We will be holding talks face-to-face and on-line during the 2026-2027 programme. More details will be added to the website as we have them available and we will also send email updates. We are using Ticketsource to provide on-line registration, if you are a member of the HA (local or national) or a student registration is free, guests will be asked to pay £4 (plus 34p booking fee) when booking. If you have any queries please contact us at histassocglos@gmail.com
Updated September 2026
2026-2027 Programmme
Tuesday 8 September 7.30pm, AGM and a Quiz
The AGM and talk will be held at the Exmouth Arms 167 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7LX and as a Zoom meeting. Food will be available at the Exmouth Arms before the AGM.
From approximately 8.15pm:
Holst’s Cheltenham – a quiz
The quiz will be hosted by a member of staff from the Holst Museum in Cheltenham. Good luck!
Register for Zoom
Monday 12 October 7.30pm, FCH Campus, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham and Zoom
The International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War: Biographies and Social History
Dr Mike Richards, Associate Professor of Contemporary European History, University of the West of England
Dr Richards research interests lie primarily in the social, political, and cultural history of modern Spain, its civil war and the dictatorship of General Franco (1936-75). The talk explores the part played by volunteers for the Republican side during the civil war in the light of reflections on their social and political backgrounds and lives. At the same time, it comments on the use of individual biographies in the methods and aims of social historians.
Register for Zoom
Monday 9 November 7.30pm, Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL1 3DW and Zoom
Revisiting the General Strike of 1926
Professor James Thompson, Professor of Modern History, University of Bristol
To follow.
Register for Zoom
Monday 14 December 7.30pm, The Exmouth Arms, 167 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7LX
Spice!! Not to mention Christmas puddings….
Roger Crowley, independent scholar
Roger is a best-selling narrative historian with deep interests in the Mediterranean world and its surrounding area. His most recent book tells the story of the sixteenth-century’s epic contest for the spice trade, which propelled European maritime exploration and conquest across Asia and the Pacific. Roger’s illustrated talk on Europe’s obsession with spices that triggered the first phase of globalization, shaped the modern world – and popularized Christmas puddings…
Join us for a Christmas event at The Exmouth, food and drink will be available.
We will not be using Zoom for this talk but it will be recorded for our YouTube channel so can be watched at a later date, or again!
Monday 18 January 7.30pm, Zoom only
Appalachia and the Hillbilly in the American Imagination
Professor Tony Harkins, Western Kentucky University
Anthony Harkins’ pioneering cultural history, Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, explores how the “hillbilly” evolved in the American imagination. He traces this enduring yet contested stereotype from the late 19th century through films, music, and the Internet
Link for Zoom to follow
Monday 15 February 7.30pm, Zoom only
Global Politics of Welsh Patagonia
Dr Lucy Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies, University of Aberystwyth
Lucy will challenge dominant romantic images of Y Wladfa, the Welsh Patagonian settlement founded in 1865. Drawing on archival sources written in Spanish, Welsh and English, the talk will expose the complex human relationships of this settler colony, and in particular disrupts the myth of Welsh–Indigenous friendship by foregrounding Indigenous experience.
Link for Zoom to follow
Monday 8 March 7.30pm, FCH Campus, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ and Zoom
Women and the Crusades
Helen Nicholson, Emerita Professor of Medieval History, University of Cardiff
Professor Nicholson is a world-leading scholar in research into the Templars and Hospitallers and the Crusades. Her talk will focus on the role of women in the crusades. Did women support crusades? Did women go on crusades? If they did, did they fight? Did women on the ‘other side’ fight? Cultural norms in European Christian and Muslim society in the middle ages did not expect women to take part in fighting. Yet some of the contemporary sources indicate that they did take an active part in crusade warfare. This talk explores the various roles that medieval women played in the crusades.
Link for Zoom to follow
Monday 26 April 7.30pm, University of Gloucestershire FCH Campus, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ and on Zoom
Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649 – 1660
Professor Alice Hunt, Professor of Early Modern Literature and History, University of Southampton
The decade after the execution of Charles 1 (1649) saw a transformation of the relationship between England, Scotland and Ireland, reset the compact between the monarch and the people, and re-fashioned the story the British told – and continue to tell – about themselves. In this talk Professor Hunt will tell something of the story of what Britain’s republic was really like: why it failed, but also, what it got right.
Link for Zoom to follow
Monday 17 May 7.30pm, Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL1 3DW
General Maczek’s 1st Corps in WW2 and their post war fates
Mr Marin Silarski and Mr Krzystof Luskiewicz, private scholars
The Polish First Armoured Division under command of General Maczek played an important role in the liberation of France, Belgium and the Netherlands in 1944/5. For two years after the war members of the Division occupied northern parts of Germany, returning to England in June 1947, where they were disarmed and demobilised. As a result of the government’s legislation, Polish resettlement camps were created across Britain to house arriving Polish forces, often found in former army and air force camps, and military hospitals, with many closing by the 1950s and 1960s. Finding a place in British life was, however, challenging. This talk will offer both a survey of General Maczek’s campaign and a personal view of life in the Corps and in a local, Gloucestershire resettlement camp.
Link for Zoom to follow
Talk information
Meetings begin at 7.30 p.m., and are usually on Mondays but please note Tuesday for the AGM.
Where we are holding Zoom webinars we will send out joining instructions to members and provide links from this website normally two months before the event.
The venues for meetings are often campuses of the University of Gloucestershire but please note details of individual meetings.
All venues have access from car parks and public transport. Parking fees may be charged.
Meetings are free for members, £4 for visitors. (School and university students are always welcome to attend free of charge.) When booking for Zoom use of the members password will give a free ticket, visitors will be charged £4 plus an additional 34p booking charge.
For further details please contact the secretary, Robert Sutton, tel: 01242 574889. Or email histassocglos@gmail.com
For details of previous years’ programmes, please go here.