Photo: Alan Murray-Rust / Hansom Hall, Belvoir Street / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Annual Members' Meeting, is open to all members of the Lit&Phil. The meeitng will start at 6:40 PM. Further details to follow

The Annual Members Meeting will take place in Hansom Hall, beginning at 6.40pm. The meeting will be the first of the 2025 - 2026 season. 

The Annual Members' Meeting is an opportunity to hear about, and discuss, the Society’s business and plans for the 2025/26 season, as well as any other matters which members wish to raise.

Images courtesy of the speaker The President's Address Hazel Graves Retired Medical Research Technician, Retired Special Needs Education Technician, Currently Amateur Naturalist. Lecture outline Conservation of our natural environment is now widely recognised as essential for the welfare of future generations.  We cannot conserve what we don’t know about. This lecture will give a flavour of the endeavours of Leicestershire naturalists past and present to identify and understand the wealth of wildlife in Leicestershire and beyond. Biographical note After a career in medical research followed by a short spell as a stay-at-home parent, I re-entered the workforce specialising in Education for Children with Visual Impairment and Braille production.  Following retirement I initially immersed myself in Botany, volunteering for Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust, undertaking grassland, woodland and hedge surveys, and for the BSBI, spending many hours square-bashing for the 2020 Atlas. I then branched out into other areas of natural history such as regular moth recording at home and on Wildlife Trust reserves, butterfly and bird transects on farmland being managed for nature, plus a keen interest in recording hoverflies, leaf mines and plant galls and anything else that I find. I have been Chairman of both Leicester Lit & Phil Natural History Section and Loughborough Naturalists’ Club for approximately 7 years until recently and often lead Field Meetings to places of natural history interest for these organisations. Attending the lecture The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests. The lecture will take place in Hansom Hall - how to find Hansom Hall. Please note that tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm. The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.

Corinne seated by Wordsworth Museum - copyright Gary Calton

Professor Corinne Fowler MA PhD Professor of Colonialism and Heritage, Museum Studies, University of Leicester.

Lecture outline

In this talk, Professor Fowler entwines local and global stories in illustrated journeys to show how Empire profoundly shaped the British countryside.

Biographical note

Leading historian Corinne Fowler wrote the National Trust’s 2020 report on the historical links between its Country Houses and the British Empire and now has written the critically acclaimed Our Island Stories: Ten Walks Through Rural Britain and its Hidden History of Empire (Penguin 2024).

Attending the lecture

The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests.

The lecture will take place in Hansom Hall - how to find Hansom Hall.

Please note that tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm.

The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.

Image courtesy of the speaker

Professor Bryan Williams OBE MD FMedSci Chair of Medicine Population Science & Experimental Medicine, UCL, and Chief Scientific and Medical Officer, British Heart Foundation.

Lecture outline

Lecture to mark the University of Leicester Medical School’s Anniversary 2025

( Lecture outline to be confirmed)

Biographical note

Bryan joined the BHF in 2023. He oversees one of the largest funding portfolios for academic cardiovascular research portfolios globally. He has 40 years’ experience in the NHS where he works as a Consultant Physician with a specialist clinical interest in hypertension in which he is recognised as a world leading authority. Bryan is currently Chair of Medicine at University College London and was formerly Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Biomedical Research Centre. As Director of Research at UCLH he oversaw one of the most complex clinical trial programmes in the NHS (2012-2023).

He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and in the 2023 Clarivate listings was recognised as one of the worlds' most influential scientists in his field. He has published extensively in major medical and scientific journals and has contributed to many pivotal clinical trials in hypertension and cardiovascular medicine.

Bryan is a Trustee for Blood Pressure UK and In2Science, a charity supporting mentoring for talented young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to increase their chances to study science at the UK’s leading universities. He was awarded an OBE in the 2024 New Year’s honours list, for his services to medicine.

Attending the lecture

The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests.

The lecture will take place in Hansom Hall - how to find Hansom Hall.

Please note that tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm.

The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.

Image courtesy of the speaker copyright Nicola Tree All rights reserved

The Arthur and Jean Humphreys Lecture Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth  Dr Elizabeth Eger PhD Reader Emerita English Department, Kings College London.

Lecture outline

Jane Austen’s novels are famous for their depiction of human character as revealed through the practice of conversation. From the verbal sparring of Pride and Prejudice to the dangerous wit of Emma, from the dramatic disclosures of Sense and Sensibility to the ‘dead silence’ of Mansfield Park, or in the gradual intimations of Persuasion, Austen’s novels depict a world in which speech matters.

By making some comparisons with the with her sister authors in late eighteenth-century, revolutionary Europe, I will aim to illuminate Austen’s investment in the moral force of conversation and her lasting contribution to the history of the novel as a critical tool in defining modern notions of culture, education and freedom of speech.

Biographical note

Elizabeth Eger is Reader Emerita, King’s College London. She has published widely on various eighteenth- century topics, including Luxury, Bluestockings and the history of collecting. She is currently completing a biography of Elizabeth Montagu, Queen of the Bluestockings.

Attending the lecture

The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests.

The lecture will take place in Hansom Hall - how to find Hansom Hall.

Please note that tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm.

The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.

Details to follow.

To be given by:

Dr Nana Siaw-Badu BEM, CEO of Badu Sport

Details to follow.

Details to follow.

Details to follow.

To be given by:

Professor Mike Searle PhD, Worcester College, Professor of Earth Sciences Worcester College University of Oxford

The Geology Section Joint Lecture

Details to follow.

To be given by:

Sandra Penketh MA, Director of Collections & Research, National Museums Liverpool.

Joint Lecture with the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery

Details to follow.

To be given by:

Dr Alastair Fothergill OBE, CEO of Silverback Films.

The F.L. Attenborough Lecture

Details to follow.