Unless otherwise stated, all talks start at 7pm and finish no later than 8.30pm. The venue for talks is: Room 1.09, Park Building, King Henry I St, Portsmouth, PO1 2BZ. Pay on arrival: £4 per lecture, or £20 for all lectures from October to May. Students and HA members pay nothing. There’s no need to book a place; just turn up.

For further information or to be added to our email distribution list please contact Kate at portsmouthhistorybranch@gmail.com

 

 

Portsmouth Branch Programme 2026 - 27 

 

 

Tuesday 13th October 2026: Chamberlain, Hitler and the “Illusion of Knowledge”: Deceptive Quicksands and summit agreements, Professor Harmonie Toros, University of Reading

Neville Chamberlain believed he was taking the risky but bold step of building a trusting relationship with Adolf Hitler. Hitler boasted that he had successfully deceived Chamberlain into believing his ambitions ended with the Sudetenland. The former spoke in public and private of trust; the latter, in private, flaunted his deception. Although the Munich Conference, the “object-lesson” of the postwar era, has been studied in its minutiae by numerous historians and for its broader lessons by International Relations scholars, the functions and processes of trust-building and deception have yet to be thoroughly examined. Drawing on an increasingly sophisticated trust literature, this paper aims to offer an initial investigation into the role of trust and deception in the making of Munich.

 

Tuesday 10th November 2026: Kidnapping China's President: The Xi'an Incident of 1936 - Dr Elisabeth Forster Lecturer in Chinese history, Southampton University

In 1936, China’s president Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by two of his own generals. This is known as the Xi’an Incident. Not only was this humiliating for the Generalissimo. Insult was also added to injury because he left his dentures behind when he unsuccessfully tried to escape, and he injured his back so badly that he would suffer for the rest of his life. The two kidnappers would also suffer: One was assassinated alongside his family in 1949. The other one would be under house arrest until the 1990s. The kidnapping was not merely a breakdown of military discipline. It was a political statement. In his war against the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s and against Japan (the emerging Second World War), Chiang Kai-shek had set his priorities differently from what the two generals wished for. They used the kidnapping to correct this, with consequences that went much beyond the Second World War and shape East Asia until the present. In this talk, I will talk about key factors surrounding the spread of Communism and the beginnings of World War Two, which led to the 1936 Kidnapping, as well as what transpired in 1936 itself and in the years afterwards.

 

Tuesday 8th December 2026: Foreign Secretaries: the evolution of the role across the Twentieth Century, Ted Morris

Ted Morris is the author of Managing Decline: British Foreign Secretaries of the Twentieth Century, published earlier this year. This lecture will explore how the role of Foreign Secretary has evolved through the course of the century, in terms of both the political standing of the incumbent and Britain’s changing role in the world. Drawing on the experiences of the thirty-one men how held the post, he will seek to set out what factors may lead to a successful tenure. There will be a particular focus on Portsmouth’s local boy: James Callaghan, whose time as Foreign Secretary has been a generally overlooked period in a long and eventful ministerial career.

 

Tuesday 12th January 2027: Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649–1660, Professor Alice Hunt, University of Southampton

 

Tuesday 9th February 2027-"We don't know how many votes we have until we know how many votes we need." A Brief History of US Election Scandals, Professor Peter J. Ling Emeritus Professor of American Studies, University of Nottingham

My talk will be based on my 2024 book After Watergate. It focused on presidential scandals from Watergate to Trump. Watergate itself began as election campaign scandal, and the next half-century saw more scandals, notably the Florida count in 2000, Russian interference in 2016, what Trump sees as the 'rigged election' of 2020, and continuous efforts to manipulate all phases of the process for partisan advantage. Thus, this is a historical topic with contemporary resonances.

 

Tuesday 9th March 2027 - Defiance and Destruction, Warblington 1830, Neil Spurgeon, Havant Local History Group

This talk explores the 1830 Swing Riots, where farm workers, driven by economic distress and harsh legislation destroyed threshing machines in Warblington.

 

Tuesday 11th May 2027: The Seven Years War and Britain’s Global Empire, Dr James Thomas memorial talk - Dr John McAleer, University of Southampton

The Seven Years War (1756–63) played a crucial role in the development of the British Empire. It consolidated Britain’s growing status as a world superpower, laying the foundations of a truly global empire as well as sowing the seeds of future conflicts. Battles were fought in North America, Europe, the Caribbean and India, with major consequences for local societies and global politics. Closer to home, the trials and tribulations of this first worldwide war extended beyond the battlefield, making an impact on a number of cultural, social and political levels as well as having significant consequences for a developing sense of British national identity.