Adrian Sumner has been a lecturer to universities and higher education institutions since 1973.  He has been Director, Development of the Arts in Northwich (1984-1990),  Arts Development Officer for Chester City Council (1990-2009), and Arts Development Officer for Cheshire West and Chester Council since 2009. In addition he has been a professional painter and illustrator (1973-2001).

 Contained in every work of art is a world of secrets – a coded language which locks the artwork into its own time and place in history. Added to this, artists have often deliberately obscured the true meanings of their work in symbols and iconography – complete worldviews and philosophies denied to the casual observer, often used at times when telling the real meaning might have resulted in disaster or even death.  This lecture looks for the clues which reveal the truth – the keys which unlock the secrets of the great artists and their greatest works, as well as the personal secrets which humanise the myths. It examines, in depth; Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, Picasso’s Guernica, Botticelli’s Primavaera and a small group of other world-changing pictures.

Having  trained originally as an archaeologist, Twigs Way is a professional researcher, writer and speaker, fascinated by the past and intrigued by the role of flowers, gardens and landscape in art and culture of all kinds.  Her work explores themes of symbolism and meaning, class and gender, and the crossover between plants, gardens, art and literature.

Twigs lectures for the Cambridge Univeristy Botanic Gardens, and is a guest lecturer for the MA in Art and Visual Culture, ICE, Univeristy Cambridge.  Recent publications include the portrayal of specific flowers in art and culture and her book on the Chrysanthemum in Art and Culture was published in October 2020.  Since then she has been researching the cutural and visual importance of the colour yellow.  Twigs' original research was on the history of women in the garden and she retains an active interest in this topic focussing on female botanic artists and gardeners including Marianne North and Mary Delany, as well as inspiring her talk on Female Botanical Artists.

Planting and painting, cultivating and creating: inspired and influenced by their dedication to painting ‘en plein air’ artists of the Impressionist movement had an especial relationship with gardens and landscape, most famously expressed by Claude Monet (1840-1926) at Giverny.  This talk explores that relationship, drawing on the wide range of gardens created and depicted by artists including Gustav Caillebotte, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frederick Carl Frieseke, and Pierre Bonnard, placing Giverny and Monet in a wider perspective.

After officer service in the Royal Navy Justin had a long career in business management. After retiring from business in 2000, Justin studied the History of Art and Architecture at Oxford, and later studied Islamic art at Oxford and classical culture with the University of Athens. While researching for a doctorate in naval history, Justin was invited to join the Bodleian Library as a senior academic manager.  He is a published historian, a qualified teacher, and is a tutor in the History of Art and Architecture and classical studies for independent colleges at Oxford.

Sculpting the human form has a long history extending back to the earliest art we know. The abstracted forms in clay and stone from pre-history, perhaps created for ritual use, were developed by later artists trying to represent the human form as accurately as they could, experimenting with pose, gesture, perspective and the surface texture of the material to achieve realism. Occasionally sculptors let the materials express the character of the figure, releasing the ‘statue from the stone’ as Michelangelo put it.  In this talk Justin discusses the developing realism in marble and bronze of archaic and classical Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and the Baroque, comparing this with the expressiveness of Gothic wooden sculpture, Michelangelo’s non-finito pieces, the abstraction of Rodin and the Modernists, and the experimental forms of contemporary representational sculpture, exploring the artists’ use of texture and the characteristics of the material.

Stephen was formerly Senior Curator of the Wallace Collection where he had particular responsibility for exhibitions and nineteenth-century paintings. He has given countless tours of the Collection as well as many lectures on its art and other art historical subjects, and has written many articles and reviews for art magazines.

The Wallace Collection owns over 330 miniatures dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.  In a British context it is unique in the range and quality of its French miniatures, though it also contains some fine and important examples by artists of other schools, particularly the British, Swiss and Italian.  This lecture explains what miniature painting is.  It also looks at the formation of the miniatures collection and considers in depth some its greatest works, including examples by such artists as Samuel Cooper, Richard Cosway, Peter Adolph Hall and Jean-Baptiste Isabey.  The many famous people depicted include Holbein, Louis XIV, the Duke of Wellington, Napoleon and Nelson’s famous mistress, Lady Hamilton.

Nicola Jarvis has a First Class Honours degree in Fine Art Printmaking, a Master’s degree in Fine Art Drawing and a Certificate of Education.  She received her apprenticeship training in embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework and subsequently went on to be part of the team that wrote, launched and delivered the Foundation Degree and Honours Degree curriculum at the Royal School of Needlework.  Much of her inspiration has come from the work of William and May Morris and in 2010 she was Overall Winner of the ‘Inspired by Morris’ exhibition at the William Morris Gallery, London, and went on to stage her solo show there in 2013.  She was Artist-in-Residence at the gallery from July to September 2013. Most recently she was invited to contribute to the embroidery on the Anointing Screen for the coronation of King Charles III in May 2023.  Alongside teaching and assessing at the Royal School, she was hired for ten years to make sample embroideries for British garment manufacturers but regards her best ‘fashion’ job as being part of the team that created the appliquéd lace for Catherine, the Princess of Wales’ wedding dress.

The youngest daughter of William Morris, May was an accomplished artist and designer.  At nineteen she was one of the first wave of students to undertake fine craft at the National Art Training School in South Kensington, now the Royal College of Art.  There she studied embroidered textiles, specialising in the techniques of Opus Anglicanum ecclesiastic embroidery. 

After graduating, she was appointed manager of the Embroidery Department at her father’s firm Morris and Co, supervising the production of domestic furnishings.  Alongside her father, she produced a wide range of printed and embroidered fabrics and wallpapers, including one of the company's most popular designs ‘Honeysuckle’ in 1883.  In addition to her prolific artistic output, May lectured in art schools, founded the Women’s Guild of Arts, was librarian for her father’s Socialist League and publisher of his literary works.

Richard took a BA Hons in English Language and Literature from the University of Manchester, followed by an acting diploma at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.  He combines acting, writing and lecturing. He has lectured in many venues including the National Army Museum and the Museum of London, as well as presenting a variety of virtual lectures online. Richard has contributed to, among others, The Journal of Popular Film and Television, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, and the P G Wodehouse journal Wooster Sauce.

A Christmas Carol, perhaps Charles Dickens best-known work, has been adapted for stage, screen and radio countless times, and is capable of infinite re-invention. The timelessness of the story was helped by Dickens’ decision (unusually for him) to give very few clues as to the locations in the story. This lecture reveals where those clues lead us, especially in London, and why the hints Dickens left behind were part of a deeply personal history. A visual feast of old and modern photographs, maps, theatrical material and early illustrations bring the hidden aspects of this classic tale to life.

Laurie Wickwire is a graduate of GIA London, IGI Antwerp, and DeBeers Institute of Diamonds, and is both a certified diamond grader and certified pearl grader. Additionally, she holds a BSc in International Business & Finance, and a BA in French. 

She has over 35 years’ experience in all sectors of the diamond industry, from mining, sorting, and grading to brokering some of the world’s key rough stones.  In addition she has presented diamond shows on national television channels, hosted diamond master classes, created the historical jewellery range for both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle gift shops, and created bespoke commissions for the Royal Family.

