2018-19

                                                                                 ODHS PROGRAMME 2018-2019

 2018

2 October      Ian Castle: The night the Zeppelins came: Croydon on the front line.

Ian told the story of 13 October 1914 when five Zeppelins set out from  the north west coast of Germany near Bremerhaven, on what was by far the most ambitious raid to England, in which one of the Zeppelins dropped bombs near Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge Camp, Oxted and Croydon.

16 October      Henry Hemming: Maxwell Knight  - MI5’s Greatest Spymaster

Historian and journalist Henry Hemming is the author of a best-selling book about MI5’s top spymaster before and during the Second World War, which was named as one of The Times’ Books of the Year for 2017.

30 October       Catherine Ferguson: Medieval Pilgrimages

Dr Catherine Ferguson was formerly a lecturer at Surrey University specialising in medieval and early modern history and is currently an honorary research fellow at the University of Roehampton.  She looked at the English experience of pilgrimage in a European context and its legacy, which remains in our churches and cathedrals to this day.

13 November    Nigel Arch: ‘A Very Special Villa’ - the Life and Times of Kensington Palace

Nigel Arch LVO worked for 40 years in museums and historic houses and is a former Director of Kensington Palace.

27 November    Prof David Stevenson: 1918 Revisited: How the First World War Ended

David Stevenson is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and is the author of numerous books and articles on the First World War.

11 December 2018   Charlie Jarrett:  Four Forges and a Coffin Shop, & the Christmas Party 

Charlie comes from a Limpsfield family which goes back many generations, and gave a short on the area, illustrated by photos from his extensive collection

 2019

8 January 2019        Judy Hill: Julia Margaret Cameron – Pioneer Victorian Photographer 

Dr Judy Hill returned to the Society to talk about one of the pioneering figures of photography in the nineteenth century, famous for her portraits of celebrities of the age.   

 22 January 2019      Maureen Stiller: Jane Austen and Marriage: Fact and Fiction 

Maureen is the secretary of the Jane Austen Society and spoke about marriage in the society of the period, particularly as it affected women of Jane Austen’s class, contrasting the reality with how it is portrayed in her novels.

5 February 2019       Stuart Denison: The History of Transport 1770-1870

A Society committee member, Stuart has spoken to us previously and in this talk covered the growth of the mail coach and other horse drawn transport, road development, canals and railways, and their social and economic impact .

19 February 2019     Alan Goldsmith: The Great Fire of London

Alan is a member of the Society and a City of London guide, and his presentation took us on the virtual walking tour around the streets and locations affected by the great fire of 1666.   

5 March 2019           Dr David Rudling: English Coins and Tokens: 1066 to 1971

Following his talk in 2017 on the history of ancient coinage, David Rudling of the Sussex School of Archaeology returned to present a history of English coins since the Norman conquest.

 19 March 2019         AGM &  Bob Evans: The ‘Peterloo Massacre’ 1819