Events - Live and Online
The Victorian Society is an CPD provider recognised by the The Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
Victorian Society events are publicised to members below and in the 'Blue Sheet' with our mailings in February, June and October.
For events organised by our regional groups, please see the regional group pages:
Birmingham & West Midlands; Leicester; Liverpool; Manchester; West Yorkshire; South Yorkshire and Wales.
Missed a talk? Discover our recorded online talks here.
We're always looking for volunteers to put on events with us. Please contact us if you are interested in getting involved at [email protected].
Future Events
Sir Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), president of the RIAS, was a prolific and highly regarded Scottish architect of houses, castles, churches and memorials, including the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle. The Victorian Society is proposing to run a tour of Lorimer’s buildings at the end of March and beginning of April 2024.
The Victorian Society AGM 2024 will be in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on Friday 4 October, followed by a weekend of architectural tours in Bradford and the surrounding area. Please email expressions of interest for either or both events to: [email protected]
Forthcoming Events
Save Liverpool Street Station Public Meeting
Date: Tue 21st November
Time: 6 pm
Venue: The Great Hall, Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH
Come to the meeting at Bishopsgate Institute and hear how:
- part of Liverpool Street Station will be demolished, and a huge tower cantilevered through and over the Grade II Listed hotel;
- Commuters will face TEN YEARS of misery and disruption;
-The train sheds and concourse will be in constant gloom under the proposed tower;
- The improvements that the scheme claims to pay for are already happening;
- The plans will set a terrible precedent, meaning no listed building will be safe from having a tower built in the “airspace” over it;
- The so-called “eco tower” will pump out huge carbon emissions during its construction
No need to book. Seats are on a first come, first served basis.
For further information, click here.
TO ACCESS THE WEBINAR, CLICK HERE. JOIN AT 6PM
NOVEMBER
Online Autumn Talk Series 2023
Railway Architecture and Society in the Victorian Age.
When the Victorian Society was founded in 1958 the railway system inherited from the previous century was still largely intact. Though much has since been lost, the railways of the period retained their fascination, both for their buildings and for their wider importance in forging the Victorian world.
The autumn lecture series will revisit the society's valiant campaign to save Euston station, the world's first long-distance railway terminus. It will also explore some of the diverse and surprising ways in which the railway preservation movement has since found new homes and fresh uses for many less monumental buildings. Other talks present new discoveries on railway company architecture, and on the distinctive work of C.H. Driver. Framing the architectural subjects, two talks by leading scholars reassess the growth of the Victorian railway system and the liberating opportunities presented by the railway excursion. The series concludes with a panel discussion of Liverpool Street station, a great Victorian building currently threatened with ruinous redevelopment.
Each talk is £6 and includes a recording that you can access at any time.
SPECIAL OFFER: Buy one ticket and get 7 talks for the price of 6!
Book here
Buildings in Motion: the Creative Reuse of Railway Structures in the Preservation Era by Simon Bradley
Date: Wed 22nd November
Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm
Britain’s preserved railways have helped to secure the future of many Victorian station buildings, along with numerous other distinctive structures from the age of steam, such as signal boxes, goods sheds and footbridges. More than this, they have given new homes and uses to a wealth of other structures that would otherwise have been lost.
An exploration of the preservation world lines reveals some of the challenges and rewards of keeping these buildings in active use. Along the way we meet some old friends, including the footbridge formerly inside the train shed at Kings Cross and the old Rewley Road terminus from Oxford, a precious survival of Sir Joseph Paxton’s modular system of prefabricated iron and timber, as used famously at the Crystal Palace.
Simon Bradley is series editor of the Pevsner Architectural Guides. He has a longstanding interest in Britain’s railways and their history, and is author of The Railways: Nation, Network and People (2015).
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Women on the Move: Working Class Railway Excursions in the Early Victorian Period by Susan Major
Date: Wed 29th November
Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm
The leisure opportunities for working-class women in early Victorian Britain have received little attention for various reasons. This was of course a time of great change, as industrialisation drew many thousands of people from the countryside into towns. But the fast-developing railway network provided a ‘connectedness’ across the landscape, enhancing the potential mobility of the working classes. Early railway excursions gave women the opportunity to travel far away from home in crowded railway wagons, a cheap freedom, which they enjoyed, despite risking offensive behaviour by men. This talk uses evidence from contemporary newspapers and 19th century literature, to offer glimpses of the leisure activities of ordinary women from the 1830s to the 1860s.
Susan Major completed a PhD with the Institute of Railway Studies & Transport History at the University of York in 2012. Her research focused on early railway excursion crowds during the period 1840-1860, a watershed moment for working class mobility. Her book, Early Victorian Railway Excursions: ‘The Million Go Forth’ (2015), based on her doctoral research, was shortlisted for the Railways and Canal Historical Society Book of the Year Awards 2017.
