Lectures & Excursions

2025/2026 Programme

A Yorkshireman Abroad: Geology, Photography, Industry and World Travel in the Godfrey Bingley Archive

Godfrey Bingley was a prominent Yorkshire industrialist who took up geology, photography and global travel upon his retirement in the 1880s. His collection of almost 10,000 photographs is housed at the University of Leeds, where he worked as an assistant to Percy Kendall, its first Chair of Geology and one of the founders of the hatchling institution. Thanks to local records and diligent historians, we know something of Bingley’s life: he owned a foundry on Harper St, married into a wealthy family of doctors, was an active member of the Thoresby Society, the Yorkshire Geological Society, and the Leeds Photographic Society, and had aspirations as a politician. The details of his extensive trips abroad, however, remain a mystery. What drove Bingley to travel around Europe, the Americas, and Africa, taking his bulky photographic equipment with him? Who funded these expeditions and who accompanied Bingley on these grand adventures?

This lecture by Rebecca Jarman seeks to answer these questions by uncovering clues in Bingley’s photographic archive. Doing so, it offers a whistlestop tour of the world seen through the lens of the camera wielded by a nineteenth-century Englishman.

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Ralph and John Went To Church: Ralph Thoresby and John Lewis

Ralph and John Went To Church: Ralph Thoresby and John Lewis, the first recorded Black person in Leeds

On the 1st February 1708 a remarkable thing happened, Ralph and John went to church. Ralph was Ralph Thoresby, the Leeds antiquarian and diarist. John was John Lewis, a servant and the first recorded Black person in Leeds. How were the two linked? What brought John to Leeds? And what connections did Ralph have to the Caribbean? In this talk Danny Friar answers those questions and more when he tells the story of when Ralph and John went to church.

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Richard Wainwright, Leeds and Liberalism

Richard Wainwright was a proud son of Leeds and a key figure in the revival of Liberal politics in Yorkshire and nationally. He was a West Yorkshire Liberal MP for seventeen years, but his life tells us about more than politics: he lived in prosperity, but campaigned against poverty; refused to fight in World War Two but saw the conflict at its cruellest; and joined his party when it seemed doomed, but took it to the brink of power through the Thorpe scandal, the experiment of the Lib-Lab Pact and the formation of the Liberal Democrats. Wainwright’s life gives a distinctive perspective on his own time and place, but is also a parable for those interested in the tensions between public life and principle today.

Matt Cole is the author of Richard Wainwright, the Liberals and Liberal Democrats: Unfinished Business (Manchester University Press) and teaches at Lancaster University’s Regional Heritage Centre.

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Members Evening

Members Evening

1) It happened in Leeds – The 1875 Yorkshire Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures by Michael Meadowcroft

In 1875 Leeds hosted a huge “Exhibition of Arts and Manufactures”. Occupying a vast purpose-built temporary building on the yard of the Coloured Cloth Hall, it had royal patronage and was open for almost six months by which time no less than 642,250 people had been admitted!

2) Leeds’ response to children at risk of tuberculosis 1898-1960; with particular insights from life at The Hollies 1924-1960 – by David Cundall

Tuberculosis (TB) was a major scourge in the UK at the beginning of the twentieth century. The public health response had been transformed after Robert Koch discovered the bacterium that caused TB in 1882 and Leeds moved relatively quickly to set up TB sanatoria, a central clinic and home-visiting services. Children, initially regarded as innocent victims, came to be perceived as a reservoir of latent infection. The notion of ‘pre-tuberculosis’ in children became a powerful factor in health and education policy from 1908. Leeds had one of the first residential open-air schools for children at risk of tuberculosis, at Gateforth sanatorium near Selby (1913-1918), but was slow to replace this after the Great War; The Hollies did not open until 1924. By the mid-1930s, evidence showed that the concept of pre-tuberculosis was incorrect and preventoria ineffective, but The Hollies persisted as an institution for children at risk of TB until the late 1950s. Based on a detailed analysis of the logbook and register for The Hollies and other sources, this presentation will show how the unique cultural heft of TB, perceptions of poor children as both victims and threats, and pervasive anxieties about the health of the nation all interacted to drive the open-air school movement. Children’s voices were seldom heard in official accounts, but this study also includes insights from interviews with a few people who lived at The Hollies as children.

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William Morris in Leeds and Bradford

The poet, novelist, translator, artist, designer, businessman, publisher and pioneer socialist, William Morris (1834-1896), made a tremendous impact on British art and society which still resonates today. This talk will focus on Morris’s activities in Leeds, Bradford and the surrounds looking at both the decorative design work of Morris & Co. At Bradford Cathedral, for private homes, and his work as a political lecturer, leader of the Socialist League and editor of one of the best socialist journals ever produced in Britain – Commonweal. In 1879 he spent a week in Leeds investigating the piracy of one of his carpet designs and later he visited Leeds, Bradford and Shipley lecturing on socialism at the Co-operative Hall (Shipley), the Temperance Hall and St George’s Hall (Bradford) and the Philosophical Hall and Grand Assembly Rooms (Leeds). William Morris was a pivotal influence for many of the founders of the Independent Labour Party, established in Bradford in 1893.

John Blewitt is editor of the Journal of William Morris Studies and author of William Morris and the Instinct for Freedom (Merlin Press, 2019). He is also editor of William Morris’s Politics and Socialism: Claiming a Decent Life (University of Exeter Press, forthcoming 2025).

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THE AGM and lecture: Archie Scarr: The ‘Mayor of the masses’ revisited

The AGM will be conducted first in the presence of Lord Mayor, Councillor Dan Cohen.

Unfortunately, our scheduled speaker, Eve Haskins, is unable to give her talk because of ill health. Instead, the President, Chris Hindle, will give the talk “Archie Scarr: The ‘Mayor of the masses’ revisited”. This will be immediately after the AGM business has been concluded.

For members who joined in 2025 or 2026 Postponed due to heat

‘The Age of Flamboyance’: The Edwardian Buildings of Leeds City Centre

POSTPONED DUE TO THE HOT WEATHER

Starting Point: The foyer of The Leeds Library, 18 Commercial Street

The Thoresby Society is very keen to meet its new members and for them to meet each other. To provide an opportunity to do this, our Patron, Dr Kevin Grady, has kindly agreed to leading this guided walk around Edwardian Leeds for members who have joined in 2025 and 2026.

The Edwardian period stands out as a brief Indian Summer at the close of a century of British political and economic pre-eminence in the world before the First World War. This was reflected in Leeds by a massive building boom with many fine buildings erected in the city centre whose flamboyant architecture reflected the reputation of Edward VII . During the walk you will see how many of the city centre’s streets were vibrantly transformed in this relatively short period.

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