Programme
Meetings are normally held at the Battle Memorial Hall, generally on the third Thursday of each month at 7.30 pm, but please check the programme as occasionally the venue and day may change.
Painting of a BDHS lecture in progress in the Wynne Room by Chris O’Brian © BDHS
2023-24 Season
Thr Franklin Letters
Date: 21 Sept 2023
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Letters sent by the officers and crew, and their correspondents, offer an inside view to Sir John Franklin’s fateful expedition to the Arctic, detailing the experience of those on board and also poignant stories of hope from their friends and family who continued to send letters with search expeditions when it was clear that something was amiss.
A Lecture by
Mary Williamson and Peter Carney
Norman Castles of Kent and Sussex
Date: 19 Oct 2023
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
The modern tendency in studying castles is to look at them less as simply military structures and more in terms of their wider social importance, and how they projected the power of their lords even during (more typical) periods of peace. Castles in Sussex and Kent share many of these features with Norman castles elsewhere in England, but the two counties also had their own distinctive characters, and form an interesting contrast of geography and politics in the Norman period.
Commemoration Lecture to be given by
Richard Eales
‘That Which Was Their Duty’: The Mary Stanford Disaster
Date: 16 Nov 2023
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
The talk commemorates the seventeen Rye Harbour crewmen of the Mary Stanford Lifeboat, which launched at 6.45 am on 15 November 1928 to save a stricken vessel. None of the crew survived; it was the biggest loss of life from a single lifeboat in the history of the RNLI.
A Lecture by
Brig. Hugh Willing
Regent’s Park on Sea: James Burton’s Seaside Resort
Date: 14 Dec 2023
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Lieutenant-Colonel James Burton was the most successful property developer of Regency and Georgian London, building over 3,000 properties over 250 acres. He also developed the town of St Leonard’s, which he started in 1828. Some of his buildings survive to this day and a collection of his drawings are part of the collection of Hastings Museum.
A Lecture by
Stephen Howard Gray
Kent and Sussex Village Names and Their Meanings
Date: 18 Jan 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Simon Mansfield will present his interpretation of the local Saxon village names which appears to make logical sense but which, he says, is probably not to be described as mainstream.
A Lecture by
Simon Mansfield
The Vicissitudes of the Battle Abbey Archives
Date: 15 Feb 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Christopher Whittick will cover the creation and custody of the archives from the medieval period until the second half of the 20th century.
A Lecture by
Christopher Whittick
Life on a Whatlington Farm in Late Victorian Times
Date: 21 Mar 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Using the daily records kept by the farm overseer at Hancox Farm in 1899-1900, Charlotte Moore will describe the details of life on a 160-acre mixed farm: who were employed there, where they lived, what they were paid; which crops were grown; which animals were kept; agricultural methods, equipment and tools; the links between the farm and the local community, and more. She will compare farming practice then with the current situation – the farm is still operating today.
The Richard Moore Memorial Lecture to be given by
Charlotte Moore
The Portable Antiquities Scheme: Sussex
Date: 18 Apr 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Jane Clark, Finds Liaison Officer for Sussex, will talk about the work of the Scheme and some of the fascinating finds that have been made in the area.
A Lecture by
Jane Clark
‘Batting for Merrie England’
Date: 16 May 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
‘If the French noblesse has been capable of playing cricket with their peasants, their chateaux would never have been burnt’ G M Trevelyan, 1944. The talk will explore the role of cricket in English Society in 17th and 18th centuries: not facts and figures about the game!
The Springfield Memorial Lecture to be given by
Roy Hyde
Women and Work in Tudor and Stuart Kent
Date: 20 Jun 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
Educational opportunities for Tudor and Stuart women were very limited, as they were barred from the universities. This meant that women could not pursue a professional career, their labour was seen as unskilled and they were paid less than men. Nevertheless, the fascinating evidence provided in advice books for servants, ballads and woodcuts reveals the wide range of jobs open to women and the perils they encountered in entering the early modern world of work.
