Lectures & Speakers 2021 – 2022 (Provisional)
Our lecture season would normally run from October to April, with lectures being held in the Anna McDowell Garden Room at Gold Hill Museum on the first Tuesday afternoon of each month. The exception is the Teulon Porter Memorial Lecture, which starts the season and is held in the evening at Shaftesbury Town Hall. Noel Teulon Porter was a notable Cambridge archaeologist and instrumental in founding The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society in 1946.
The 2020-21 programme was organised prior to the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic. With the helpful assistance of the speakers it has been held over in its entirety until the 2021-22 season. Any changes will be advised through this page and our News Blog.
The 2020 Teulon Porter Lecture was cancelled. It was delivered on Tuesday 05 October 2021 by Professor Anthony Badger, formerly Paul Mellon Professor of American History, Master of Clare College and Chair of Cambridge Assessment at the University of Cambridge; Professor of American History at the University of Northumbria; and Past President of The Historical Association. (Further details at the foot of this page.)
Lectures are free to members, while visitors may pay £3 at the door (£5 for the Teulon Porter). To reserve a seat, non-members are advised to contact enquiries@goldhillmuseum.org.uk
Proposals for lectures to the Society on suitable historical subjects are welcome, and may also be made via enquiries@goldhillmuseum.org.uk
| Date / Time | Topic | Speaker | More |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, 02 November 2021 – 2.30pm – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
Please note that this talk was postponed from November 2020 | Posted in the Past | Helen Baggott | Helen Baggott is a Dorset-based freelance editor and writer. She has researched the people and the stories behind messages on vintage postcards, and published a fascinating collection under the same title |
| Tuesday, 07 December 2021 – 2.30pm – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
Postponed until a later date | London and Dorset; A Shared History in Construction | Sir John Stuttard | Sir John is a former Lord Mayor of London, current President of The S&DHS, and author of a recent book on John Rutter. He draws on his knowledge of the City to point up some little known architectural parallels. He will focus on the Isle of Purbeck, Swanage, and the links in marble and stone construction between Dorset and London |
| Tuesday, 04 January 2022 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
Owing to Omicron it has been necessary to postpone David’s talk again | Sir Merton Russell-Cotes and the Development of Bournemouth | David Beardsley | David Beardsley is a guide and outreach officer at the Russell-Cotes Museum. He shows how Merton Russell-Cotes helped drive the growth of Bournemouth as a tourist destination, and a century ago donated a magnificent, quirky house and art collection to its residents |
| Tuesday, 01 February 2022 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
This lecture was postponed from February 2021 | Thomas Hardy: the Novels, the Novelist and North Dorset | Alban O’Brien | Alban volunteers at Hardy’s Cottage and with the New Hardy Players. He was first going to share his enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, Hardy in 2020. We are hoping that it will be third time lucky |
| Tuesday, 01 March 2022 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
Provisionally rearranged from March 2021 | Reconstructing the Theatres of Shakespeare’s Time – the Globe and the Wanamaker Playhouse | Paul Simons | Paul Simons is a conservation architect and a Tourism, World Heritage and thermal spa specialist and consultant. He was intimately involved in the design and construction of the Tudor and Jacobean theatres rebuilt on the South Bank of the Thames. Currently he is chair of the Bath-based Cleveland Pools Trust, which aims to restore Britain’s oldest open-air lido for a 2022 re-opening |
| At a date and time to be arranged – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum
This presentation was postponed from April 2020 and is now scheduled for 2.30p.m. on Tuesday 06 December 2022 | Tea and Talks: Photographs of Edwardian Shaftesbury | S&DHS members Claire Ryley and Ann Symons | Following their phenomenally popular Shaftesbury Remembers sessions at Shaftesbury Library, Claire and Ann will be asking for the audience’s help in identifying scenes from the Tyler Photographic Collection. |
| Tuesday, 05 April 2022 – 2.30p.m. – The Garden Room, Gold Hill Museum | Fonthill Fever: the Fonthill Abbey Sales of 1822 and 1823 | Sidney Blackmore | Sidney Blackmore is Secretary of The Beckford Society. He introduces a major new Temporary Exhibition at Gold Hill Museum, showing how William Beckford’s decision to sell Fonthill Abbey and its contents gripped the public imagination two centuries ago |