The British Crown Jewels are an unchanging jewelled anchor, whilst all around us changes.  The talk delves into the history and beauty of the Crowns, Sceptre, Orb and other royal jewels used during the coronation ceremony.  It will take us to the front row of the  coronation with details of the diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls used in the newly crafted royal regalia used by Kings and Queens since 1661. Secrets and mystery abound within these priceless jewels, seen by millions, worn by one.

Jonathan Meyer graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Theology, and has worked for Bonhams, Sotheby's and the Fine Art Auction Group, including heading up the 19th Century Furniture Department for Sotheby's in Europe. He has lectured in America, Singapore and Taiwan and written numerous articles, including contributions to British Furniture 1600-2000 (2005), and published Great Exhibitions: London, New York, Paris and Philadelphia, 1851-1900 (2006).  He is a fellow and past chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Fine Arts and Antiques Faculty.  He now runs his own valuation and consultancy business and also works part time as a priest in the Anglican Church.

The Great Exhibition, which took place in the Crystal Palace, is well known but the numerous other International Exhibitions, which were put on all over the world, are often completely unknown.   Did you know that there were “Crystal Palaces” in other parts of the World, that unassembled elements of the Statue of Liberty were shown in Philadelphia and Paris, or that Mr Otis patented his lift at a New York Fair thus paving the way for the skyscraper?   This lecture seeks to explain the impetus and ideas behind these extraordinary gatherings of items of trade with a special emphasis on furniture and the decorative arts.  It concentrates on the major Exhibitions held in England, America and France between 1851 and 1900.

Jane Tapley is currently the special events organiser for the Theatre Royal Bath.  She lectures regularly to theatre going societies, the National Trust, and history and fine arts groups.  She is an author and researcher of theatre programme notes on Hamlet, Sheridan's The Rivals and Jane Austen's Emma, as well as being a consultant to various TV productions of Jane Austen.

This talk examines the atmosphere and behaviour in and around the Georgian theatre – the irresponsibility of actors, the impotence of managers, the tears and tyranny of audiences.  The lack of discipline both on stage and front of house is astonishing to modern audiences.  Plays were under rehearsed, had very short runs and the audiences went to the theatre to be seen as much as to see the play but nevertheless the play generally went all right on the night… 

Dr. Steve Kershaw (B.A. (Hons.); Ph.D.) has had a special interest in the world of the Ancient Greeks and Romans ever since being introduced to Homer’s Iliad by an inspirational teacher at his primary school.  He developed his interests in the Classics at Heath Grammar School in Halifax, before gaining a degree in Classics and a doctorate at Bristol University.  Since graduation Steve has taught Classics in a number of establishments, and now operates principally for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.  As a guest speaker for Swan Hellenic Cruises and Royal Hebridean Cruises among others he has travelled extensively throughout the Mediterranean.  Steve also lectures regularly at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at New York University London.

The response to Greek art of the Hellenistic period (between Alexander the Great and Cleopatra) is often ambiguous: is it the pinnacle of Greek achievement, or is it the artistic expression of a decaying, decadent culture?  By shedding light on stunning works like the Venus di Milo, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Great Altar of Zeus at Pergamon, as well as exploring some of the era’s finest architectural achievements, this talk will look at the defining features of Greek art and architecture during the period, and seek a deeper understanding of this controversial period of the Greek civilisation.

Adam Busiakiewicz is an Art Historian, Lecturer and Lutenist. After completing his Bachelor’s Degree in History at University College London in 2010 he held the position of Head of Historical Interpretation (curator) at Warwick Castle.  He left the castle in 2013 after winning a full AHRC studentship to pursue a Master’s Degree in Fine and Decorative Art at the Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.  He completed his doctorate in the History of Art at the University of Warwick in 2022 and became a cataloguer in the Old Master Paintings Department at Sotheby's where he remains a Consultant.  Adam has been a Lecturer / Educator at the National Gallery and Guide Lecturer at the Wallace Collection.

Eighteenth century Britain was an age of romanticised elegance captured politely in paint.  In contrast, Sir Joshua Reynolds pushed the boundaries of composition and materials through endless experimentation.  His constant attempts to replicate the painting techniques of the Old Masters resulted in some of the triumphs of Georgian British Art.  Whilst much of his work survives, his experimentation with oils, waxes, pigments and other ingredients of painting alchemy, many are in poor condition and pose conservation conundrums.

David was a Chartered Insurer.  Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004) he, and his wife Wendy, assembled a collection of approximately 500, predominately Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial Court Costume and related textiles/dress accessories. In late 2019 the Collection of Imperial Court Costume was acquired, in its entirety, by The Shanghai Museum, Peoples' Republic of China, to be displayed in a new annexe of the museum which will be opened in 2025. A Past Committee Member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and regular contributor to a range of Oriental Art publications. David is an expert lecturer on Chinese Imperial Court Costume, plus all aspects of Imperial Court life, art and culture together with studies of China's greatest Emperors and Empresses.

The Emperor Qianlong was arguably the greatest of all the Qing Emperors as he guided China through a period of unquestionable political, economic and cultural prosperity which rivalled any comparable period of high achievement in Chinese history. Territorially Qianlong added more than 30 per cent of landmass to the Empire through successful military campaigns and astute diplomacy. He was passionate about preserving Manchu culture whilst respecting and nurturing other ethnic Chinese cultures. Qianlong travelled his Empire regularly undertaking lavish expeditions to the South and West designed to forge loyalty to his Imperial rule.

Jonathan is a historian and author with a wide range of interests, particularly the history of great museums and collectors.  Born in New York, he studied History and Modern Languages at Oxford, subsequently moving to the Courtauld Institute and Cambridge for his MA and PhD.  In 2023 he was asked by the National Gallery to write their official bicentenary history, and his history of the Metropolitan Museum (New York) will appear in October 2024. Alongside lecturing for Arts Society groups, Jonathan also teaches as Professor of Modern History at the University of Southampton.

Founded in 1824, the National Gallery in London's Trafalgar Square houses one of the world's finest collections of European paintings, including such favourites as Jan Van Eyck's "Arnolfini Marriage", Sandro Botticelli's "Venus and Mars", John Constable's "Cornfield" and Vincent Van Gogh's “Sunflowers”. In contrast to its peers, the Gallery was founded by Parliament and remains reliant on public funding. This lecture uses highlights from the NG's collection to show how our vision of the "ideal" art collection has evolved over time, along with ideas of the kinds of people the Gallery was supposed to serve.

Janusz is a freelance lecturer and researcher in English furniture history and is also an antique dealer.

The lecture combines looking at furniture with looking at the interiors for which it was designed as it follows the Baroque style from St Peter’s in Rome through Versailles in France to numerous English houses designed by William Kent, whose Palladian classicism was to dominate the early 18th century.  After having gone baroque, English style went rococo - the lecture will illustrate the difference!

Tom Duncan was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied Music and then History of Art with Ancient History and Archaeology.  He moved to the United States in 1980 to research Late Antiquity and the Early Church. This formative experience brought him to Cambridge, England in 1984 to complete a PhD on the influence of Early Christian Art on Baroque Painting in Rome.  A period as a university lecturer followed, together with lectures to organisations such as The Art Fund and The Arts Society.  Consequently, he began to lead tours to his major areas of interest: the architecture and archaeology of Ireland, and the Mediterranean basin.  In 1999, together with Stephen Brook, Tom founded Ciceroni Travel.

