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.
Mourholme Local History Society Talks
Wednesday 24 September 7.30pm The Tides of Morecambe Bay, with Mike Warren
Venue: Gaskell Hall, Silverdale LA5 0RA Visitors Admission £2.00.
To enquire about membership, please visit the Mourholme Local History Society website
Annual Bowland Lecture
This year's Bowland Lecture will be presented on Tuesday 7 October from 7.30-9.30 pm at the Tithe Barn, Browsholme Hall.
Are You Lost? The past, present and future of Bowland with Dr Rob St John will explore a series of historical moments over the last 150 years to narrate a story of the invention of contemporary Bowland including - significantly - the designation of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1964.
Drawing on his Bowland roots and a year of working with people across the landscape – farmers, urban children, estate workers, archaeologists, fell runners, historians, poets, environmentalists, policy makers and more - Rob will explore the relationship between landscape memory and imagination in Bowland to ask what the future holds for this special place.
Admission proceeds will be donated to local charities Slaidburn Archive and Champion Bowland. (Pay bar available from 7pm)
£5 admission (pre-booking essential). More details and booking available at LCC website
Burnley Historical Society
The Burnley Historical Society holds meetings on selected Wednesdays at 2pmat St. John’s RC Church Hall, Bracewell Street, Burnley BB10 1TB. Upcoming dates:
- Wednesday 8 October The Book of St Peter with Annette Roadley
- Wednesday 12 November Railway development in Lancashire with Dr Paul Salveson
- Wednesday 10 December Annual General Meeting
Preston Historical Society Talks
Talks take place on the 2nd Monday of the month at Central Methodist Church, Lune Street, Preston, PR1 2NL. Doors open from 6.30pm, talks 7.15-8.30pm.
- Monday 13 October The Battle of Bamber Bridge, with Professor Alan Rice.
- Monday 10 November Cornelia Connelly: Blissful bride to notorious nun, with Judy Beeston.
Visitors pay £5.00 per talk (free for members). Contact Patricia Harrison, membership secretary, for information about how to join the society patricia@prestonhistoricalsociety.org.uk
Litfest - Lancaster Literature Festival
The Lancaster Literature Festival – Litfest - blows back into the city with an exciting line-up for its Autumn Weekend, 17-21 October 2025.
Litfest opens with a ferocious, mischievous Cumbrian wind that is the subject of Sarah Hall’s major new novel Helm, the tale of a unique life force which buffets the rugged northern landscape and the resilient souls that live there.
Then on 18 and 19 October, explore folk tales, giants, Frankenstein, the dark history of cults, ‘witches’ and the legacies of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, as Litfest hosts a range of writers, poets, storytellers, film-makers and graphic novelists. It's a Fall feast for the mind and the senses. For full details of the programme and to book tickets, please visit the Litfest website or look out for copies of the printed programmes in venues and outlets around Lancaster and Morecambe.
Lancashire Local History Federation
The Lancashire Local History Federation “At Home “ will be hosted by Lancashire Archives and Local History, Bow Lane, Preston PR1 2RE on Saturday 15 November 2025, which will also mark the 50th anniversary of the Archives. The day will start with an overview of the history of Lancashire Archives by Dr Alan Crosby, (LLHF Chair) followed by three speakers in the morning discussing the use of the Archives for their research: Dr Jack Southern (UCLan), Dr Nicholas Radburn (Lancaster University) and Dr Jill Liddington (Leeds University).
In the afternoon there will be three sessions which will include a tour of the archives, a talk on the Lancashire Printed Collection held in the Archives, and a chance to find out about the new LANCAT II online catalogue and how best to use it.
For more information and to book, please contact Zoe Lawson
Telephone: 07471908077 email: elizoelaw@gmail.com
Deadline for booking is 6 November.
Litfest - Lancaster University Poetry Event
Tuesday 18 November at 7pm – Poet Laureate Simon Armitage joins Litfest and Lancaster Arts at the Nuffield Theatre on the Lancaster University campus for a very special event on the theme of ‘Land’, reading from and
discussing his latest collections Blossomise, Dwell and New Cemetery with
award-winning poet Kim Moore.
To find out more please visit the Litfest website
Records on Ancestry
Lancashire Roman Catholic and Methodist registers are now available on Ancestry.
Lancashire Archives have been working in partnership with Ancestry to make more of our church registers available online, recently launching a collection of Lancashire Roman Catholic records and Non-Conformist registers which contains high quality, colour images of many of registers. There are nearly 3,000,000 Roman Catholic church register entries and 450,000 Methodist church entries covering baptisms, marriages and burials. The collections are fully indexed so you can either search by name across the whole set of records or browse through the images of an individual register.
Ancestry can be accessed free of charge at Lancashire Archives and in any Lancashire library, or visit the Ancestry website here
Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire Online Talk
One-place studies – their place in the historical landscape by Janet Barrie.
Janet Barrie, the chair of the Society for One-Place Studies, researches the people and activities associated with the Springhill area of Rossendale. In this talk, originally given in September 2024, she examines the principles of conducting a one-place study. Available now on the Society's website
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 Weaving History episodes
Lancashire Archives and Local History
Lancashire Archives and Local History now has a Facebook page.
You can also follow Lancashire Archives on X
Back issues of the Lancashire local history magazine 'Archives' are 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 for a feature, 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.
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 feature, the Ten Minute Talk, has proved so popular that there are now many 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. 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.
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.
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.
If you would like to submit an article for this page or our newsletter, please contact us: rhc@lancaster.ac.uk 01524 593770.