A Lecture by
Prof. Jackie Eales
Writers of Romney Marsh
Date: 18 Jul 2024
Start time: 7:30 PM
End time: 9:30 PM
The Romney Marsh writers would never have seen themselves as a group but literary history has brigaded them according to the geography and time, not least because they mostly knew and, in some cases, influenced each other. They were all active in the early 20th century and include Henry James, H G Wells, Joseph Conrad, Ford Madox Ford, Hart Crane and – though he might not have included himself – Rudyard Kipling. What brought them to this part of the world, how did they get on, and did the Marsh and its environs influence their writing?
The Robertson Memorial Lecture to be given by
Alan Judd
2023-24 Lecturers
Mary Williamson and Peter Carney :
Mary Williamson is the great-great-grand niece of Sir John Franklin. A qualified archivist, she is custodian of the private family archives, of which the Franklin-related material constitutes a major part. She has attended Franklin Symposiums in Mystic Seaport and Anchorage, as well as visiting ‘Franklin sites’ in Tasmania and along the Northwest passage route. Peter Carney had a lifelong interest in archaeology and experimental archaeology. His fascination with the 1845 Franklin Expedition is at the centre of a wide ranging interest in the history and technology of the Victorian era. He writes the ‘Erebus’ and Terror Files’ blog.
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Richard Eales :
Richard Eales taught medieval history at the University of Kent from 1976 until his retirement. He has written on medieval Kent, Norman England and the Domesday Book, as well as castles. He also has an interest in the history of games, from the Middle Ages onwards, and has the title of chess master.
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Brigadier Hugh Willing :
Hugh Willing lectures on British Military and Colonial History. He has travelled widely in Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, Arabia and the Far East both in a military and private capacity. He was a professional soldier for 36 years before retiring in 2007: he served in the Royal Green Jackets and the 2nd KEO Gurkha Rifles in many parts of the world. His final posting was in Oman as the Defence Attache at the British Embassy for 4 years.
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Stephen Howard Gray :
Stephen Howard Gray is a retired architect and historic buildings consultant. Much of his work centred on listed buildings and conservation areas in central London and his experience of the historic environment has included work on a medieval castle and royal residences, ranging from 14th century buildings to those of the 20th Century Modern Movement, including many listed at Grades 1 or 2*.
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Simon Mansfield :
Simon Mansfield was born Etchingham and has lived in 1066 country all his life, apart from a brief stop in Lamberhurst. He became interested in history of the area when he started compiling details of a few hundred local villages and became addicted to researching a more detailed history of the area. He has found that his scientific background very useful in exploring the past with limited documentation.
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Christopher Whittick :
Christopher Whittick was the County Archivist of East Sussex for many years, working for the County Council for a total of 40 years. He is Chairman of the Trustees of the Sussex Historic Churches Trust, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Society of Antiquaries and the Artworkers Guild. He regularly teaches palaeography and local history at the Universities of Sussex, London, Oxford, Cambridge and Keele, and has completed his catalogue of the Battle Abbey archive at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California.
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Charlotte Moore :
Charlotte Moore is an author, teacher and lecturer. Her book, Hancox: A House and a Family, uses archive material to reveal the domestic and social history of the place where she grew up, and where she still lives with her partner and her sons.
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Jane Clark :
Jane Clark is the Finds Liaison Office for Sussex and as such, she is the person who decides if items will be entered into the scheme’s database operated by the British Museum. She has a BA and Masters degrees in Artefact Studies from the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London. Until coming to Sussex, she was a part-time lecturer in Roman and Medieval Artefacts at the University of Kent and then Finds Liaison Assistant for Kent.
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Roy Hyde :
Roy Hyde was Head of Classics at University College School, London for twenty years and Chief Examiner in Greek for the same amount of time. He played cricket until he was 65 when, like W G Grace, he took up bowls. He is currently captain and chairman of Battle Bowls Club. He also sings with the Battle Choral Society and choir at St Mary’s Church, and is secretary of its PCC. He has written on Classical subjects and contributes regularly to the journal of the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (as a historian, not statistician).
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Professor Jackie Eales :
Jackie Eales is a popular return speaker, whose previous topics include Charles the Martyr, and 16th century pirates. She is Professor Emeritus at Canterbury Christchurch University. She was president of the national Historical Association from 2011 to 2014 and is author of numerous books and articles on Tudor and Stuart Women.
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Alan Judd :
Alan Judd is a local author; a novelist who is also the biographer of another local author, Ford Madox Ford. He currently chairs the BDHS.
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