Past lecture programmes

2023-24 programme

  • Reinventing Edinburgh: The Fall and Rise of the Municipality 1830-70 by Richard Rodger (October 2023)
  • Royal Society of Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century by Bill Jenkins (November 2023)
  • Members’ Evening, with Sweet Singers of Israel by Derrick Johnstone and From Quill to Computer, Edinburgh Manuscript Collection and New Age Discoverability by Karen O’Brien and Iain Duffus (December 2023)
  • Trinity Church – Medieval Edinburgh by Lizzie Swarbrick (January 2024)
  • The University of Edinburgh in the Eighteenth Century by Alasdair Raffe (February 2024)
  • Books and Borrowing: Edinburgh, 1750-1830 by Karen Baston (March 2024)

2022-23 programme

  • Entertainment for all the Family? Going to the Pictures in Edinburgh, by Trevor Griffiths (October 2022)

  • Secondary Schools in 20th Century Edinburgh: Social Divisions and Intellectual Excellence, by Lindsay Paterson (November)

  • Members’ Evening, with Maurice McIlwrick on The Secret Edinburgh Tunnel, Joan Fraser on Elevating the Poor in Victorian Edinburgh and Graeme Cruickshank on Pilkington Jackson’s Union Canal Memorial Frieze (December)

  • Instruments, Institutions and Individuals: The Local Networks of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, in the 19th Century, by Rebekah Higgitt (January 2023)

  • Scottish Historic Schools: The Architecture of Burgh Schools, Academies and Educational Institutions before 1880, by Diane Watters (February)

  • Networked Edinburgh 1800-1820 and the Stamp Office Story, by Penelope Wilson (March)

2021-22 programme

  • India in Edinburgh: 1750s to the present, by Roger Jeffery (October 2021)

  • Science, Technology and Edinburgh, by Sam Alberti (November)

  • Censuses of Edinburgh: Past, present and future, by Prof Richard Rodger (January 2022)

  • Meet me at Binns’: Capturing and conserving local significance, by Nicholas Uglow (February)

  • Widows, Dowers and Debts in Early Modern Scotland, by Dr Rebecca Mason (March)

  • Have a cuppa tea’: Life journeys of people with sight loss in and around Edwardian Edinburgh, by Dr Ian Hutchison (April)

2020-21 programme

  • Maps, History and the Edge of the City, by Bruce Gittings (November 2020)

  • Member’s Evening (December): Reminiscences: Photographs as Reminders of Edinburgh History, featuring members, Gina Gainey, Toni Buchan and Leonie Paterson

  • 170 years of agitation: Lord Cockburn and the founding of the Cockburn Association by Terry Leventhal (January 2021)

  • HM Treasury and the University of Edinburgh, by Dr Ian Levitt (2021)

  • Who runs Edinburgh?, by Prof David McCrone (March)

  • John Ritchie Findlay: Architectural Patron and Benefactor, by Dr Clarisse Godard Desmarest (April)

2019-20 programme

  • The World’s First Football Club – Edinburgh 1824 by Andy Mitchell (October 2019)

  • The Saving of John Knox House by Bob Morris (November)

  • Members’ Evening, Edinburgh Homes for Heroes (December)

  • Music and Theatre in 18th Century Edinburgh by David Todd (January 2020)

  • How Edinburgh University celebrated its Tercentenary in 1884’ by Robert Anderson (February)

  • The Archaeology of Edinburgh by Tom Addyman and Phil Karsgaard (March)