Susan has featured in a number of TV programmes about Victorian railways: Railways: the Making of a Nation (BBC), Tony Robinson’s History of Britain (Channel 5), and Secrets of the Railways (UKTV). Her second book, Female Railway Workers in World War II (2018), drew upon interviews in the National Archive of Railway Oral History at the National Railway Museum.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
A Panel Discussion about Liverpool Street Station
Date: Wed 6th December
Time: 7 pm - 8:30 pm
Liverpool Street Station and the former Great Eastern Hotel, which was recently upgraded to Grade II* following the Society’s application, are one of London’s great railway set pieces. The are now under threat from partial demolition and a huge tower which will be cantilevered over and through the hotel. This is the second time that Liverpool Street has faced demolition. The Society was part of a campaign to save it from total destruction in the 1970s. The campaign’s success at public inquiry led to the sensitive conservation led scheme that we have today.
Join the Director of the Victorian Society Joe O’Donnell who will chair a panel exploring the issues that this looming battle raises and what the precedent of the scheme will mean for heritage protection in London and the UK. Panellists include Robert Thorne, author of the 1978 book on Liverpool Street Station, who will reflect on what the fundamental problems of the station are, what was achieved at the 1975-6 Public Inquiry and how the Nick Derbyshire scheme furthered that achievement and Victorian Society caseworker, Guy Newton, who will talk about the current plans. Further panellists TBC.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Victorian Short Story Reading Group: ' A Father in Zion' by Caradoc Evans
Date: Thu 7 Dec
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Venue: Priory Gardens, London W4 1TT
Continuing our exploration of regional short stories, we will be looking at ' A Father in Zion' by Caradoc Evans which is set in Wales.
Caradoc Evans first began gathering stories from his own locality of Cardiganshire during the 1880s and 90s, which he later used as a base for a collection of short stories called My People from which this story is taken. Although popular when first published, it was also vilified by many of his fellow Welsh nationals, as the stories reveal some deeply unflattering portraits of the inhabitants of the area.
At each session there is a brief introduction to the work, followed by a group discussion in a relaxed atmosphere, with wine and nibbles supplied.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Online Talk: Great British Parks – A Concise History by Paul Rabbitts
Date: Tues 9 Jan
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
This talk illustrates their origins, discusses the need for parks, the Victorian heyday, what makes a great park, with examples of lodges, lakes, bandstands, fountains and floral displays, to their great decline in the sixties and seventies. Paul Rabbitts has worked in the parks sector for over 35 years, as a landscape architect and an award-winning parks manager.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Victorian Short Story Reading Group: ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’ by D H Lawrence
Date: Tue 16 Jan
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Venue: Priory Gardens, London W4 1TT
In this Nottinghamshire story Lawrence shows the harsh realities of life within a mining community and how these difficulties can put strain on the human relationships within that community.
At each session there is a brief introduction to the work, followed by a group discussion in a relaxed atmosphere, with wine and nibbles supplied.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
An 1890s House in Clapham
Date: Thu 18 Jan
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Nearest tube: Clapham South
Exclusive to Victorian Society Members
This is a rare and privileged opportunity to see the colourful and atmospheric candlelit interiors of such a house in Clapham along with a collection of 18th- and 19th-century, Arts & Crafts and contemporary furniture, metalwork and other objects. The address will be sent after payment is received.
Ticket Price: £20
Book Now
***
Online Talk: Fragments of Flamboyancy and Flair in the Second City of the Empire by Rosalie Menon
Date: Wed 24 Jan
Time: 7.00 pm – 8.30 pm
Architect and Senior Lecturer at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, Rosalie Menon FRIAS, discusses the legacy of Empire within Glasgow, from its warehouses and industrial buildings to the associated financial and commercial institutions. The nineteenth-century boom in population and the consequent rapid economic growth created a demand for civic buildings, including market halls, libraries and cultural buildings. This injection of money into Glasgow allowed architects and talented craftsmen to experiment with quality building materials with flair and flamboyancy. Each of these buildings tell a social history of the Second City of the Empire.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Online Winter Talk Series 2024
Victorian and Edwardian Architecture in the Wider British World
Although the sun has long-since set on the British Empire, its architecture still casts a long shadow. For the 2024 Winter Talk series the Victorian Society will be visiting Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, Malaya and New Zealand, with a number of the lectures coming from those countries themselves. A range of themes or positions will be discussed, for the architecture of the colonisers to the legacy they left behind to the manner in which the foreign architecture was adapted and adopted by the indigenous peoples who understood the nature of the climate and materials of their own countries. The lecture series ends with an overview and analysis of Edwardian Baroque architecture in ‘Greater Britain’.On 24 January there is an introductory lecture on nineteenth-century Glasgow, the Second City of the Empire.
SPECIAL OFFER: Buy one ticket and get 7 talks for the price of 6!
