External Events and Announcements

As you will appreciate, many external events may change their details at short notice. We therefore ask you to contact organisations directly for up to date information about whether their events are going ahead as advertised. Please note that the RHC cannot provide further information on these events and announcements, nor be held responsible for any inaccuracies in what is posted below.

Kirkby Lonsdale & District Civic Society

The Kirkby Lonsdale & District Civic Society will be hosting a Study Day on Saturday 28th September from 10am - 4pm at Barbon Village Hall (LA6 2LL) on Medieval Towns and Town Life in North West England with Dr Alan Crosby (British Association for Local History). Alan is a freelance local and regional historian, writer, editor and lecturer, working mainly in the North West. He will be looking at the region's many market centres and thriving country towns that trace their origins back to the medieval period, examining tangible evidence such as street patterns, street names and key buildings including churches.

Tickets are £12 including tea, coffee and cake. Non-members are welcome! For booking please email kldcstalks@gmail.com or tel: 07821 088484.

Migration Stories North West

Global Link, an educational charity in Lancaster, has led a three-year Heritage Fund project, documenting stories of individual women, men and children who migrated in or out of North West England from the Roman period to the present day. The stories can be accessed via the Migration Stories website. An exhibition about the project will also be on display at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool in September and Manchester Central Library in October.

Festival of Bowland Lecture

On Tuesday 1 October 2024 at 7.30pm, Neil Whalley will present an evening lecture in the Tithe Barn of Browsholme Hall. The Celtic History of the North West traces the history of the ‘Celts’ in the North West, from their European origins to their eventual disappearance, exploring their language, religion, literature and legends, and looking at what they left behind. Tickets are £5 and pre-booking is essential. Pay bar from 7pm. For more information and to book tickets, please email sandra.silk@lancashire.gov.uk or phone 07973 923142

Preston Historical Society Talks

Monday 14 October 7.15pm The role of Preston in the development of the world-wide Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A talk by Martin Cook.

Talks are held at Central Methodist Church, Lune Street, Preston PR1 2NL and cost £5 for visitors.

Silverdale History Weekend

The Mourholme Local History Society announces a Silverdale History Weekend, to be heldon Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October from 10.30am to 4.00pm at Gaskell Hall, Silverdale, Carnforth, LA5 0RA

Mourholme Local History Society and Silverdale Parish Council are hosting this two- day history event which is free for visitors. There will be a number of exhibitors on the day alongside talks about different aspects of history in and around Silverdale, as well as both guided and self-guided walks around the village.

For more details and updates visit the Society's website

Lancashire Local History Federation

The LLHF together with the Leeds & Liverpool Canal Society are holding a day school on Saturday, 2 November at Preston Masonic Hall, Ashlar House, Saul Street, Preston, PR1 2QU.

Various speakers including Dr Alan Crosby (British Association for Local History) will be looking at The canals and waterways of Lancashire: A day school to commemorate and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the opening of the first section of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal from Parbold to Wigan.

Tickets cost £22 (including lunch) and bookings must be received by 25 October. For further information please contact Zoe Lawson by telephone: 07471908077 or email elizoelaw@gmail.com

Weaving History Podcasts

A brand new research podcast, Weaving History, has launched. It uncovers a forgotten piece of Lancashire’s working-class history and was created by two Lancaster University Alumni from the English and Creative Writing department. Combining Victorian poetry and interviews with leading experts, Weaving History tells the story of the Cotton Famine in a fresh and accessible way. It connects the cotton weaving industry in North-West England to the American Civil War, the fight against slavery, and Victorian literature. All six episodes are available to stream, so Listen to all episodes now!

Lancashire Archives and Local History

We're delighted to let you know that Lancashire Archives and Local History now has a Facebook page!

You can also follow Lancashire Archives on X (formerly Twitter)

Also, back issues of the new Lancashire local history magazine 'Archives' are now available to purchase in all Lancashire County Council libraries and at Lancashire Archives, priced at £3. If you'd like to receive a copy by post, please contact the Archives at archives@lancashire.gov.uk.

If you have an idea you’d like to discuss, please contact archives@lancashire.gov.uk to discuss your suggestion.

Rookhow Open Days

Rookhow is a Historic Grade II* listed 1725 Quaker Meeting House in the heart of the Rusland Valley. Set in 12 wooded acres between Coniston and Lake Windermere, open days are held every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month.

Filmed Production of 400-Year-Old Play By Shakespeare's Contemporary Lady Mary Wroth

A 400-year-old play, which captures how the delights and difficulties of courtship have changed (or not), is now freely available on film thanks to Professor Alison Findlay, Professor of Renaissance Drama in the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University and Chair of the British Shakespeare Association.

‘Love’s Victory’, by Shakespeare’s contemporary Lady Mary Wroth, was written c.1617-1619 and is the earliest surviving romantic comedy by an Englishwoman.