Rome, September 1531: Cardinal Salviati has just hosted a magnificent feast at which astonished guests were served a new culinary sensation, described by the agent of the Duke of Mantua who was present as “a kind of Indian peacock”! This is one of the earliest mentions of what today we call the turkey, within any context, cultural or culinary.
How then was this exotic bird first introduced into Europe? It seems that Christopher Columbus may have been the first European to see the “Indian peacock” or turkey when, on his fourth voyage in 1502, he landed at Cape Honduras. Shortly thereafter the bird was introduced to Spain, and eventually to Europe at large. Not only was it relished for its culinary rarity, it also quickly became a favoured subject with artists of every sort due to the subdued magnificence of its plumage. 
It appears in frescoes by Giulio Romano at the Villa Madama just outside Rome, in tapestries woven in both Flanders and Elizabethan England, such as the fine Armorial Tapestry woven for the Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth I’s great favourite, now in the V&A. It also became a staple member of the menageries so lovingly painted in the seventeenth century, mostly by northern European painters. The parallel careers enjoyed by the turkey as a great star both in grand kitchens and on grand tables and as a worthy subject for artists of many different backgrounds are equally fascinating, offering an insight into the rich traditions of centuries past, cultural and culinary!

Dr Amy Orrock is an independent Curator and Art Historian, and an expert on 16 & 17th century Northern European art.  She completed her PhD on the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Amy has contributed to curatorial projects at The Royal Collection Trust, the National Portrait Gallery and locally Compton Verney, where she was the Senior Curator from 2017-2023, being responsible for 'Cranach: Artist and Innovator' (2020/21) and 'Tudor Mystery: A Master Painter Revealed' (2023).  Others she has curated include 'Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty' (The Holburne Museum, Bath, 2017) and 'Rubens & Women' (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, 2023/4).

The Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) is renowned in popular imagination as a painter of fleshy women, resulting in the word 'Rubenesque'.  In this lecture Amy provides insights into key works from the Rubens & Women exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery and explores the varied and important place occupied by women in Rubens’s world.  Amy also seeks to challenge these Rubenesque stereotypes by providing a more nuanced view of the varied and important place occupied by women, both real and imagined, in Rubens's world.

Born in Copenhagen, Lars Tharp studied Archaeology at Cambridge and joined Sothebys where, as a director and auctioneer (1977-1993), he specialized in Chinese and European ceramics. Today his consultancy devises and curates exhibitions, advises on the acquisition, care and disposal of ceramics and other fields.  Since his 1986 debut on the BBC Antiques Roadshow Lars has spoken widely, within and beyond the UK.  With over 40 years of experience in ceramics and other areas, he aims to combine a compelling narrative with enthusiasm and humour.

From the mountains of Jiangxi province in far-off China, down river, over lake and mountain, and finally across oceans, 98 % of the Chinese porcelain on display in European museums, stately homes, palaces and personal collections, are testimony to an epic journey and of monumental human endeavour.  Each year in the 1600s and 1700s millions of pieces - services, vases and ornamental wares - were shipped and portered over the mountain border into Guangdong province, passing through the aptly-named ‘Gate of Heroes’.  Lars takes us on that actual journey, as filmed in his 2011 BBC film Treasures of Chinese Porcelain.  You will never again pass a piece of Chinese porcelain in any Western collection without calling to mind the heroic effort involved, or without evoking the landscapes embedded in that journey.

Dr Amy Lim is an art historian and curator, specialising in British fine and decorative arts from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries.  She is curator of the Faringdon Collection at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, and of the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham.  She is also an exhibition researcher at the Tate, contributing to British Baroque: Power and Illusion (2020) and the forthcoming Women Artists in Britain.  Amy has degrees in History and Literature & Arts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Many of Britain’s best-loved country houses were created in the ‘Baroque’ period (c. 1660-1720). Amy’s lecture takes us to some of the most iconic houses of the period, including Chatsworth, Petworth, and Blenheim, where we meet the patrons who created them, and look at some of the highlights of their sumptuous interiors, gardens and collections, addressing the question: what is ‘Baroque’?

Bertie Pearce has a BA (Hons) in Drama from Manchester University, a Diploma Internationale from the École Internationale du Théatre, Jacques Lecoq, and is a member of the Inner Magic Circle, with Gold Star.  Past experience includes lecturing and performing on cruise ships, and to U3A, historical societies, festivals, schools and colleges.  In addition, he has toured the world with a magic cabaret.

Charles John Huffam Dickens brought into the world a staggering array of wonderful characters with orphans, starving children, misers, murderers and abusive school teachers among them. People such as Mr Micawber, Fagin and Abel Magwitch remain in one’s literary psyche long after the books are put down. Largely self-educated, Dickens possessed the genius to become the greatest writer of his age with 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles. In his lecture Bertie looks at the life and places of Dickens through his characters. The talk is interspersed with readings of this works.  A truly Dickensian experience.

Andrew Prince has had a passion for jewellery since he was a small child.  The very first piece of jewellery he created was a ring made of copper wire pulled from the back of a television. He presented it to his grandmother, turning her finger green.  In 1980, when he was nine, Andrew's mother took him to the V&A Princely Magnificence exhibition of jewels dating from 1500 to 1630.  It proved a revelation and Andrew decided then and there that creating jewellery was what he wanted to devote his life to. In 1987, two weeks after his 16th birthday, Andrew started work in London’s Bond Street, working for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris. Under his guidance, Andrew developed an appreciation for jewels that were valued for their quality of design and craftsmanship, rather than their worth.  He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage and worked with her on the design and production side. 
In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels to accompany the resplendent Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition which became one of their most popular exhibits, and led to Andrew's jewellery appearing in film.  In 2005, he was asked to make tiaras and jewellery for Mrs Henderson Presents starring Judy Dench. In 2009, pieces were commissioned for The Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson. In 2012, he was chosen by the creators of Downton Abbey to supply a large collection of jewellery for the third series.

In 1745, a Princess from the minor province of Anhalt-Zerbst in Saxony, married Prince Karl Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, heir to the Imperial Russian Throne.  She was Princess Sophie Auguste Frederike and by 1762 she had deposed him, was crowned Empress Catherine II and became the sole ruler of the Russian Empire.  With seemingly inexhaustible wealth, she set about creating the most glittering court in Europe, if not the world.  From the arts, to architecture, to the most dazzling of jewels, her passion for cultivating, commissioning and collecting only the finest has formed the nucleus of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.  In his talk Andrew guides us through this fascinating time and illustrates what was created, lost and survives to this day, not to mention her private passions.

Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer.  He has a particular interest in the unique history, architecture and traditions of our canal network and worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects.  He has also acted as a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.  He regularly contributes to waterway and heritage magazines and writes and provides images for a range of countryside and outdoor titles. Roger is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society and a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute.

