Lectures - Thoresby Society

Lecture Syllabus 2020-2021

The following lectures have been arranged for members but everyone is welcome to come. All meetings will be on zoom starting at 6pm, or 1pm for the November lunch time series, until the situation changes. To reserve a place for these lectures please send a message to a.slomson@leeds.ac.uk. Alan needs to receive your mail so that he can send you the link the day before. If you have booked and not received the link then he needs to know at least an hour before the time of the lecture.
2020
Tuesday September 15th	Joint Meeting with the Leeds Library Who was the real Anne Lister? Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, Halifax was a landowner, traveller, a maverick, a scholar and a seducer of other women. She kept extensive diaries written in a secret code. Jill Liddington, feminist historian, has worked on her diaries and gives us an insight into Anne’s fascinating autobiography. Anne was the subject of the recent television series, Gentleman Jack. More
Monday September 21st	A Protestant work ethic? Catholicism and estate management in the late eighteenth century. Alexander Lock, curator of modern archives and manuscripts at the British Library, will explore estate management and agrarian improvement by a Catholic C18th landowner, Sir Thomas Gascoigne 1745-1810 of Parlington Hall.
Monday October 19th	Time stood still: Civilian and Military prisons at Lofthouse Park Camp near Wakefield 1914-1919. Dr Claudia Sternberg from Leeds University will give an illustrated talk.
Wednesday November 4th @ 1pm	Dr. Kevin Grady 'The Early Years of the Leeds Library' Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Wednesday November 11th @ 1pm	Eveleigh Bradford 'The most beautiful Public Gardens in England' The Story of the Lost Headingley Botanical Gardens and Royal Park' See More
Monday November 16th	Alderman Archie Scarr: Leeds radical ’Mayor of the masses’. Chris Hindle talks about this interesting and controversial figure 1827-1904. Described as one of the best-known men in the northern part of the West Riding, an advocator of temperance and thrift. Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Wednesday November 18th @ 1pm	Rev. Dr. Roy Yates 'The Back-to-Back Housing Development on the Site of the Victoria Gate Shopping Complex' Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Wednesday November 25th @ 1pm	Steven Burt: 'Hunslet and the Cholera Epidemics of the C19th.' Missed it? or would like to watch again?
2021
Wednesday 13th January @ 1pm	Book launch for our publication for 2020 The launch will take the form of short talks introducing the articles that make up this Miscellany volume. We expect that these will include talks by Irfan Shah on “Louis La Prince and Leeds”, Robert Demaine on “Charles Villiers Stanford and the Leeds Choir in Paris 1906”, Chris Hindle on “Hudson Sykes and Bousfield: the rise and fall of a Leeds manufacturing house” and Roy Yates on “The Tudor Reformation in Leeds”. The Miscellany volume was posted to members before Christmas. It may have been delayed by the Christmas post, but if your copy hasn’t reached you by January 1st, please let us know. Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Monday January 18th	Members' Evening 1. Leeds and its History in the Central Library Collections, presented by Antony Ramm. 2. Gabriel Davis and the establishment of the Jewish Community in Leeds. A talk by Michael Meadowcroft Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Monday January 25th	Book Launch for "Leeds - A Biographical Dictionary" by David Thornton David will be giving a short talk about the book. David Thornton is very well-known as a Thoresby Society stalwart and a Leeds historian. His book "Leeds - A Historical Dictionary of People, Places and Events" was published in 2013 and immediately became an indispensable source book for researchers and writers as well as being a book to dip into to check a fact or to discover lesser known stories. Dr Thornton has now put his lifetime of research into a companion volume, "Leeds- A Biographical Dictionary", containing over 900 biographies of Leeds men and women from the Leeds Mummy c.1100 BCE right through to the present day. This is the first time since R.V.Taylor’s Biographia Leodiensis of 1865 that there has been a single volume providing key facts and important material on the individuals who have made Leeds famous. It will become another essential reference work for historians and all those interested in the history of Leeds. Download the flyer for the book here Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Monday February 15th	Thomas Nunneley 1809-1870, Surgery, Audit and Politics. Dr. John Turney will talk on what surgery could and could not be done in the C19th and how it reflected on the dangerous lives of the working people. Missed it? or would like to watch again?
Monday March 15th	Working Class Life in Hunslet, 1900-1939. Lecture by Dr Kevin Grady to the Thoresby Society, 6.00 p.m., Monday 15 March 2021 Using a variety of contemporary reminiscences and sources, in this illustrated lecture Dr Grady will provide a fascinating glimpse into the realities of working-class life in Hunslet, Leeds’ most important industrial suburb, in the four decades before the Second World War. Andrea Hetherington's lecture is now postponed until we are back to live lectures.
Monday April 19th	THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The Lord Mayor, Councillor Eileen Taylor, will be present. This will be followed by a talk entitled The Place of the River Aire in the History of Leeds. Kevin Grady will trace the evolving physical character of the river and its environment and its economic importance to Leeds.