The performance is the result of nearly 30 years of work by Professor Alison Findlay. Her research project, ‘Shakespeare and His Sisters’ was set up to explore the works of Shakespeare and his female contemporary dramatists in site-specific locations. The 2022 production, directed by Emma Rucastle and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Lancaster University, was designed to recreate the conditions of an early household performance. It was staged at the author’s home, Penshurst Place in Kent, in 2022.

Watch Love's Victory for free

Bob Dobson, Heritage Books

Bob Dobson has been dealing in second-hand Lancashire interest books for over 50 years and due to retirement is selling stock at half the catalogued price. From Lancashire Acts of Parliament to dialect poetry and old picture postcards, there is much to interest the local and family historian. To receive a catalogue, please email Bob at landypublishing@yahoo.co.uk. He can also be contacted on 01253 886103 or 0774 9838 444 (text preferred).

The Leyland Historical Society

Meetings have resumed in the Shield Room, Banqueting Suite, South Ribble Civic Centre, West Paddock, Leyland, PR25 1DH. £5 for visitors (but new members are always welcome). Visit The Leyland Historical Society to find out more.

British Association for Local History

The British Association for Local History has a new feature, the Ten Minute Talk, which has proved so popular that there are now ten talks and presentations available on their website, on subjects as diverse as nineteenth-century small businesses, marriage in early-modern Suffolk, construction of a Cambridge gas holder or the ‘Spanish’ influenza epidemic of 1918-19, so please do take a look.

Local and Family History Resources

Zoe Lawson of the Lancashire Local History Federation has kindly gathered a list of helpful resources. The following is a selection of free websites.

• National Archives

Genealogy Sites

Ancestry and Find my past are well known and offer a 14-day free trial.

Family search is the largest site to offer free access to records from old censuses, birth registers, etc. It includes the International Genealogical Index (IGI) which has parish records for several countries including Australia, Canada and the USA, as well as the UK.

Genuki doesn’t hold records but contains a vast amount of historical information that will help you find the records you need from anywhere in the UK.

Jewish genealogy website.

Births, Marriages and Deaths. The Register Offices in the county of Lancashire hold the original records of births, marriages and deaths back to the start of civil registration in 1837. The county's family history societies are collaborating with the local registration services to make the indexes to these records freely searchable at Lancashire BMD.

Free access to records of births, marriages and deaths for the whole of the UK is available at Free BMD, Note that not all records have yet been transcribed.

Archived catalogues are always a good starting point and many online catalogue entries provide significant detail, though not a substitute for looking at the original document when archives offices re-open.

• Lancashire Archives
• Manchester City Archives

Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire

The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire seeks to promote understanding of, and public interest in, Lancashire and Cheshire’s past, through the publication of editions of historical documents. For an annual subscription of £20, members receive each year a hardback volume and an invitation to a historical lecture.

Women In Street Names

Women in Street Names is a project to highlight streets named after women, for the British Federation of Women Graduates, and Harper Adams University. It was launched at the Women’s Library at the LSE in July 2019. Carrie de Silva from Harper Adams explains that the aim of the project is “to highlight streets named after women, (and to highlight how few there are!), and to remember such women as are commemorated. Outputs will be a booklet of mini-biographies of women named and a paper to consider political and social culturalisation, conscious and unconscious, through the names we see in our streets”. Information is requested from across the UK, and from villages, towns and cities. More obscure royalty will be of interest (the collection won’t be including Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth II). Obscure or less well-known saints are also welcome. Of particular interest will be little-known local women who nevertheless made a large contribution to their area. Carrie will welcome the name on its own, even if the sender knows nothing else about the named woman. Please forward the street name with district, town, city, village, etc. with the woman’s main achievement or area of operation (if you know it) to: Carrie de Silva: cdesilva@harper-adams.ac.uk. (07583 144622.)

Cumbria Prehistory Resource

Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (CWAAS) have produced a learning resource to help teachers in the county’s schools support the teaching of prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, within the History curriculum. The pack was produced with input from archaeological experts and feedback from teachers and learners after a pilot session in a Maryport school. It comprises an introductory slide show; in-school activities (covering topics like artefacts, burials, food and the home); on-site activity suggestions (using Cumbrian sites, artefacts and museums); background information and signposts to further information.

The resource pack is free and can be downloaded from the Cumbria Past website.

Or search Cumbria Past in Google, then open the tab Grants, and look under Schools Area

The Viking Age in the North West

The Viking Age in the North West is a free app which allows you to discover a range of sites in the Wirral that shed light on the history of Viking settlement and integration. These sites range from place names and archaeological finds to stone sculptures. The app comes with a map to help you locate sites, or you can browse through the alphabetical list. There is a brief description and image for every featured site, as well as references to find out more information. It is hoped to expand the geographical range of the app in future, and feedback via the app is welcome. You can download the app for free from the App Store.

If you would like to submit an article for this page or our newsletter, please contact us: rhc@lancaster.ac.uk 01524 593770