It’s often said Birmingham has more canals than Venice and today the city’s waterways are a fascinating mixture of traditional and contemporary design, architecture and engineering.  Roger looks at the distinctive features of Birmingham’s canals and, with archival maps and images, also tells the 250-year old story of their unique industrial heritage – wharves, warehouses, locks, bridges, tunnels and, of course, boats.

Sophie Matthews began playing the flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK.  Sophie is also recognised as a superb interpreter of narrative song with a clear, pure and unaffected soprano voice.  She has previously worked with The Oxford Waits as well as the respected early music collective Piva.  Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.

Music is our oldest social activity. It crosses divides of age, race, gender, class, religion and is inherently social; music underscores our traditions and identifies us culturally.  Surviving historical manuscripts give us a really good overview of what music was played at any given period in history, but it is through works of art that we can see how music affected people’s lives – how they would have enjoyed it, who would have played it.

Music in Art looks at how the depiction of musical instruments from the Middle Ages to the 18th century evolved, focusing on instruments that Sophie plays, so that as well as looking at images by artists such as Bruegel, Bosch and Hogarth she gives musical demonstrations on replicas of the instruments depicted.

Robert Kendall is a Trustee and Chair of the Friends of 78 Derngate (the Mackintosh House, Northampton) and has been involved in its restoration since 1998.  He has also had published a short book on Alexander Ellis Anderson, the executant architect for Mackintosh's work on 78, as well being as an established architect in his own right.  Prior to being involved with the 78 restoration he was a senior master at Ernest Bevin College, Wandsworth, and an Advisory teacher for Southwark and Lambeth.

Robert’s talk looks in detail at how William Morris established his manufacturing side of dyes and wallpaper.  He compares Macintosh’s and Morris’s work in terms of materials and stencilling and Margaret McDonald's gesso work.  He then looks at how the 78 decoration was done and also on a domestic level the lace work of Mrs Bassett Lowke.

Nigel Bates has been a performer for more than forty years in and out of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, including seventeen years as Principal Percussionist with the Orchestra and eight years as the Music Administrator of The Royal Ballet.  He has worked with many of the leading figures in the classical music industry and was also a producer for both the BBC's Maestro at the Opera and Pappano's Classical Voices documentary series.  He is a regular contributor to the printed and online content of the ROH.  He has given lectures for over thirty years, including many arts societies and conservatoires in the UK and across Australia.

The Nutcracker ballet has delighted audiences at Christmas for many decades yet it was deemed a failure at its initial performances. Based upon the current Royal Ballet production by Sir Peter Wright, this lecture takes a close look at how this well-loved ballet now takes its rightful place on stage and how the music of Tchaikovsky along with story-telling, design, dance and a little bit of stage ingenuity all come together to make the most magical escape for young and old alike. Includes several performance video clips

Keith Bonser was a teacher and senior manager in education for 38 years. Retirement in 2008 gave him the opportunity to pursue a specific interest that has its origins in a weekend break to Dublin in 1995 that introduced him to Caravaggio.  Keith has travelled extensively throughout Europe to see Caravaggio’s paintings in situ, tracing his life story from the town of Caravaggio to the cities of Milan, Rome, Naples, and the islands of Malta and Sicily.  He subsequently wrote a book on these experiences.

The presentation is a very personal account of how Caravaggio came into Keith’s life and how he became a “Caravaggisti”. This journey embraces the story of Caravaggio’s life and his paintings, and epitomises the ability of Art to inspire anyone.  The core presentation is followed by an interactive open discussion on related topics:

 ·         The Betrayal of Christ;  A painting ‘lost’ for almost 400 years, found by chance in Dublin in 1990

·         No body, no grave, no record of his death. How did Caravaggio die?

·         Caravaggio and his models, including himself

·         Did Caravaggio’s alleged bi-sexuality, trigger a sequence of events which directly led to his premature death?

·         Malta: A year on the island which promised so much, but ended in disaster

·         Caravaggio and Costanza Colonna; A bond that helped him throughout his life and very nearly saved him …, but not quite.    

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it ‘microhistory at its absolute best’. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barry’s War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as "a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful". Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone’s Library in 2017, has appeared at the Cheltenham, Hay and Henley literary festivals and on BBC radio and TV. Caroline’s third book, National Treasures, tells the extraordinary and sometimes hilarious stories behind the saving of London’s art and museum collections in World War Two.

The great Anglo-Norman feasting hall created by William the Conqueror’s son, William Rufus, has stood at the heart of the Palace of Westminster for over 900 years.  It has played host to royal magnificence, coronation feasts, chivalric games, law courts, government departments, bookstalls, state trials, and the lyings-in-state of Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers.  Its famous hammer beam roof has survived the Reformation, Cromwell, fire, war, terrorism, the Blitz and death watch beetle, and remains one of the greatest examples of medieval carpentry in the world.  Discover the story of this extraordinary space – for centuries the largest secular building anywhere - through gorgeous images from the Parliamentary Art Collection and insights from the former Director of the Parliamentary Archives.

Jamie is a theatre director, specialising in opera.  After training at RADA, he worked for Kent Opera, Glyndebourne Festival and Touring Opera, the BBC and English National Opera. He has directed many new opera productions both in the UK and overseas. Jamie was Associate Director on the original production of the hit musical Miss Saigon in the West End and on Broadway. His productions range from Mozart and Rossini via Verdi and Bizet to Britten and Gilbert and Sullivan, and he was Director of Productions for British Youth Opera for over a decade.  Jamie lives in Buckinghamshire and is married to the mezzo-soprano Jean Rigby. They have three children.

This is the story of two remarkable men and the birth of English comic opera.  The bouquets, the brickbats, their extraordinary lives, popularity and fame. Still admired and performed all around the world; their journey to success was unparalleled.

Katie Boyce was born in Northamptonshire and studied Fine Art and Art History at Coventry University.  After an internship with the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry she studied for an MA in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of Leicester.  Her first ‘real’ curatorial job was as the Gallery Officer for the Alfred East Art Gallery.  In 2017 she joined Rugby Art Gallery as their Senior Visual Arts Officer.  After two years she set up her own consultancy business, helping small galleries with business and audience development as well as developing Northants Open Studios, which has grown and developed over the last 3 years.  She is now back at Rugby Art Gallery as their Senior Exhibitions and Programming Officer.

This is a private visit to Rugby Art Gallery and includes a talk by Katie Boyce on the history and development of the Rugby Collection.  The Collection on display at the time is to be curated by David Remfrey RA to complement his own exhibition alongside the Rugby Collection. He is the Director of Drawing at the Royal Academy and will be the key player in the selection and curation of the RA Summer show in 2023.

Caroline Bendix is a library conservator, accredited through the Institute of Conservation, who has worked on over 500 collections in the UK and abroad, including St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, advising on all aspects of books’ care in situ.  She has written three of the British Library’s guides on preservation and in 2019 was awarded the Plowden Medal for her “outstanding work in developing in-situ library conservation”.  Since 1992 she has been the National Trust’s Adviser on Libraries Conservation, the adviser and trainer for The Arts Society’s Heritage Volunteers projects and is on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s advisory panel for Lambeth Palace Library.

