Talks
Voices from History Presentation
Talks & Voices From History
Talks
Maritime History & Archaeology
Multi-Period:
A Sea Story: a short maritime history of Britain & Ireland 500-2000
The seafaring activities of the peoples of the British Isles helped to shape the word we know today. Find out how, and why!
The Sea in our Blood? The British and the Sea
Is Britain truly a ‘maritime nation’? Or have we turned our backs on the sea?
Sailors at war from the Hundred Years War to the Falklands
Time, technology and tactics have transformed the nature of war at sea – but how much has the experience of war changed for sailors themselves over the past 700 years?
Lost Ships Found: the adventure of maritime archaeology
In the past 50 years, the archaeology of shipwrecks and submerged land has revolutionised our understanding of the world’s maritime past. This talk tells the story of an epic adventure in knowledge.
Medieval and Tudor:
Galleys for the King: a window on England in the 1290s
Between 1294 and 1296, the ports of Lyme Regis, Southampton, London, Ipswich, Dunwich, York, Grimsby and Newcastle built large war galleys for King Edward I. The written records of these projects paint a unique picture of working life on the English coast over 700 years ago.
Longship to Caravel: the development of the European ship 500-1500
The extraordinary story of the technological developments that eventually opened the world’s oceans to European explorers and colonisers.
Getting to Windward: war at sea in the Middle Ages
This talk looks at the ships, weapons, tactics and strategy of naval conflict in northern and southern Europe from 500 to 1500.
The King’s Ships: Henry V’s navy 1413-1422
Best known for his victories on land, Henry V also created one of medieval England’s most powerful fleets, and built its biggest ships. The King’s Ships looks at what that fleet achieved, and why it disappeared.
The Army-by-Sea: Henry VIII’s navy
The story of the modern Royal Navy begins with Henry VIII. The Army-by-Sea explores the nature of the men, ships and operations of England’s first real state navy.
Navy Royall: Elizabeth I’s navy
Often seriously under-funded, Elizabeth’s fleet successfully defended the country during the long war with Spain, and was the first English navy to fight on ‘the far side of the world’.
God, Gales or Guns?: the defeat of the Spanish Armada
Elizabethan myths still condition many people’s ideas about the defeat of the Armada. The real story is one of intelligence, stupidity, bravery and bad luck – on both sides.
Francis Drake: Hero or Pirate?
Francis Drake sailed round the world and could be kind to children. He also hanged a close friend and was seen by some as a pirate. What can we make of him nowadays?
Local and National History
They Came, They Conquered, They Left: the Romans & Britain
The Roman Empire shaped the history of Britain for over 400 years. Find out what the Romans did here, and what sort of legacy they left behind them.
Chichester 900-1500
Using documentary sources, as well as architectural and archaeological evidence, this talk pieces together the story of a Roman ruin that became a cathedral city.
Medieval Sussex – from settlement to Dissolution
Sussex began as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Medieval Sussex looks at the rise and transformation of a medieval regional society between the 700s and the 1530s.
Technology & Society
Wings: a short history of aviation
This short and non-technical history explores the triumph and tragedy of flight, and shows how profoundly it has affected the world in the past 100 years.
Rockets: a short history of space travel
The first rocket scraped the edge of space in 1942. Twenty-seven years later, a man stood on the Moon. Rockets tells this dramatic story, but asks the question: has space travel really ‘got off the ground’ yet?
Literary history
All Our Tomorrows: a short history of science fiction
Pigeon-holed as a disreputable genre by some literary critics, science fiction has often been a proving-ground for startling new ideas. It can also be enormous fun. Charting its story from the 19th century, All Our Tomorrows makes the case for SF. Resistance is futile.
“I told you so, you damned fools!”: fictional predictions of war, 1870-2000
From The Battle of Dorking (1870) to modern techno-thrillers, the future war story has often been a means of expressing very real contemporary fears. This talk reviews over 130 years of imagined terror, and asks: have the predictions ever come true?
Voices from History Presentation
Words & Waves
Seafaring and the Sea in Prose & Poetry
From the Middle Ages to the modern era, the sea has flowed through English writing. Drawing on more than 500 years of prose and poetry, Words and Waves lays bare the desires and fears inspired by the sea and all that goes with it.
There Will Be No Hurricane
Weather and History
There Will Be No Hurricane revels in the British obsession with the weather. With rain and rhyme, showers and stories, it shows how the weather has blown through British culture for centuries like a fresh breeze – and then rained on it.
For Country's Wealth, for Private Gain or Glory Seek We All
The Elizabethans and the Sea
Elizabethan seafarers were confident enough to challenge the Spanish Empire, plant a colony in America and circumnavigate the globe. This seafaring enterprise had its impact on both prose and poetry. For Country’s Wealth brings some of these literary treasures to life.
Victoriana
An evening with the Victorians
Dowdy? Repressed? Boring? Grim? If you believe that you know all there is to know about the Victorians, Victoriana aims to make you think again. The Victorians knew how raise the spirits, to make you laugh, cry and grind your teeth. They could also touch the heart. They can do it still.