imperial trophies and national treasures from the Elgin Marbles to the Benin Bronzes. Emeritus Professor Tony Stockwell, Royal Holloway College, University of London. 29 September 2020 The original trophies, that were bought back to Europe, originally came previous ancient eastern Mediterranean cultures, with the most well know being the Elgin marbles, and the Egyptian treasures from the French ...
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One of the joys of studying history is that current issues that seem so overwhelming and novel are on reflection merely the latest variants of problems that have recurred in many different eras, geographic locations and very different cultural milieus. Often as the person responsible for putting together the branch programme (albeit with more than a little help from my ...
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Following the abrupt termination of the 2019-20 programme, the branch committee have been striving to establish a way forward that is in compliance with both Government regulations and with the safety of our members and speakers in the year ahead. The good news is that there will be a full programme of eleven lectures including all the speakers who we ...
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Dear Members and Friends, You will not be surprised to read that we have had to take the decision to cancel all remaining lectures of this year's programme in addition to the planned trips to The Spike in Guildford and walk around Winchester with Professor Nigel Saul. As we are all confined to our homes, full members of the Historical ...
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Aspects of American Foreign Policy in the Nuclear Age by Dr Jonathan Hunt, University of Southampton. Dr Jonathan Hunt is shortly to attend a conference at the UN Headquarters, to commorate the 50th anniversary of the agreement to define which countries are allowed to have nuclear nuclear weapons, and which countries which develop nuclear weapons face the consequences of sanctions ...
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Due to the current situation with the coronavirus we have decided to cancel this Tuesday's lecture by Dr Lucy Wooding. Dr Wooding teaches at Lincoln College, Oxford, and has informed us that a number of students at the university have tested positive for coronavirus, with the first student to do so at Lincoln. We hope to organize a date in ...
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Dear all, The first half of the 2019-20 programme has seen some very interesting lectures and big attendances. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, the committee made a major effort to involve schools with the selection of topics. Our decision to focus on the Tudor period was a response to their input. The two Tudor lectures drew a very ...
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