This lecture looks at western bookbinding, in particular during the age of the printed book.  Aspects of the book trade, including bookbinding practices and materials used in bindings are shown and, as structure and decoration changed as the centuries passed, the individual binders’ fingers tell their own tale as the craft developed.   The bookbinding trade has long recycled waste materials, some of which may be more valuable than the books themselves.  Bookbindings also provide an insight into the owner’s wealth and station in life, as books were bought unbound and bindings were therefore generally chosen by the first owner until the 19th century.

Louise Schofield is an archaeologist who was Curator of Greek Bronze Age and Geometric Antiquities at the British Museum from 1987-2000.  Her book, The Mycenaeans, was co-published by the Getty Museum and the British Museum in 2007.  She now writes, lectures and runs international archaeological projects - previously in south-eastern Turkey, Greece and Albania and currently in Ethiopia. Rather wonderfully she has just been appointed Visiting Professor of Archaeology at the American University of Rome.

In this very personal take on her adventures working in the British Museum, Louise Schofield takes us down to haunted basements and tells of secret exorcisms carried out there. Several fabulous artefacts in the Museum have curses attached to them. ‘The Unlucky Mummy’ (on display in one of the Egyptian galleries) has a reputation for causing death and destruction – including the sinking of the Titanic…!

Nick Baker is an Assistant Curate in the Wigston Benefice (Leicester Diocese).  He studied history at the University of Kent at Canterbury, followed by postgraduate work at Surrey and York.  After a brief spell in the second-hand book trade, he then pursued a career in special collections librarianship, holding posts at Eton College, Hereford Cathedral and Princethorpe College.  He began training for the priesthood in 2017 and was ordained in 2020.  Nick continues to publish and lecture on Medieval art, and sits on the committee of the Browning Society, which fosters interest in the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

It is thought that King Arthur was a Romano-British leader who led an organised resistance against Germanic invaders in the late fifth and early sixth centuries.  Over time, King Arthur has morphed from this ‘Dark Age’ warrior into the epitome of a chivalrous monarch.  His legend has attracted other elements, such as the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin and the belief that he rests today in the Isle of Avalon.  This lecture will give a brief overview of the historical background for Arthur but will focus on how pictorial depictions of him have changed over the years, influenced by contemporary literary works.  Nick will look at images of Arthur in Medieval manuscripts, early printed books, and in works by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, especially those by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.  The talk will also consider the power of cinema and its contribution to our understanding of Arthur. So, what did King Arthur look like?

Robert Kendall is a Trustee and Chair of the Friends of 78 Derngate (the Mackintosh House, Northampton) and was involved in its restoration since 1998.  He has also had published a short book on Alexander Ellis Anderson, the executant architect for Mackintosh's work on 78, as well as an established architect in his own right.  Prior to being involved with the 78 restoration he was a senior master at Ernest Bevin College, Wandsworth, and an Advisory teacher for Southwark and Lambeth. London

The presentation has at its starting point Ruskin’s 7 Lamps of Architecture and considers Morris' " desire to produce beautiful things" and the work of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and why, in the late 19c Art Nouveau was described by some as a 'strange decorative disease', whereas by 1909 we have America's Frank Lloyd Wright suggesting that the 'machine was a normal tool of civilisation'. Charles Rennie Mackintosh's work rises out of these movements both in architecture and art, while his later modernist style, such as at 78 Derngate,Northampton, still has elements that look back to the arts and crafts past.

Matthew Wilson studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and has taught the subject in secondary schools in the UK for over a decade.  As a freelance writer he has also written for numerous publications, including the BBC, Aesthetica Magazine and Smarthistory – the world’s most-used art historical resource.  His latest book, Symbols in Art (Thames & Hudson, Autumn 2020), was described by Christopher Lloyd, former keeper of the Queen's pictures, as “masterly … the perfect introduction to a subject that can only heighten the general appreciation of art.”  He is currently working on a new title, also on the subject of iconography, due for publication in 2022.

This is a Christmas-themed talk about snow in art, based on a handful of famous examples from global history. Snow is not a natural subject for art. It is not beautiful – it is cold, wet and a hazard to the injury prone. It is also a challenge to represent in paintings. White is blank and depthless, so suggesting form and space in a snowy landscape is extremely difficult. Matthew explains the historical factors that allowed snow to become a subject in art in the 1400s in the western world, and about how artists overcame the challenges presented by snowy landscapes.

Matthew Williams holds degrees from the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. A recognised expert on the work of the Victorian designer William Burges, Matthew was Curator of Cardiff Castle for nearly 30 years.  His most recent  publication is a major book Cardiff Castle and the Marquesses of Bute, published in 2019.  A long-standing member of The Arts Society, Matthew has been a programme secretary and a chairman before becoming an accredited lecturer in 2001.

This lecture looks at the enormous changes in our homes over a hundred year period, encompassing aspects of household taste from Victorian clutter to the psychedelic ‘throw away’ furnishings of the 1970s.  Although in many ways light-hearted, the lecture examines how social upheaval, War and technological advances transformed our houses.  From the 1880s, when each interior was governed by strict convention and the home was regarded as a shrine to family life, we look at how change gradually came about.  The coming of electricity and central heating altered appearance and comfort and other major developments in design all changed our interiors.

Dr Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. After beginning her career at the Warwickshire Museum, she then worked for the National Trust as Curator/Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, about which she wrote her PhD at Warwick University.  Since that she taught part-time at Leicester University in the Centre for the Study of the Country House and continues to teach History of Art in the Department of Continuing Education at Oxford University and elsewhere.

“Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall”.  Bess of Hardwick is one of the most fascinating women of the sixteenth century and her most famous building, Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, survives as a fine example of Elizabethan creativity, magnificence and pride. Gillian’s talk examine Bess’s story, her rising social status, her association with Mary, Queen of Scots, her many husbands and her royal aspirations.   She also looks at her earlier great house, Chatsworth, before concentrating on her surviving masterpiece, Hardwick Hall, its architecture, its interior and its luxurious furnishings.

Elizabeth Merry has over 25 years' experience lecturing on a range of subjects including classical art and architecture, aspects of the visual arts and the links between literature and art.  She has lectured for the WEA, the Universities of Bristol and Southampton Departments of Continuing Education, Royal Society of Arts, Dillington House, Jane Austen Society, Thomas Hardy Society, Brussels Brontë Society, Finzi Society, the Art Fund, Dorset County Museum and literary, historical and philosophical societies nationwide.

Children’s literature has only been recognised as a distinct genre for about 200 years.  Its development is a fascinating story, echoing the recognition of childhood as an experience in its own right, not merely as preparation for maturity.  As social and historical changes prompted a changing view of childhood, more and more books for children were produced. Characteristic of even the earliest forms - the alphabet primers, religious instruction booklets and fairytale collections of the 17th and 18th centuries - was the accompaniment of pictures to the text - so with the rise of a commercial trade in children’s books came the rise of the children’s illustrator. During the 19th century output grew enormously, culminating in the first ‘Golden Age’ when Lewis Carroll blazed a trail of astonishing originality and nothing was ever the same again. We explore the milestones leading to this ‘Golden Age’ and look at what was to follow.