Book here: bit.ly/2024WinterTalks
Colonial Aspiration and Nineteenth Century Public Building in Australia
Time: Wed 31 Jan
Date: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
The Victorian era in the Australian colonies was a significant period of population growth, urban expansion and civic building. Gold rushes, notably in the Colony of Victoria in the early 1850s, provided the means for ambitious architecture, and set a high bar for neighbouring colonies establishing their economic and cultural infrastructure and identities.This talk discusses approaches to nineteenth-century public building in the Australian colonies. Dr Stuart King is a senior lecturer in architectural design and history at the University of Melbourne and a member of the University’s Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
‘In touch with our modern civilization’: Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, in the Nineteenth and Twenty-first Centuries
Date: Tue 6 Feb
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
This presentation will explore the Victorian and Edwardian architecture of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, as well as the importance and the challenges of keeping that architecture viable in the present day. Although the town’s layout is unchanged since its founding in 1753, much of its distinct architectural character dates from its period of greatest prosperity - the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Peter Coffman is an Associate Professor in Carleton University’s History & Theory of Architecture programme. Hilary Grant is Senior Planner and Heritage Officer for the Town of Lunenburg.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Enviable Reputation: An Indian Engineer and the Construction of Victorian Bombay
Date: Tue 13 Feb
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
In most architectural histories of Bombay, native engineers are either ignored or summarily dispatched because they are not seen to be the originator of ideas but, rather, functionaries who carried out orders. But is this all they were? This lecture will examine the role of one prominent Indian architect and engineer of the Victorian era, Khan Bahadur Muncherji Cowasji Murzban (1839-1917) concentrating on his official career to examine his meteoric rise and his role in the construction of Victorian Bombay. Preeti Chopra is Professor of Modern Architecture, Urban History and Visual Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and specializes in the visual, spatial, and cultural landscapes of South Asia and the British Empire.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Life on the Buffalo River - the Development of East London, South Africa
Time: Tue 20 Feb
Date: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
The river port town of East London, on the eastern seaboard of South Africa, was born in conflict in 1848, and after a long period of penury, finally commenced with more substantial development in the 1870s. The talk will provide an overview of the history and development of the town and present some of the Victorian era architecture and structures.
William Martinson is a conservation architect, a past Council Member of the Eastern Cape Provincial Heritage Resources Authority and a member of the Board of the East London Museum.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Eclecticism and Ornament in Malaya’s Vernacular Classicism
Date: Wed 28 Feb
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
Between 1786 and 1957, Britain exerted colonial influence over the Malay Peninsula and its neighbouring islands. For most of this time, classicism served as the language of imperial rule, synonymous with British power. Yet elements of the style were quickly adopted, appropriated, and adapted – first by local elites and subsequently by the masses. This lecture explores how the eclectic ornamental classicism of Victorian and Edwardian Britain came to influence Malaya’s own syncretic brand of classical architecture, resulting in a unique regional style. Soon-Tzu Speechley is Lecturer in Urban and Cultural Heritage at the University of Melbourne.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Building Better Britain: Victorian Architecture in New Zealand, 1840 – 1901
Date: Wed 6 Mar
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
The nineteenth-century colonisation of New Zealand was seen as an opportunity to establish a new society on the far side of the world that would perpetuate British culture while avoiding the poverty, overcrowding and industrial pollution that afflicted contemporary Britain.Here, a range of factors, shaped an architecture that was recognisably British yet distinctively of its place in the South Pacific. Ian Lochhead taught Art History at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, from 1981 to 2014.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
The Architecture of ‘Greater Britain’: Style and Empire, c.1885-1915
Date: Wed 13 Mar
Time: 7:00 – 8:30 pm
This lecture will consider the role architecture played in responding to perceived notions of British decline in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will focus on the Edwardian Baroque style and its relationship to the idea of ‘Greater Britain’, suggesting that architects, their clients, and critics associated with the design of substantial public and commercial buildings during this period, both in Britain and in the wider British world, were acutely aware of the meaning that the style carried. Alex Bremner is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh.
Ticket Price: £6
Book Now
***
Royal Albert Hall - Behind the Scenes Tour
Date: Mon 5 Feb
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
This is a very rare opportunity to go behind the scenes of a Grade I listed building and see parts of the Royal Albert Hall that are normally off limits to the public. Led by the Tour Research and Development Executive, you will see the non-public spaces of the building that hosted some of the world’s biggest change-makers, history-shapers and walk the artists’ corridors. This Behind the Scenes tour takes you under the stage, into the dressing rooms and deep underground into the bustling loading bay. This tour is an opportunity to acquire a very rare insight into how the building works and how the show, hospitality and technical teams come together to stage over 390 different events in the main auditorium per year.
Ticket Price: £25
SOLD OUT
***
Victorian Short Story Reading Group: ‘The Body Snatcher’, by Robert Louis Stevenson with June Lawrence
Date: Wed 7 Feb
Time: 7.00 – 8.30 pm
Venue: Priory Gardens, London W4 1TT
This Scottish short story of two grave robbers has characters based on criminals employed by the real-life surgeon Robert Knox (1791–1862).
At each session there is a brief introduction to the work, followed by a group discussion in a relaxed atmosphere, with wine and nibbles supplied.
Ticket Price: £6
***
Discover our recorded online talks here.
Events
Disclaimer, cancellation and accessibility
Please read our disclaimer, which contains information on event cancellations and accessibility.