West Surrey Historical Association

Past Lectures & Visits

24 September 2019, ‘Byzantium and the Renaissance’
Tuesday 24 September 2019: ‘Byzantium and the Renaissance’ - Speaker: Professor Jonathan Harris, Professor of the History of Byzantium (Royal Holloway, University of London) Jonathan Harris has a particular interest in Byzantine History 900-1460; relations between Byzantium and the west, especially during the Crusades and the Italian Renaissance; the Greek diaspora after 1453. He has published definitive texts on Byzantine History ...
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21 May 2019 – Why do Empires end? Ancient Rome and the Modern West
21 May 2019, Why do Empires end? Ancient Rome and the Modern West by Prof. Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History, King’s College London. Peter Heather is a historian of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He has held appointments at University College London and Yale University and was Fellow ...
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30 April 2019 – From Satellite City to Global City: London 1500-1700
30 April 2019, From Satellite City to Global City: London 1500-1700 by Dr. Ian Archer, Associate Professor in History, Keble College, University of Oxford. One very distinctive feature of modern Britain is the sheer domestic dominance of London and its role as a world city.  In the lecture, Dr. Ian Archer will look back to a vital period in London’s ...
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19 March 2019 – Disraeli and the Transformation of Victorian Conservatism, 1846-1880
On 19 March 2019,  in what seems a rather topical issue - the survival of the Conservative Party, Professor Lawrence Goldman will look back to Disraeli and the Transformation of Victorian Conservatism, 1846-1880. Professor Lawrence Goldman is Senior Research Fellow, St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford. Born in London, he read history at Jesus College, Cambridge (1976–1979) as an undergraduate ...
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West Surrey Historical Association Branch visit to Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, 16th March 2019
Our visit this Spring will be to Dorchester-on-Thames, a village in south Oxfordshire quite close to Wallingford, on the opposite bank, which we visited a few years ago. Dorchester is chiefly celebrated for its beautiful abbey church, one of the oldest Christian sites in England, founded by the missionary, St Birinus, in 634. At one time it was the seat ...
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26 February 2019 – The Rise and Fall of the British Nation
26 February 2019, The Rise and Fall of the British Nation by Prof. David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor of the History of Science and Technology and Professor of Modern British History, King’s College London. In Professor Edgerton’s synopsis, he states that ‘This focus on the making and unmaking of the nation is at the core of a new general account ...
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22 January 2019 – Not so much an empire more a world-system: the British empire in global perspective
22 January 2019, Not so much an empire more a world-system: the British empire in global perspective by Prof. John Darwin John Darwin is a Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Global and Imperial History, Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His main field of interest has been in the history of empires, both their rise and fall, and in global history ...
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4 December 2018 – Henry III, Simon de Montfort and the crisis of kingship in the thirteenth century
4 December 2018, Henry III, Simon de Montfort and the crisis of kingship in the thirteenth century by Prof. David Carpenter 19:30 at Guildford County School, Farnham Rd, Guildford, GU2 4LU. David Carpenter is an English historian and writer, and Professor of Medieval History at King's College London where he has been working since 1988. David Carpenter attended Westminster School ...
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13 November 2018 – Why did the Habsburg Empire Collapse during the First World War?
13 November, Why did the Habsburg Empire Collapse during the First World War? by Prof. Mark Cornwall. 19:30 at Guildford County School, Farnham Rd, Guildford, GU2 4LU. Mark Cornwall is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton, and the UK’s leading historian of the late Habsburg Empire. His field of study is East-Central Europe in the nineteenth ...
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16 October 2018 – The Chartist Crisis of 1839
16th October 2018, The Chartist Crisis of 1839, or when Britain didn’t have a revolution! by Dr. Robert Sykes CBE. The lecture considers what, arguably, is the closest Britain has come to a nationwide, bottom up, populist revolution. 19:30 at Guildford County School, Farnham Rd, Guildford, GU2 4LU. Robert Sykes works include: Popular Politics and Trade Unionism in South-East Lancashire 1829-42, ...
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25 September 2018 – The Road to the Armistice: how the First World War Ended
25 September 2018, The Road to the Armistice: how the First World War Ended by Prof. David Stevenson. 19:00 at Guildford County School, Farnham Rd, Guildford, GU2 4LU. The lecture is preceeded by the AGM. Professor Stevenson is holder of the Stevenson Chair at the London School of Economics. His main fields of interests lie in international relations during the ...
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