All enquiries to Chris Sexton – sexton44@gmail.com   Tel 01344 779321 or 07957 184342

HA members, students and school pupils free. Non-members visitors £3. Associate branch membership £10 per annum.

Venue: Reading School, Erleigh Road, Reading RG1 5LW. Suppers precede each lecture from 6pm – cost £20 per person – are held in the school’s refectory and the lectures take place in the Lecture Theatre. Cars can only enter the site via Erleigh Rd, Reading RG1 5LR.

For the gate code and / or a map of the school layout, contact  sexton44@gmail.com

 

Reading Programme 2025-26

 

Date TBC - October 2025, 8.00pm (AGM 7.30pm)

Dr Graham O’Dwyer (University of Reading)

Title and detail to be announced

 

Friday 14 November 2025, 7.30 pm

Dr David Lewis (Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford)

Title and detail to be announced

                                                                                                   

Friday 5 December 2025, 7.30pm
Professor David Carpenter (Kings College, London)

Why the 800^th Anniversary of Magna Carta is 2025, not 2015

In this talk David Carpenter explains why the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta is 2025, and not 2015. He traces successive editions of the Charter between 1215 and 1225 and explains how the 1225 version had new and special qualities that ensured its survival.                                       

                                                                

Friday 30 January 2026, 7.30pm
Professor Anthony Best (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Drifting Apart: The Untangling of Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1922-1939

This paper will look at why the relationship between Britain and Japan that had developed during the years of the alliance (1902-1922) began to unravel during the 1920s and 1930s. It will do this through looking at the evolution of the interactions between the British and Japanese government and peoples in the political, economic and cultural spheres. It will thus demonstrate that these years witnessed a growing divide, in which alienation took place over a whole range of activities.

 

Friday 27 February 2026, 7.30pm

Professor Lyndal Roper (Oriel College, Oxford – and holder of Regius Chair in History)

The German Peasants’ War and 1525: Why you should care about it

2025 marked the 500^th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War. This was the biggest uprising in Western European history before the French Revolution. Somewhere between seventy and a hundred-thousand people died, perhaps one per cent of the male population; thousands more took part. It stretched from down near Switzerland through Alsace, southern Germany, Thuringia, Saxony and around to Austria and the Tyrol. Over 600 monasteries were attacked. But most people in this country have never heard of it.  Why? In this lecture Professor Lyndal Roper will explain why the German Peasants’ War is so important, and how it transforms our understanding of the Reformation. She will also talk about how it has been celebrated this year, and what this tells about the differences between the former East and former West Germany today.

 

Friday 13 March 2026, 7.30pm
Professor Josephine Quinn (Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge)

Title and detail to be announced