The Guildford Spike, linked with but deliberately separated from the nearby Guildford workhouse, was a ward for vagrants. In return for an overnight stay in squalid conditions, vagrants had to do basic manual work before, typically, going on their way to the next Spike. George Orwell gave a vivid picture of his experience of the Godstone Spike in ‘Down and ...
Tuesday 17 March 2020: ‘The Crisis of the Tudor Throne 1540-60’ - Speaker: Dr Lucy Wooding, Langford Fellow and Tutor in History (Lincoln College, Oxford) "I have been interested in religious history since I was seventeen, when my history teacher lent me her copy of Jack Scarisbrick’s The Reformation and the English People. It was then that I first realized ...
Tuesday 25 February 2020: ‘Aspects of American Foreign Policy in the Nuclear Age’ - Speaker: Dr Jonathan Hunt, Lecturer of Modern Global History (University of Southampton) "I study the history of U.S. foreign policy and international relations since 1945. I am from Austin, Texas, and earned my BA and PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to Southampton, I ...
Tuesday 21 January 2020: ‘Donald Trump in Historical Perspective’ - Speaker: Professor Tony Badger, President of the Historical Association (University of Northumbria) Professor Tony Badger Tony is a historian of post-World War II American political history, and most notably the South. He has published widely on race relations, the Great Depression, and the New Deal. He was a lecturer at ...
Tuesday 3 December 2019: ‘When Did England Become a Protestant Country?’ - Speaker: Professor George Bernard, Professor of Early Modern History (University of Southampton) "Born in London, I was educated at Reading School and, as an Open Scholar, at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. At the age of twenty-four I was appointed to a Lectureship at Wolverhampton Polytechnic where I taught ...
Tuesday 19 November 2019: ‘The Tudor Rebellions’ - Speaker: Stephen David, Senior Lecturer (WEA) ...
Tuesday 15 October 2019: ‘1919 – The Year that Changed China’ - Speaker: Dr Elisabeth Forster, Lecturer of Modern China (University of Southampton) Dr Elisabeth Forster is a historian of modern China, focusing on intellectual, diplomatic and social history, and especially the way they tie in with each other. Her current project explores concepts of peace in China from the 19th ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
