We have arranged the following additional events this year:

We shall be supporting this year’s ‘Military Miscellany’ lectures, arranged by the University Department of History and Archaeology on a military theme. They will take place on three Tuesday evenings (21, 28,  February and 6 March) at the Grosvenor Museum starting at 7.30pm.
Flyer including booking arrangements enclosed. Please reply as soon as possible.

We have arranged for a one day visit – with a guide – to Ironbridge in  Shropshire on Wednesday 16th May 2012.. NB the entry ticket we have to buy entitles a member to free entry to the various different sites in the heritage area for a full 12 months. Details of the trip and a booking form are attached.
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Linked to the visit to Ironbridge we have arranged an additional lecture not included in the published programme. This will be given by Dr Barrie Trinder who is a writer, lecturer and consultant on industrial archaeology – as well as being a former colleague of mine.
The lecture, entitled, ‘The Ironbridge Gorge: the Most Extraordinary District in the World’, will be at Bishop Lloyd’s Palace on Thursday 26 April starting at 1930 The lecturer will review the area’s historical importance  and reflect upon how the museum project took off in the 1960s and 70s, when Barrie was directly involved there. The lecture will be free to those booked on he trip referred to above. Other members will be welcome to attend at a fee of £3 payable at the door..   Please note that the return dates for reservations are as follows:   ·         As soon as possible for the Military Miscellany series of lectures,  Monday March 1st for the Ironbridge Tour.  

Yours sincerely,

Mike Nichol
Chairman Society of Thirteen

28th January 2012

The Society’s first meeting of 2012 was held on 16th January.   If you  missed it; here is the review:
Chocolate, Tea and Coffee in the Augustan Age   The Augustan Age, also known as the Neoclassical Age and the Age of Reason, occurred in English Literature between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th Century when three of our major writers were Alexander Pope, John Dryden and Joseph Addison.  Ann Gore, our lecturer explained how the importation of chocolate tea and coffee influenced the social mores, behaviour and tastes of the period.  Prior to the importation of these beverages most people drank beer as water was not safe to drink and there was little else available.  The father of the English coffee houses was William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, and was so impressed with coffee that when he died he left 56 lbs to be enjoyed by others.  Pope Clement XVIII tasted coffee, found it enjoyable, and blessed it so making it acceptable for the pious to imbibe.  Women were not allowed in coffee houses as customers; it was a place where men met to drink coffee, smoke and discuss the matters of the day.  They were sometimes known as 1p universities (the price of a cup of coffee) as, providing a man dressed acceptably, it was open to all with no class barriers.  It should be remembered though that at this time the rent for a garret was 18p per week so a 1p for a cup of coffee was expensive for most of the population.  The excluded women published broadsheets against the “horrors” of coffee houses.  Some coffee houses, such as that of Edward Lloyd which became the insurance organisation Lloyds of London, still play a prominent role in our society today.  It is also known that the Grecian coffee House was frequented by Sir Isaac Newton (the scientist) and Samuel Pepys (the diarist).  Joseph Addison’s (founder of The Spectator) favourite coffee house was the Sir Roger de Coverley.  Chocolate houses were similar and one named Mrs Whites was not well regarded and featured in Hogarth’s painting “the Rake’s Progress”.  It went onto the become White’s Gentlemen’s Club.   Tea, when it arrived in England, was rather different.  It tended to be drunk in the home with much ceremony.  Pots, porcelain cups (initially without handles as these were only added early in the 19th Century) and saucers, tea caddies and trays (with raised edges to prevent the precious china from falling off) were imported from China to serve the beverage.  Tea was extremely expensive though with tax at over 100%, which reminds one of the Boston Tea Party in America, so could only be afforded by wealthy people.  William Pitt eventually reduced the tea tax and replaced it with the window tax.  At this period a spoon left in a cup indicated that the drinker required a refill.  Some people today are snobbish about whether milk or tea is poured into the cup first.  The origin of this social more was that rich people used expensive porcelain which could withstand hot water so poured the tea in first whereas poorer people used cheaper pottery which hot water could shatter so poured in the milk first.  Thus ladies held their tea parties and gossiped as men did in their coffee houses.  It was not until the 1920’s that smart ladies drank coffee in very small cups after dinner rather than tea.          

