On Friday 25 September the Society hosted the latest lecture in its 2026 programme. Our great thanks to Professor Glen O’Hara (Oxford Brookes University) who spoke on: ‘In All Our Footsteps? Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land after the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act’.
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Glen’s lecture considered the origins and impact of the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, the post-war Labour government’s plan for the land.
In this plan development would be controlled and its profits nationalised; National Parks would be established; access agreements reached. Most importantly the country would be opened up for everyone, everywhere, via a Definitive Map containing every right of way in England and Wales. In his lecture, Glen detailed the long struggle to realise those plans, and their uncertain fate as successive governments argued and puzzled over how practical and desirable that expansive vision really was.
Professor Glen O’Hara is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History in the School of Education, Humanities and Languages at Oxford Brookes University. He is author of New Labour, New Britain? How the Blair Governments Reshaped the Country (2026) and The Politics of Water in Post-War Britain (2017).
Our great thanks to Glen for his lecture, and to all who attended this event in person and online.
RHS Events Archive
Glen’s lecture is one of many recent Royal Historical Society events now available to watch or listen to again via the RHS Events Archive.
Recent speakers include the historians Charles West on medieval queenship, Sasha Handley on eighteenth-century ghost stories, Jane Ohlmeyer on early modern Irish women, and Rebecca Earle on the circulation of goods in an age of revolution.
Forthcoming RHS lectures in autumn 2026
Glen’s lecture is the start of the Society’s autumn series of events held in London, Glasgow and Bristol, and also online. Coming soon, and available for booking, we have:
- Dr Meleisa Ono-George (University of Oxford): ‘Visualizing Difference: Amelia Newsham and the Art of Race-Making’, on Wednesday 7 October 2026 and part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (in person only).
- Sathnam Sanghera: ‘What History is NOT’ – the Society’s 2026 Public History Lecture, held in association with Gresham College London, on Tuesday 3 November 2026 (in person at Gresham College, London, and online, with online booking now available). In-person booking will open on 3 October 2026.
- Professor Hanna Diamond (Cardiff University): ‘From Cabaret Star to Gaullist Spy: Josephine Baker’s Secret War’ – the Society’s 2026 Anniversary Lecture at 6.00pm, Friday 27 November 2026. Booking for this lecture is now available in-person at the Institute of Historical Research, London and for online attendance.
- Professor Amy Froide (University of Maryland, Baltimore County): ‘The Charitable Corporation Scandal of 1732 and the Female Shareholders who stood up to Financial Fraud’ – the Society’s annual International Fellows’ Lecture, at 4pm Friday 4 December 2026 (NB: online only). Co-hosted with the Economic History Society.
- Professor Martin Thomas (University of Exeter): ‘A World Remade by Decolonisation?’, on Tuesday 8 December 2027, and part of the Society’s visit to historians at the University of the West of England, Bristol (booking for this event will open soon).
Details of these and other Society events in 2026 are also available via our Events page. Our events are free and open to all.