Birmingham: The Power of Balance – Kingsley Norris Memorial lecture

The Power of Balance  – W&T Avery in the First World War’

Presenter – Andrew Lound

It was a war that would forever change our view of humanity. A war that was driven by treaty and alliances. A war that would leave millions dead. The Great War started out as a great patriotic adventure and it would be over by Christmas (1914). The illusions of those heady days in August soon disappeared as a desperate struggle for survival began. This presentation  looks at the war from the point of view of W & T Avery Limited at Soho Foundry. Many of its employees volunteered to fight, many were in reserved occupations as Avery’s produced vital materiel for war. With exclusive access to the Avery Archive it is a presentation that will shed a new light on the famous firm.

Andrew is well known local speaker, author and commentator and has appeared numerous times on radio and television both locally and internationally.

The Kingsley Norris Memorial Lecture is always by a society member.

It was from a germ of an idea of Dr. Stuart Kingsley Norris, retired surgeon at Birmingham Eye Hospital, that BMSGH now Midland Ancestors, was established in 1963. As its pioneering founder member, after his untimely death in 1972, this annual lecture was set up in his memory.