Patrick Craig is a Vicar Choral at St Paul’s Cathedral. For twenty years he combined this with an international career singing over a thousand concerts with the world-renowned early music consort The Tallis Scholars.  He also sings with the award-winning group The Cardinall’s Musick.  He founded and conducts this country’s leading all-female professional choir, Aurora Nova.  He has conducted concerts for the BBC Proms, the Brighton, Lichfield and Aldeburgh Festivals, and with the City of London Sinfonia.

Angels don’t speak, they sing.  And they have inspired much wonderful music. Patrick will investigate their roles as guardians, messengers and fighters through imaginative music by Britten, Elgar and Mendelssohn.  Angelic words also feature in regularly repeated liturgical texts that Patrick sings daily in St Paul’s Cathedral, such as the Sanctus and Te Deum.  These will give us an opportunity to explore and enjoy angelic music by composers such as Bach, Mozart and Walton.  Patrick will call on some of the world’s finest art and poetry to further expand this journey into the heavenly realm.

Nicholas Watkins studied in Florence, Vienna and at the Courtauld Institute of Art.  He is an art historian, author, critic, exhibition curator and lecturer.  He has written numerous publications, particularly about Bonnard and Matisse.  He is a regular contributor to The Burlington Magazine and other leading art journals, and lectures extensively to universities, museums, galleries, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy.

Nothing illustrates more graphically the vast differences of approach between the post-war generation than the contrast between the styles - and life styles – of Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) and the younger Francis Bacon (1909-1992): the former all lightness, rational, ordered, serene and contemplative; the latter all darkness, outrageously unconventional and violent. At the same time, Graham Sutherland’s combination of surrealist fantasy and stark realism and apocalyptic themes had enormous appeal. The lecture examines the main themes influences and impact of this outstandingly talented generation.

Sarah Holdaway graduated from the University of Derby in 2010 with a degree in Photography, followed in 2012 by a master's in Art History and Curating from Liverpool Hope University.  After working at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester she joined the Rugby Art Gallery in May 2019 as their Senior Visual Arts Officer.

The art collections held by Rugby Art Gallery and Museum are an eclectic mix of the Local Art Collection; a small but significant collection of local paintings, and pieces of local historical relevance that are held in the Social History Collection.  It is, however, for the Rugby Collection of 20th century and Contemporary British Art that the gallery is particularly renowned. The Rugby Collection contains over 170 artworks in a variety of media from painting and prints to drawing and video, including works by L. S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer, Paula Rego and Graham Sutherland.  The collection was started by Rugby Borough Council in 1946 and has been housed at Rugby Art Gallery and Museum since the gallery opened in 2000. The gallery continues to collect works by British artists of 'promise and renown' supplimented by generous gifts and bequests from organisations such as the Contemporary Art Society.  Highlights of the collection are 'Monday Morning' by L. S. Lowry, 'Richard Carline' by Stanley Spencer, 'The Bride's Secret Diary' by Paula Rego and 'Three Groups of Figures on a Pink Ground' by Barbara Hepworth.

Nick Baker was until 2017 the archivist of Princethorpe College, Rugby.  A former librarian of Eton College and Hereford Cathedral, he completed his PhD on early medieval art in 2013.  He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in September 2020, and a priest in October 2021, and is now the priest at St Thomas’ Wigston, Leicestershire.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Member of the Association of Heritage Interpretation.

Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) was the illegitimate son of architect, Edward Godwin, and actress Ellen Terry.  He began life as an actor at Sir Henry Irving’s Lyceum Theatre, but eventually branched out into stage design.  Collaborating with people like Martin Shaw (Purcell Operatic Society), and Konstantin Stanislavski (Moscow Arts Centre), he revolutionised approaches to lighting, stage design and acting.  Craig developed a whole new theory about the theatre and published his ideas in journals which he himself designed, illustrated and printed.  Craig’s concepts were so new that it is only now that we can fully appreciate them.  In addition to his interest in the theatre, he was a fine artist, responsible for woodcuts and other prints.  This talk will introduce a theatrical genius who lived truly ahead of his time.

Robert Kendall is Chair of the Friends of 78 Derngate and also a Trustee and has been involved with the concept and development of the Trust since its launch in 1986.  He has a passion for Mackintosh's work and has visited Glasgow many times over the years.  Since being involved with 78 he has discovered so much more about early 20th century art including the Modernist Movement as well as the Austrian and German influence on architecture.

78 Derngate was Charles Rennie MacIntosh's final major commission for his visionary patron, Northampton model engineer, W.J Bassett-Lowke.  It is the only place in the world where Mackintosh's mature architectural and interior style can be seen in their original setting.  As such, the house has drawn many thousands of visitors from around the globe.  This talk covers Bassett-Lowke’s family and interests and an overview of Mackintosh's life and work as well as the restoration of 78 Derngate.

Giles Ramsay is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries.  He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists (www.developingartists.org), a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University and Course Leader in Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  Giles has run theatre projects in Botswana, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Kosovo, Palestine, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London.  He regularly lectures on the history and practice of theatre on the Queen Mary 2 as she sails from New York to the UK.  Giles combines academic analysis with hands on experience to bring a unique insight to the world of the theatre.

Over 2500 years in the making the great British pantomime is a very potent brew indeed.  Mix the earliest Greek and Roman drama with commedia dell'arte and medieval morality plays, then stir in a sprig of C17th masque, a dash of C18th harlequinade and a hefty shot of Victorian music hall and, hey presto, you have the modern Christmas pantomime.  (Oh no you don't!).

Sarah Shalgosky studied art history at the University of East Anglia and the University of Oxford but then won the Arts Council traineeship in exhibition curation and has worked with contemporary art ever since.  She has worked for the Arts Council, for regional museums and galleries and as the manager of a fine art services company.  For the last 28 years, she has been the Curator of the University of Warwick, in charge of the university art collection and the Mead Gallery.  Her research has examined the role of university galleries and the development of art in the public realm and she leads a network of university curators in Britain and Ireland.

In Curating the Campus, Sarah will discuss the art and artists that have shaped the University of Warwick campus.

David Wright has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, he has publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences. These have taken the form of wine ‘tastings’ or charity events where a particular subject is presented and wines tasted. He has developed a talk, A Brief History of Wine, a great subject, and full of rich evidence, going back 7,000 years, in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that contribute to the story.

Ann Benson is currently a writer and lecturer on Garden and Architectural History specializing in the Tudor and Stuart periods.  She has degrees in Garden History (MA, Distinction), Pedagogy (MEd, PhD) and Science (BSc, Hons).  Ann was first a teacher and then an academic in the field of learning and assessment at the universities of Oxford, Bristol, and the Open University whilst serving as a consultant on assessment for the UK’s Cabinet Office.  Early retirement in 2010 enabled her to attend archaeological, garden and architectural history courses at Bristol University (MA Distinction, 2012).  She has since published two research-based history books and several peer-reviewed articles on garden and architectural history.  She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians of London, Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow in the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, and an Associate of the Institute for the Study of Welsh Estates.

