Each year the Royal Historical Society undertakes a programme of visits to historians in UK universities. Visits are an opportunity to meet academic historians, researchers and students: to discuss topics of common interest and concern and to hear how the Society can best support the historian community.
Visits are also an important part of the Society’s advocacy work, providing opportunities to meet with university managers and demonstrate the contribution of historians working across the university.
Each Visit concludes with a public guest lecture, with speakers chosen by the host institution. Lectures are followed by a reception which is chance for audience members to meet with historians from a department, and for members of the Society’s Council to meet with RHS Fellows and Members from the locality.
Following the Society’s visit to the Cornwall campus of the University of Exeter (May 2025), three further visits will take place this autumn:
17-18 September at the University of Aberdeen, with a guest lecture by Professor Matthew J. Smith (UCL): ‘Twice Removed: Slavery, Big Data, and the Cultures of Caribbean Ancestral Histories’
The lecture, took place on Wednesday 17 September. More about this visit is available here.
22 October at the University of Suffolk, Ipswich, with a guest lecture by Professor Tim Grady (Chester): ‘Unravelling the Tapestry of Death: Britain and the Memory of the Two World Wars’.
The lecture — which takes place at 5.30pm on Wednesday 22 October, at The Hold, home of Suffolk Archives — is open to all, with booking available here.
10 December, jointly at the UCL Institute of Education and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to consider working as a historian outside of a History department.
The public guest lecture for this visit will be given by Dr Heather Ellis (Department of Education, University of Sheffield) on the subject of ‘Hunger, Health and Hope: A History of School Meals in Britain’. Booking for this lecture (6pm), which is available in person at the LSHTM or online, is now open.
The Society is currently planning its programme of Visits for 2026. This will begin, on Wednesday 18 February at Sheffield Hallam University with a guest lecture by Professor David Stack (Reading). Further information on this and other visits in 2026 will be made available later in the year.
Public lectures are open to all and we look forward to meeting you at these events and the receptions that follow.
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