Reading Heritage Talks Series
This all series ticket covers all three talks in the “Reading Heritage” talks series, for the discounted price of £12.50 (members £10.00). You may also book each talk individually – see each separate event page. All three talks are on Thursdays at 2pm in The Centre for Heritage and Family History, Reading. They last about an hour with time for questions and discussion afterwards. Tea, coffee and cake after the talk is included in the price.
Thursday 9 January “Jane Austen’s School Days in Reading” with Joy Pibworth
In 2025, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birthday of Jane Austen. So how better to start the year than with a talk by local historian and dedicated Janeite Joy Pibworth, exploring Austen’s connections with Reading. Reading’s Abbey Gateway was then home to the Ladies Boarding School which Jane Austen attended from 1785-6. With the help of contemporary sources, we shall look at the buildings, daily routines, the teachers and the local environment Jane would have become familiar with (and possibly even muse on the echoes in her writing).
Thursday 13 February “Reading’s Grey Friars 1233-1538” with Malcolm Summers
From 1233 to 1538 Reading had two religious foundations, Reading Abbey and the Reading Franciscan Friary. This talk tells the story of the medieval friary, its friars, and their relationship with the town. It ends with the dissolution under Henry VIII, leaving us just the Greyfriars Church building as a remnant of the past.
Thursday 13 March “Reading’s Trams” with Dr Richard Marks
Prior to the advent of buses, there was a different mode of transport. A group of innovative local businessmen launched a horse bus service, which, though rudimentary, marked the town’s first foray into public transportation. Then in 1878 the Reading Tramways Company was established. This provided what we would now call an urban mass transit system, better known as the tramway. This talk will explore the origins of the company and the tram routes it established. You will learn about the routes’ locations and their role in offering a novel and affordable means of transportation in Reading, transforming the lives of its residents. The talk will also delve into the connection between the Reading Tramways Company and the Wantage Tramway, which was, in fact, a light railway.
Find out more in these fascinating face-to-face talks.
Pre-booking is preferred, but you can pay on the door for this series ticket at the first talk, if there are spaces available.
Image: Market Place, Reading in the 70’s by Antony Ewart Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Scroll down to book.
Date
- Thu 09 Jan 2025
Tickets
- £12.50
Location
- 2nd Floor, Reading Central Library, Abbey Square, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 3BQ
Organiser
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The Centre - Berkshire FHS
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Email
booking@berksfhs.org.uk -
Website
https://berksfhs.org/branches/
Speakers
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Joy PibworthJoy has always been fascinated by history and is particularly interested in the history of the towns and villages of the former North Berkshire (now the Vale of the White Horse) and the history of Reading pre 1837. She is a long-standing member of several local history societies. Joy has been a Janeite (Jane Austen fan) since her school days and is particularly interested in the life and times of Jane and her immediate family.
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Dr Richard MarksRichard is a published historian based in Berkshire who specialises in industrial, military, and railway history and also the history of science. His current areas of research are industrial development in the Victorian period, the development of the railway and canal systems in Britain in the mid to late 19th Century and the history of British Rail. He has a PhD in economic history. Richard’s book about British Rail Engineering was published by Pen and Sword in early 2024 and a new book is due out later in 2024 about the Wantage Tramway Company.
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Malcolm SummersMalcolm Summers is a retired maths teacher and Deputy Head. Originally from Birmingham, he has lived in Reading for forty years, and is married with two grown up children. He wrote “History of Greyfriars Church, Reading” in 2013, and “Reading’s Grey Friars” in 2020. The latter book describes the Franciscan friary from 1233 to 1538, while the former book tells the story of the friary’s sole visible remains. In 2019, Two Rivers Press published his book “Signs of the Times: Reading’s Memorials”. Malcolm has also written two biographies: “Henry George Willink” (after whom the school in Burghfield Common is named) and “Nicolas Appert”, the French inventor of the process of preserving food by canning (and who is also his wife’s great great great great grandfather). He is researching and writing a biography of Thomas Noon Talfourd.
Malcolm has been a member of Greyfriars Church since 1981, and is currently its PCC secretary. He is also the treasurer of the History of Reading Society and of Kisiizi Partners, a UK Charity that supports a Hospital and community in south west Uganda.