Coton Manor in Northamptonshire is famous for welcoming thousands of visitors to its garden each year, many making an annual ‘pilgrimage’ to its bluebell wood in late April.  However, it is still very much a home with the owners being hands-on in its maintenance and the opening of the garden and plant nursery to visitors.  It’s rare to find a garden that has been in one family for nearly a century. This richly illustrated lecture is based on Ann’s research and tells how the house and its surrounding designed landscape have developed – and survived ‒ from Domesday to the present.  It covers the ravages of Civil War when the ancient house was razed to the ground, restoration when the house was rebuilt in 1662 from stone salvaged from nearby Holdenby House, and ownership by an American heiress and her English husband, who are the grandparents of the current owners.

Gillian White specialises in the visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England.  She formerly worked for the National Trust as Curator and Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, about which she then wrote her PhD at Warwick University.  She now teaches part-time at Leicester University, predominantly in The Centre for the Study of the Country House, and is involved with the Continuing Education Department at Oxford University, as well as freelance lecturing.

Nicholas Hilliard captured a glowing, delicate and intimate image of the Elizabethans in his jewel-like portrait miniatures.  He has left us a legacy of colour, pattern, symbolism and likeness, as well as an opinionated insight into the thoughts and practices of a sixteenth-century English artist.  This lecture outlines Hilliard’s career and explores the changing styles demanded by his patrons.

Sophie Matthews began playing flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes and has become one of the foremost players of the instrument in the UK. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes.

Sophie is also recognised as a superb interpreter of narrative song with a clear, pure and unaffected soprano voice. When not touring with GreenMatthews, Sophie also makes instruments (she made her own baroque oboe) and works with respected luthier Tony Millyard on his flutes. She’s previously worked with The Oxford Waits as well as the respected early music collective Piva. Sophie is self-taught on all of her instruments.

Tonight Sophie explores the links between the visual and the aural in this one-hour presentation. Drawing on the works of great painters such as Brueghel, Hogarth and Bosch, Sophie presents a variety of images of historical woodwind instruments in their original social context. The symbolism of music in mediaeval and Renaissance arts is also explored, along with live performances of historical music upon authentic instruments.

Nick Baker was until 2017 the archivist of Princethorpe College, Rugby.  A former librarian of Eton College and Hereford Cathedral, he completed his PhD on early medieval art in 2013.  He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in September 2020, and is serving his curacy at Wigston, Leicestershire.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Member of the Association of Heritage Interpretation.

Alfred the Great, who reigned as King of Wessex from 871 until his death in 899, is the subject of numerous books, artworks, and even a film.  He led the battle against Viking invaders, oversaw administrative innovations, and revitalised learning and religion.  Moreover, Alfred started a process of political consolidation which led, eventually, to the creation of the kingdom of England.  This lecture will attempt to examine the ‘real’ Alfred and investigate how his ‘cult’ took on a new lease of life in the nineteenth century.

David Price is an experienced public speaker and tutor in adult education, specialising in well-illustrated, informative and amusing talks, often with musical extracts.  Some of these relate to his background in studying modern European history and politics — for a BA, and later an MA in Soviet studies at the University of London. David is also the author of a book on the French Cancan dance, his other specialist area being the social history of France in the 19th century, including the events forming the background to Les Misérables.

One of the greatest painters ever, Rembrandt, had the good fortune to live in the so-called Dutch Golden Age.  In the 17th century, the Dutch republic achieved independence after a long war against Spanish and in doing so became one of the most powerful and prosperous countries in the world.  Much of its prosperity came through trade and colonial expansion and Rembrandt and other artists were able to benefit from commissions from some of the successful businessmen and dignitaries of the time.  But perhaps his most famous painting, known as the Night Watch, was painted while the war was still in progress and reflected a nervousness regarding possible Spanish attack.

James Lindow was the first Renaissance PhD from the Royal College of Art and the V&A.  He has convened and presented at international conferences, lectures widely in the UK and overseas and is currently a fine art underwriter in the City.  He has written articles on diverse aspects of the Renaissance, and his book entitled The Renaissance Palace in Florence: Magnificence and Splendour in Fifteenth-Century Italy was published by Ashgate Press in 2007 to widespread critical acclaim.

Irving Finkel is a British philologist and Assyriologist.  He is currently the Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, where he specialises in cuneiform inscriptions on tablets of clay from ancient Mesopotamia.  Irving is the author of several academic articles and books on ancient Babylon.  He also studies the history of board games, and is on the Editorial Board of Board Game Studies.  Among his breakthrough works is the determination of the rules of the Royal Game of Ur.  Irving founded the Great Diary Project, a project to preserve the diaries of ordinary people.  In association with the Bishopsgate Institute, he has helped to archive over 2,000 personal diaries.  In 2014, the V&A Museum of Childhood held an exhibition of the diaries of children written between 1813 and 1996.  Irving has written a number of works of fiction for children, including The Princess Who Wouldn't Come Home and Swizzle de Brax and the Blungaphone.

Judith Allnatt is an acclaimed short story writer and novelist. Her novels have been variously shortlisted for the Portico Prize for Literature and the East Midlands Book Award and featured as a Radio 5 Live Book of the Month. Short stories have been extensively anthologized, selected for the Commonwealth Short Story Awards and broadcast on Radio 4.

 Her third novel, The Moon Field, described by The Times as ‘deeply moving’, is set in the First World War. It was featured on the BBC News Channel’s ‘Meet the Author’, where Judith discussed artists’ responses in pastels and sculpture to soldiers’ broken faces. Judith’s latest novel, The Silk Factory, is an eerie story of love and memory drawing on both the experience of Luddite weavers’ in the nineteenth century and a modern day haunting.

Judith lectures widely both for universities and freelance and is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She is currently researching the book binding of the Belle Époque.

Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer. He has a particular interest in the unique history, architecture and traditions of our canal network and has worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects. He has also acted as a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

He regularly contributes to waterway and heritage magazines and writes and provides images for a range of countryside and outdoor titles. Roger is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Licentiate of the Royal Photographic Society and a Chartered Member of the Landscape Institute. He lives near Stratford upon Avon and lectures to groups such as the National Trust, RSPB, U3A, history societies, etc. across the Midlands and further afield.

Gillian White specialises in the visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England.  She formerly worked for the National Trust as Curator and Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, about which she then wrote her PhD at Warwick University.  She now teaches part-time at Leicester University, predominantly in The Centre for the Study of the Country House, and is involved with the Continuing Education Department at Oxford University, as well as freelance lecturing.

David Wright has been a wine retailer, importer and distributor for 30 years. In that time, he have publicly presented tastings and talks on wine to trade and private audiences. These have taken the form of wine ‘tastings’ or charity events where a particular subject is presented and wines tasted. He has developed a talk, A Brief Story of Wine, a great subject, and full of rich evidence, going back 7,000 years, in the form of paintings, decorated drinking vessels, buildings and literature that contribute to the story.

Sophie Matthews and Chris Green are modern-day balladeers, specialising in telling stories through song.  They are firm believers in the age-old power of narrative song to delight contemporary audiences. Taking their cue from ancient troubadour tradition, they are 21st-century wandering players, although their music and tales are rooted in the past.

 Sophie Matthews began playing flute at the age of ten but is now more well-known for her prowess on the English border bagpipes. She also plays a variety of early woodwind instruments such as shawm, rauschpfeife and recorder. She’s also one of a handful of British players of the baroque musette, an 18th century French bagpipe similar to the Northumbrian small pipes.

