Bristol Branch Programme
Please contact Mary Feerick Secretary Maryfeerick58@gmail.com or 0117 9442898 for further details.
Annual branch membership is £15. All lectures are free to National HA members as well as University of Bristol staff & all students. Guests pay £5 on the door for a single lecture. Further details are available on our website https://bristolha.org or use Facebook and X feed.
Our lectures are normally held in Lecture Theatre B.H05LT on the ground floor of the Humanities Building at the University of Bristol,7 Woodland Road Clifton BS8 ITB at 7. 30 pm on a Wednesday and doors open at 6.45pm. There is paid parking outside the building on Woodland Road after 7pm
Bristol Branch Programme 2025-6
24th September 2025 7.30pm
Professor Selina Todd, University of Oxford
The First Women Doctors in Britain
15th October 2025 7.30pm
Professor Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol
Witch-hunting: Past and Present?
12th November 2025 7.30 pm
Professor Emeritus Sir Barry Cunliffe, University of Oxford
Emerging from the mud: The discovery of Roman Bath
2025-2026 November or June 6pm – 8pm
Sixth Form Pizza Quiz
Details TBC
3rd December 2025 7.30pm
Dr Andrew Foyle (author of the Bristol volume of Pevsner Guide to English Architecture)
Bristol’s own distinctive buildings
21st January 2026 7.30 pm
Professor Ian Hamerton, University of Bristol
The Arts and Crafts Movement – “What You Can Remember Is Your Own, What You Sketch You Steal” Exploring C.F.A. Voysey’s individual approach to decorative design
28th January 2026 7pm
Annual Bristol HA Pub Quiz
(pub venue TBC)
11th February 2026 7.30 pm
Dr Vivian Kong, University of Bristol
Multiracial Britishness in Hong Kong, 1910-45
18th March 2026 7.30pm
Professor Adrian Bingham, University of Sheffield
‘Politics is something outside everyday life’: Understanding democratic engagement in twentieth-century Britain
25th March 2026
Extended afternoon A level History Conference
Topic TBC
29th April 2026 7.30 pm
Professor Richard Grayson, Oxford Brookes University
The Easter Rising in Dublin and Cork, and its First World War Context
3rd May 2026 2pm
Dr Evan Jones
A Humorous Walk around Millerd’s Bristol
Evan Jones will lead a walk around the old city of Bristol as it would have been in 1673. James Millerd’s 1673 map of Bristol is the best known and most widely used representation of the pre-modern city. Evan has researched Millerd's map and has discovered four jokes. The walk will bring these to life. We will start at Bristol Bridge (where Millerd lived) then wend our way through Bristol, going up Stony Hill and St Michael's Hill, before cutting across to the Bristol Volcano (aka Brandon Hill). Warning: it will be steep.
Pre booking is essential. Contact Rob Pritchard robpritchard1957@gmail.com
13th May 2026 7.30pm
Eugene Byrne, Journalist, Author and Historian
‘Which side are you on?’: Bristol in the 1980s
The 1980s in Britain was a time of bitter political discord, and growing social divisions resulting in many communities being “left behind” even today. It was either a time of heartless estate agents, designer suits and Harry Enfield yelling “Loadsamoney!” or it was the era of the miners’ strike, inner-city riots and growing unemployment (shorthanded as “Thatcher’s Britain”). For Bristol, it was a decade of two halves, the first angry and confrontational, the second more materialistic and hedonistic.
** This lecture by local historian and writer Eugene Byrne replaces our lecture by Professor Adam Smith.**
10th June 2026 7.30pm
Professor Emeritus William Doyle
The American and French Revolutions: Links, similarities and differences
In the year the USA celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence Professor William Doyle examines the links, similarities and differences between this revolution and the French Revolution which began in 1789 and shook Europe to its core.
This event is being held in a different room to our usual venue in the Humanities Building. The room holds a smaller number than usual and there will be refreshments before the lecture so we need accurate numbers of those attending. Please contact our treasurer Rob Pritchard robpritchard1957@gmail.com so we can monitor the numbers as we will be meeting in smaller room.
** This lecture replaces our previously proposed June lecture.**