Events

Online Talk: The Work of Horace Jones, the Architect who Designed Tower Bridge

This talk will explore the life and work of Sir Horace Jones (1819-1887), chief architect to the City of London who designed many of its most famous buildings including Tower Bridge, Smithfield, Leadenhall and Billingsgate markets, and the Temple Bar memorial.

Walk: Merton Park, “The Original and Most Unique Garden Suburb”, led by Tony Woolfenden

Tony Woolfenden leads a walk around John Innes’ Merton Park estate, “the original and most unique garden suburb” (to quote the estate company’s advertisements).

Talk: The History of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, by Christina Clarke

Discover the stories of one of Liverpool’s most famous art collections in this in-person talk given by Christina Clarke.

Visit to Rochdale Town Hall 28 September 2024- update 2

Victorian Short Story Reading Group: ‘The Postmaster’ by Rabindranath Tagore

The Victorian Short Story Reading Group has regular meetings to explore some of the exciting material from the golden age of the British short story, which began during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The current theme is colonial short stories, starting with stories from India.

AGM Weekend in Bradford

The Victorian Society AGM 2024 which will be in Bradford, West Yorkshire, on Friday 4 October, followed by a weekend of architectural tours in Bradford and the surrounding area.

Talk: Lost Gardens of London, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

This talk will focus on and celebrate the evanescence of the metropolis’s vast and varied garden legacy.

Talk: Sheffield’s Crofts settlements with Christine Minter

Talk: the Arts and Crafts Museum at the Manchester School of Art – a guided tour from 1903

Online Talk: Death and the Victorians – A Dark Fascination

In Death and the Victorians, author Adrian Mackinder explores the dark side of the nineteenth century, when hunger for truth about what lies beyond the grave was matched only by the imagination and invention used to find it.

Visit: Street’s Church and House, Holmbury St Mary – G E Street Bicentenary

This visit is to the church which G E Street built in in 1878-79 as a memorial to his second wife, Jessie, who died soon after their honeymoon in 1876. It is very much a personal statement which he paid for himself.

Visit: RIBA Drawings Collection at the V&A

The visit will start with an introductory talk on the history of the RIBA Drawings Collection by curator, Charles Hind followed by a look at a selection of Victorian drawings from the collection, including several by Alfred Waterhouse for the Natural History Museum. We will move across to the Museum to look at the exterior and the Great Hall.

Online Lecture: The London Gasketeers: The Fight to Save Westminster’s Historic Gas Lamps, by Luke Honey

Luke Honey discusses the fight to save Westminster’s gas lamps, their historic importance and the story of gas lighting in London.

Autumn Online Lecture Series 2024: Crossing Boundaries-Victorian Art, Design and Architecture-7 talks for 6

The 2024 Autumn Lecture Series discusses how 19th century architects conceived of the decorative and fine arts as part of an architectural whole. Our seven expert speakers will boldly break down disciplinary boundaries in a discussion of the use of colour and texture across the whole range of Victorian design and analyses of the important roles played by mosaic, stained glass, embroidery and three-dimensional wall coverings.

Online Lecture: Outstanding Stories: Victorian Relief Decorations, A Lecture by Jo Banham

This lecture by Jo Banham explores the history, design and production of these innovative but still under-rated wall-coverings.

Visit: All Saints’ church, Putney Common – G E Street Bicentenary

All Saints’ church, Putney, was opened as a chapel of ease in 1874. The interior is richly polychromatic and the many Morris & Co windows are of outstanding quality. This visit is our final look at a church by G E Street.

Talk: Victorian Cutlery from The Ken Hawley Collection

Visit: St Mary’s at West Tofts

A unique opportunity to visit a small medieval church transformed by A W Pugin and his son in the 1840s and 1850s.

Online Lecture: Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design, by Matthew Winterbottom

Matthew Winterbottom talks about the recent Ashmolean Exhibition Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design that sought to challenge widely held perceptions that the Victorian age was dark and gloomy.

Online Lecture: ‘Fair and Beautiful to Behold’ – Ecclesiastical Embroideries, by Mary Schoeser

This lecture discusses the neo-Gothic in relation to textiles and wallpapers, which focuses on ecclesiastical embroideries in particular. The title, Fair and Beautiful to Behold is after a quotation from G.E. Street. The lecture spills into the Edwardian period to include a Pankhurst banner and Ann Macbeth frontal, to bring out the double meaning of ‘fair’ (in social/political terms).

Victorian Short Story Reading Group: ‘The Salt Inspector’ (Namak ka Daroga) by Munshi Premchand

The Victorian Short Story Reading Group has regular meetings to explore some of the exciting material from the golden age of the British short story, which began during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The current theme is colonial short stories, starting with stories from India.

Talk: Art and Architecture of Sicily

Online Lecture: The Mosaics of Westminster Cathedral, by Peter Howell

This talk will examine the decorative interior of Westminster Cathedral, particularly the mosaics. J F Bentley intended that the interior should be covered in marble revetment and mosaics but he never had any mosaics installed. However, he approved the designs for the Holy Souls Chapel by his friend William Christian Symons.

Online Lecture: Owen Jones and the V&A, by Olivia Horsfall Turner

This talk will examine each of the projects that linked Victorian designer Owen Jones and the early V&A: his famous illustrated publication The Grammar of Ornament (1856), his decorative scheme for the so-called ‘Oriental Court’, and his relatively little-known book Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867).

Talk: Women’s Suffrage before the Suffragettes with Matthew Roberts & Denise Annett

Online Lecture: Innovations in the Art and Craft of Stained Glass in the 19th Century

The quest for materials that would evoke the chromatic and textural qualities of early medieval stained glass inspired the work of manufacturers, artists and architects during the Victorian era. This illustrated lecture examines how the art form evolved alongside new technical developments.

Christmas lunch, tour and talk at Werneth Grange, Oldham

Online Lecture: Alfred Stevens: Master of Design, 1817-1875, by Teresa Sladen

When Alfred Stevens was waiting to hear who would finally be given the commission to design the Wellington Monument he said “They must give it to me. No one else knows anything about ornament”. What he meant by this is the subject of this lecture.

Talk: Scattered Homes by Sheffield Hospitals History Group

Talk: Sheffield in 1903 – A History Tour of Central Sheffield through 120 Old Photographs with Martin Naylor

Talk: Philosophical Foundations: Origins of Sheffield’s First Public Museum in Weston Park