 Chris Green was born into a musical family in Coventry and began playing guitar at the age of eight and piano from the age of nine. Largely self-taught, he’s worked in a variety of musical genres including folk, theatre and early music and is a regular musician at Shakespeare’s Globe.  He also writes and composes, having adapted The Wind in the Willows (2017) and A Christmas Carol: In Concert (2018).

Vivien Heffernan was a teacher and Head of Art Department from 1976-1986 before becoming an art history tutor for the continuing education departments of Essex and Cambridge Universities, colleges and adult education organisations. She is a long-standing lecturer with the Open University on art history courses ranging from the early Renaissance to the 20th century.

Vivien has had wide experience as a freelance lecturer since 1988 including lecturing for NADFAS in Australia and New Zealand. She is also a practising artist.

Nick Baker was until 2017 the Archivist of Princethorpe College, Rugby.  A former librarian of Eton College and Hereford Cathedral, he completed his doctoral thesis at the University of York which examined the four evangelists in early Insular art (c.600–c.800AD). He has contributed to a number of publications including Making Histories: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Insular Art, York 2011, The Art, Literature and Material Culture of the Medieval World: Transition, Transformation and Taxonomy, and the Journal of the Midlands Catholic Society (2015).  A recent study on the depictions of the evangelists in the eighth-century Codex Amiatinus is currently in press. He is now training for ordained ministry in the Church of England, and hopes to be ordained in 2020.  He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Member of the Association for Heritage Interpretation.

Alice Foster has lectured for Oxford University Department of Continuing Education since 1998. She lectures regularly at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock. Her busy freelance career includes organising History of Art study days with colleagues, and regular weekly classes in Oxfordshire and Worcestershire.  In 2004 Alice joined The Arts Society and has lectured in Britain and in Europe.  Since 2003 Alice has been a tutor on study holidays.  In 2010 she was elected President of Banbury Fine Arts Society.

David Rosier is a Chartered Insurer by profession and a Fellow of the Assurance Medical Society, with extensive international experience as an author and lecturer in Medical Risk Assessment. He has in excess of 25 years of working and living in Asia. Whilst living in Hong Kong (1991-2004) he assembled a collection of approximately 700, predominately Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Imperial and related textiles/costume accessories. He is a past Committee Member of the Hong Kong Textile Society and a frequent speaker on Imperial Insignia and Badges of Rank.

Dr Susan Whitfield is a writer, scholar, lecturer and traveller of the Silk Roads. During 25 years curating the collections of manuscripts from Dunhuang and other Silk Road sites at the British Library, she also helped found and then developed the International Dunhuang Project (IDP), now a thriving international collaboration working on the art and artefacts of the eastern Silk Road. She has lectured and written widely on the Silk Road. Her latest book, Silk, Slaves and Stupas: Material Culture of the Silk Road, will be published in March 2018. Dr Whitfiled has also curated several major exhibitions and organized field trips to archaeological sites in the Taklamakan desert.

AGM 7.00pm, followed by the lecture

Suzanne Fagence Cooper studied History at Oxford University and Art History at the Courtauld Institute, and at Christie's Education. She was a Curator and Research Fellow at the V&A Museum for 12 years, and is now a Visiting Fellow at the University of York. She has lectured extensively for museums and on Cunard liners, and undertaken broadcasts and consultancies for the BBC and Channel Four. She was the Historical Consultant to Ralph Fiennes for The Invisible Woman, a film about Charles Dickens, and the BBC drama, The Living and the Dead. Publications include Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum (2003), The Victorian Woman (2001), and Effie Gray, a biography of the Scottish wife of John Ruskin and John Everett Millais. A film based on her life, starring Emma Thompson, was released in 2014. Suzanne is currently Research Curator at York Art Gallery, working on an exhibition of Turner, Ruskin and the Storm Cloud opening in Spring 2019.

Andrew Prince has had a passion for the jewellery since he was a small child.   The very first piece of jewellery he created was a ring made of copper wire pulled from the back of a television. He presented it to his grandmother (it turned her finger green and gave her a rash). 

In 1980, when he was nine, Andrew's mother took him to the Princely Magnificence exhibition at the V&A, exhibiting Renaissance jewels dating from 1500 to 1630. It proved a revelation and Andrew decided then and there that creating jewellery was what he wanted to devote his life to.  In August 1987, two weeks after his 16th birthday, Andrew started work in London’s Bond Street, working for The Antiques Roadshow expert Ian Harris. Under his guidance, Andrew developed an appreciation for jewels that were valued for their quality of design and craftsmanship, rather than for how much the stones in the piece were worth. He then joined the renowned contemporary jeweller Elizabeth Gage and worked with her on the design and production side, handling rare and extraordinary stones with names such as Sphene, Andalusite, Spinel and Dioptase.

Andrew's taste for fine 'costume jewellery' can be traced back to an antique market, where he came across a late Victorian brooch set with what he initially thought were emeralds and diamonds. They were, in fact, crystal and green glass set in silver and gold. He realised that beautiful jewellery didn't require expensive stones, and that it was the elegance of the design and the quality of the workmanship that truly mattered. Private commissions then started arrive for celebrities such as Michael Jackson (a large crystal and pearl shoulder jewel) and Shirley Bassey (necklaces).

In 2002, the V&A commissioned a collection of jewels to accompany the resplendent Tiaras, Past and Present exhibition, resulting in Andrew's jewellery appearing in film.  In 2005, he was asked to make tiaras and jewellery for Mrs Henderson Presents starring Judy Dench. In 2009, pieces were commissioned for The Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt and Miranda Richardson. In 2012, he was chosen by the creators of Downton Abbey to supply a large collection of jewellery for the third series.

Max Jones: Lecturer at Manchester University.  Specialises in the cultural history of wars & heroes

Stella Lyons: History of Art graduate of Universities of Bristol & Warwick.  Runs her own art history courses.

James Bolton: garden designer and director of the Inchbald School of Design.  Organises garden study days.

Charles Harris: Advertising agency creative director, travel writer & photographer who has created posters for major brands

Jane Tapley Special Events Organiser for the Theatre Royal Bath. Home Economist & consultant on food of the 18th & 19th centuries

Peter Le Rossignol DPhil FSA Broadcaster, adult education & Art Fund lecturer. Interests include Oriental decorative arts.

Anthony Peers MA FSA Architectural historian & conservationist. Chairman of the Ancient Monuments Society

AGM 7.00pm, followed by the lecture

Rosalind Whyte MA Lecturer at Tate Britain and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Guide at Tate Modern, Royal Academy & Greenwich.

Ian Swankie Official Guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain & St Paul’s Cathedral

Brian Stater BA MSc Lecturer on photography, architecture and history at UCL

Adam Busiakiewicz MA Head of Historical Interpretation at Warwick Castle 2010-2013. Now independent art historian and Guide lecturer at the Wallace Collection.

James Wright FSA Archaeologist & historian based at the University of Nottingham. Author & lecturer on British Mediaeval & Early Modern periods.

Gillian Hovell BA Broadcaster, author & lecturer specialising in relating the ancient world to modern lives.