Plymouth Branch Programme
Enquiries to Alan H. Cousins Tel. 01752 843750 a.cousins345@btinternet.com
Booking for lectures: Booking is easy - just click on the title of the lecture and it will take you to the Eventbrite page. Eventbrite tickets will be free to Members; otherwise £6 or concessions £4.
Meetings start at 7pm at Lecture Theatre, Roland Levinsky Building, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA, unless otherwise stated.
Talks are open to all and are free for national or local members of the Historical Association, and for University of Plymouth students.
Visitors please contact Alan Cousins. Visitor tickets: £6, concessions £4: pay or show card at the door.
Local branch membership rates: Individual £8, family £12, Student £4
Membership secretary: John Stead, 2 Jessops, Plympton, Plymouth, PL7 4HW
Circumstances may mean that one or more of the talks in the series will need to be streamed online.
This is a joint programme in collaboration with the History Department at Plymouth University.
Saturday 12 September 2026 at 10 a.m.
A tour of St Mary’s Church and parts of nearby Laira
A tour of St Mary’s Church and parts of nearby Laira. It will include an account of the church’s history and its notable internal features, including the remarkable Pinwill Sisters’ woodwork. The church’s story will be set within the wider context of Laira’s growth, with particular attention to the early transport links that saw the GWR works transform the area. We will also explore the significant early developments in aerial transportation along the Plym Estuary.
Contact Alan Cousins for more details
15 September 2026
Wandering Souls: Tibetan visions on the Plym
Dr Hannibal Taubes, University of Manchester
In November 1956, a forty-six-year-old surgical fitter from Plympton named Cyril Hoskin embarked on an extraordinary literary career. Claiming to have been possessed, after a severe head injury, by the disembodied soul of a Tibetan monk named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, his prolific publications described his life as a Himalayan Buddhist in vivid, convincing detail. “Lama Rampa’s” publications have been alternately ridiculed and read with fascination by generations of spiritual seekers, but what is the truth behind them? Dr. Hannibal Taubes was trained as an academic Tibetologist and has been sometime resident of Plymouth since 2021. In this talk, he conjures the stranger-than-fiction worlds of Asian religion and European esotericism that underlie Hoskin’s account, tracing wondrous transmigrations from ancient Indian monks to feuding visionaries in medieval Tibet, eccentric Victorian lady-travellers to the thriving Buddhist communities of contemporary Plymouth
29 September 2026
Professor Max Edling, King’s College London
Historians of the American founding have long puzzled over the discrepancy between the alleged ideals of the American Revolution and the social and political reality of the early republic. The Declaration of Independence claimed that all men were created equal and were endowed with God-given rights. Yet the society that emerged from American independence was built on hierarchy and discrimination. This lecture reexamines the political thought of the founding generation and argues that common assumptions about American founding ideals have been misrepresented.
Saturday 10 October 2026 at 10.30 a.m.
Visit - The Heritage Wool Trail, Buckfastleigh
Guided Tour including a visit to the museum in The Valiant Soldier. There has been sheep farming on Dartmoor for 2500 years. By the Middle Ages spinning and weaving were well established in many homes. This changed in the early 19th century with industrialisation, the building of 5 woollen mills in Buckfastleigh and the surrounding area. There was a gradual decline in the industry in the 20th century, and by the 1970s the remaining mill and weaving shed were closed down.
Please contact Alan Cousins for details
10 November 2026
The Devonshire Regiment in the Great War
Dr Tony Rea (Local historian)
At the outbreak of war in August 1914 the Devonshire Regiment comprised two regular battalions a 3rd, Special Reserve, battalion and four part-time Territorial Force battalions. By 1917 the regiment had expanded to sixteen battalions strong and its soldiers fought not only on the Western Front but in Italy, Salonika, Mesopotamia and the Holy Land. Amongst its honours was the award of the French Croix de Guerre to the 2nd battalion and the Victoria Cross to two soldiers.
Tony's presentation will consider the role of the regiment’s battalions in some major engagements including the retreat from Mons 1914, Loos 1915, the Somme 1916 and the German offensive of 1918.
24 November 2026
The First Friendly invasion: the US Military in First World War Britain
Dr Sam Edwards, Loughborough University
The story of the World War II ‘friendly invasion’ of Britain is well known, but what about the precedent, that is, the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force over 1917-18? This talk explores the long-overlooked history of this ‘first friendly invasion’. It will reveal where in World War I Britain the US military was based, it will uncover the experiences of the invading doughboys, and it will explore how they were received by local communities across the land. In conclusion it will consider some of the memorials and monuments left by this invasion and which can be found from the western isles of Scotland to the south coast of England.
1 December 2026
Port Cities as Cosmopolitan Places? - the Hanseatic Cities in the wake of Nazism
Dr Jeremy De Waal, University of Exeter
This is a study of post-war reconstruction and the politics of local identities, particularly relating to three harbour cities—-the Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen. It looks at shattered home towns after the bombing (something relatable to Plymouth), and also at how denizens used their sea-faring history to argue for internationalist projects and reconciliation as in tune with local identities/histories. This contrasted with the Nazi definition of their harbour towns as part of a tradition of "projecting" German national power onto the world stage.
9 February 2027
Women and the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail
Professor Elaine Murphy, University of Plymouth
This is a discussion of the experiences of women with the Royal Navy in the 17th Century. It examines women who travelled on naval vessels and their experiences, women who did business with the navy such as contractors, the wives and widows of sailors. The talk sheds light on the roles and opportunities available to women in early modern British society.
23 February 2027
A Night at the Inn: the Elite Experience of Empire 1650 - 1850
Professor Daniel Maudlin, University of Plymouth
The talk follows the experiences of an elite traveller on a journey through the North Atlantic world. What becomes clear along the way is that inns were much more than somewhere for a drink, a meal and a bed for the night; they played a central role in what was first a British, later Anglophone, process of national and imperial placemaking. Whether in Scotland, Virginia, or Jamaica, 'principal inns' contained the useful spaces and things that society's ruling elites needed to establish and maintain power. The material world experienced inside principal inns shaped elite inn-goers' perceptions of place, confirming that here - wherever here was - was somewhere familiar, somewhere 'civilised', somewhere British.
2 March 2027
Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief. Christopher Durston Memorial Lecture
Professor Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol
In 1647, the Parliamentarians were divided. They had won the first civil war and the king was in custody, but disagreements over the way forward had led to a stalemate. As the leader of one party, Oliver Cromwell found himself again at the centre of events. The talk traces Cromwell’s career through to his seizure of supreme power. These decisive years saw the execution of Charles I and the establishment of the Commonwealth of England, as well as notorious and savage campaigns in Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell’s political and military leadership were well honed after years of practice, but this was also the period of his greatest ruthlessness and brutality. A different kind of Cromwell is revealed, showing how he navigated the many forces ranged against him—and rose to the pinnacle of his power.
4 May 2027
An unexpected window on English maritime history: the Spanish Inquisition archives
Dr Teresa Tinsley, Research Fellow, University of Exeter
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, over 400 Englishmen (and a few women) found themselves in contact with the Spanish Inquisition. The vast majority of these individuals are associated with maritime contact with Spain, as merchants, sailors, or prisoners of war, predominantly from the West Country. The new book draws on the records of their experiences and testimonies to provide a new perspective on maritime encounters during a crucial period of religious and political divergence.