Peplow Memorial Lecture William Augustus Peplow was a successful business man from the Black Country and descended from a long line of clockmakers. He had a keen interest in Heraldry, which he helped develop in the society, also making authoritative surveys of the hatchments of Worcestershire. He later became President of the Worcester Archaeological Society […]

Oral History at The Hive The Hive is jointly home to Worcester Records Office and The University of Worcester. Maggie Tohill our speaker is an archivist with the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service and is one of the Oral History Society's regional networkers for the West Midlands area. Maggie will look at how family historians […]

Winterbourne House Archives An Edwardian historic house and garden nestled in a leafy corner of Birmingham, just minutes from the city centre, Winterbourne House was built in 1904 as the family home for John and Margaret Nettlefold. It was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement of Edwardian times. Under the ownership of a number of families […]

Corals Birmingham photo archive Our speaker writes “Back in 2013 we began working on something special. In partnership with the Library of Birmingham we developed Corals, a web platform designed to deliver its collections to digital audiences. Since then we’ve been busy growing Corals to enable other organisations to join us. In this talk we’ll […]

Getting Rid of the Stink - The Public Health Revolution A presentation by Dr. Mike Haynes. Throughout history, millions have been killed by typhoid, cholera, diphtheria and even simple diarrhoea. Drawing on years of research into the history of public health in the UK and Europe, this talk looks at the ways in which a […]

The curious case of Mr. Herbert Mowle Kendal A presentation by Paul Handford MBE. This talk, snowed off from last year, is about a Mr Kendal, a civilian volunteer ambulance driver who was killed in Action in May 1918 whilst driving his ambulance in support of the French Army. Paul discovered his  death was not […]

Birchfield Harriers - The first 50 years 1877 - 1927 Since 1877 Birchfield Harriers, the club "of the people, for the people" has been the home of thousands of aspiring athletes, with almost 100 Harriers having represented their countries at the Olympic Games. A presentation by Ruth Lockley and Stuart Paul. Stuart and Ruth are part […]

From Chisel to Cloud, The Past and Future of Family History. A thought-provoking journey through thousands of years of development of family history record keeping and record preservation. Not all technology over the millennia has changed and, surprisingly, the future is not entirely digital. You’ll see your own family history research and documentation in a new […]

This illustrated talk looks at the influence of the Victorians on Christmas as we know it today. The Victorians repackaged older traditions and customs that suited their new sensibilities, ideas and concerns. It is said the Victorians:‘mixed the ingredients of the English Christmas to create an extremely rich plum pudding’. Many of these changes took […]

  From being Staffordshire husbandmen, the Gilbert family worked its way up to producing two brothers, nephews of an ancestress, who were Thomas Gilbert (1720-98) and John Gilbert (1724-95),  prominent entrepreneurs of the early Industrial Revolution.   As well as with important parliamentary reform, they were involved with pioneering mining and canal engineering on a large and […]