We will be holding talks face-to-face and on-line during the 2025-2026 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 August 2025
2025 – 2026 programme
Tuesday 23 September 7.30pm, AGM and Patently Obvious, 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, if you wish to have a meal please contact us at histassocglos@gmail.com by 5 September for further information.
To register for Zoom – https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/historical-association-gloucestershire-branch/t-ojnqvpy
From approximately 8.15pm:
The Patently Obvious quiz
The quiz will illustrate a number of patents that were put forward in the UK and USA, mainly from the 1900s. You just have to work out what they were for!! Multiple choice options make it a bit easier? Good luck.
Monday 13 October 7.30pm, FCH Campus, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham and Zoom
Remembering the Reformation
Professor Alex Walsham Emmanuel College, Cambridge and President of the Historical Association
This lecture has a double objective: it explores how the Reformation transformed medieval memorial culture and perceptions of the Christian past, alongside the manner in which the Reformation itself was remembered, forgotten, contested and reinvented by later generations and in subsequent centuries.
Register for Zoom here
Monday 10 November 7.30pm, Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL1 3DW and Zoom
Rethinking Enclosure: encroachment, and the making of property and community on the margins in the English west
Professor Carl Griffin, University of Sussex
To follow
Register for Zoom here
Monday 15 December 7.30pm, The Exmouth Arms, 167 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7LX
Pantomime and Tradition: Pantomime is Never as Good as it Used to Be …
Professor Kate Newey, University of Exeter
We like to think that pantomime is the most English of entertainments. It’s everybody’s Christmas entertainment, fun for all the family, and unchanging.
However – like many things English – it is actually a mongrel form, bred of Italian commedia dell’arte and street acrobats, out of harsh eighteenth century satire, Dickensian jollification, and twentieth century sensationalism. The pantomime at Christmas is for all the family, but different members of the family will enjoy different things in it. We’ll all laugh at the antics on stage however, and feel reassured that in the darkest and busiest days of the year, we can settle into three hours of a warmth, light, and silliness.
Kate Newey will give an illustrated talk about the history of pantomime, with a focus on the heyday of Victorian pantomime, and Pantomime fairies and Dames.
Join us for a Christmas event at The Exmouth, food and drink will be available.
Monday 19 January 7.30pm, Zoom only
The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
Dr Kate Rivington, Monash University, Melbourne University, Australia
Details to follow.
Zoom link to follow.
Monday 16 February 7.30pm, Zoom only
How to lose friends and alienate people: Chieftains in the Icelandic medieval sagas
Dr Louisa Taylor, University of Aberystwyth
Details to follow.
Zoom link to follow.
Wednesday 18 March 7.30pm, Gloucestershire Heritage Hub, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL1 3DW and Zoom
The First Opium War, 1839 to 1842: Origin, Theatre and Consequences
Professor Yang-Wen Zheng; University of Manchester
How did increased tea consumption and the growth of middle class in 18th and 19th century Britain led to war with China? To what extent was the conflict less about opium and more about silver? How did the conflict shape the history of modern China and led to the country’s transformation in the post-Mao era? The talk dives deep into the origins of the conflict, it explores the theatre of war and probes both the short- and long-term consequences.
Born and raised in China, Professor Zheng was educated at Oberlin College (USA) and Cambridge University (King’s College). She taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the National University of Singapore before joining Manchester where she is Professor of Chinese history. She has authored/edited 10 volumes, including The Social Life of Opium in China and Ten Lessons in Modern Chinese History.
Zoom link to follow.
Monday 20 April 7.30pm, University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus; The Park, Cheltenham GL50 2RH and on Zoom
Links Between the American and French Revolutions
Professor William Doyle; Professor Emeritus of History and Senior Research Fellow, University of Bristol
Professor Doyle has written extensively on French and European history from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. He has been a consultant to various television programmes on revolutionary and pre-revolutionary France, appeared in programmes on Marie-Antoinette and the OU Introduction to History programmes and spoken on the radio on themes in the same area. Professor Doyle regularly lecturers at sixth-form conferences.
Zoom link to follow.
Monday 18 May 7.30pm, Francis Close Hall Campus, University of Gloucestershire, St Pauls Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4AZ
Panel discussion on the relationship between academic history and historical fiction
Members of the Humanities Team at the University of Gloucestershire
A conversation on the relationship between academic history and historical fiction.
Talk information
Meetings begin at 7.30 p.m., and are usually on Mondays but please note Tuesday for the AGM in September and Wednesday for our talk in March.
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.