10th January 2012

The Society’s last meeting for 2011 was held on 12 December and was a joint lecture with the Royal Geographical Society.   If you  missed it; here is the review:  
Abyssinia – 3000 years of Ethiopian Art and History from Solomon and Sheba to Haile Selassie.
Chris Bradley started his lecture by describing Ethiopia as the stunningly beautiful roof of Africa which though torn by war and famine has protected a Christian community for 1,600 years.  The name Ethiopia means the land of people with sunburnt faces.  The country is landlocked but Lake Tana; the largest lake in Ethiopia, situated north of the beautiful town of Bahir Dar is the source from where the famous Blue Nile starts its long journey to the Mediterranean.  In biblical times it was the heart of the Sabaean Empire whose Queen made this historical visit to King Solomon.  The purpose of the visit, which historians believe took place in 965 BC, was trade as Ethiopia controlled the southern end of the Red Sea trade route and the Queen wanted to meet the controller of the northern end.  According to legend the Queen promised to take nothing belonging to Solomon without permission but was tricked into helping herself to water.  This allowed Solomon to take advantage of her resulting in the birth of her son Menelik I who became the first Emperor of Ethiopia.  The story, even today, is still a popular theme in Ethiopian art.  Orthodox Christianity became the established church in the 4th century.  According to Exodus Menelik took the Ark of the Covenant and there is a Jewish temple on Elephant Island which could have been built to house it during the journey.  During his fascinating lecture Chris explained how the difficult access to Ethiopia has both protected the Christian community and also prevented outside influences from changing the distinctive Ethiopian art style with the large eyes that was also  common in other early orthodox art.   The patron saint of Ethiopia is St George, the same as England but their churches could not be more different as many are carved out of the solid rock.  Some stand out in the open but others are underground with access via a path that winds down and around the church.  Ethiopia is also renowned for its silver crosses, originally based on the Egyptian ankh, which are paraded in religious processions at various times of the year.  The death of Haile Selassie ended 3000 years of rule in Ethiopia.

28th November 2011

If you weren’t at the Society’s meeting at the Grosvenor Museum on Monday, 14 November 2011 you missed a fascinating lecture; here is the review:   

Studying the Changing Universe: Things that go Bang in the Night   Dr Andrew Newsam commenced his lecture by explaining that astrophysics and astronomy are observational rather than experimental sciences.  In his role as a Reader in Astronomy Education at the Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University (JMU) his work takes him to interesting places, such as Hawaii.  However rather than sunning himself on a beach he is on top of a mountain in freezing conditions, where no plants or animals exist, in an observatory studying the sky.  He told us there is a good chance that other life will be found within the next 10 or 20 years.   The universe is difficult to study properly because it keeps changing and we need to understand the changes to understand the system.  Robotic telescopes have been designed to see how the universe changes and the world’s largest is the Liverpool Telescope, owned by JMU, which is based at the Observatorio del Roche de Los Muchachos in La Palma in the Canary Islands.  It operates by creating and carrying out an optimal observing strategy; the results of which are used by astronomers at JMU, in Spain and around the world and by schools and students.  Dr Andrew is also Director of the National Schools Observatory, a project aimed at giving school children the opportunity to make their own observations alongside professional astronomers, and an 11 year old school girl spotted a previously unrecorded asteroid.  She did it by patiently observing the sky and many a professional astronomer would have been delighted to make such a discovery.   He then went on to tell the audience about some of the recent work that is being undertaken, such as, detecting and tracking asteroids in the hope that one day if a large one is on course to hit earth it can be redirected.  He described solar activity, which in turn causes electrical activity, which can be a problem for global positioning systems and the internet and cause concern for organisations such as insurance companies as it might affect claims.  He talked of supernova, meteor fireball showers and very rapid gamma ray bursts.  The latter’s’ temperatures reach 100 of millions of degrees centigrade and have more energy than the sun during its entire lifetime.  He also explained that ‘dark matter’ simply means matter which is not understood; a useful definition.   Dr Andrew concluded by saying that we are just beginning to know the unknowns but in the future we need to learn about the unknown unknowns.  He left the audience with some web addresses which may be of interest to the reader: http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk http://www.telescope.livjm.ac.uk http://www.astro.ljmu.ac.uk/distance

17th October 2011

Regretfully, the lecture by Francis Spufford had to be cancelled on the night and the Society apologises to those who arrived in good time, but whose sole consolation was a cup of coffee.
We shall be inviting Francis again as many of us were looking forward particularly to his talk on the Soviet Dream.