Maria Jacson, a forgotten female botanist.  Maria  Jacson was an eighteenth-century English writer, known for her books on botany at a time when there were significant obstacles to women's authorship.  This talk will focus on the growing development of women within botany and how key players such as Erasmus Darwin and Brooke Boothby promoted female education. It will also explore the barriers and pitfalls that middle class women faced in life through Maria's journey." This lecture will be held on…

Charles Dickens’s broad interest in medicine is evident in his novels and journals. What is less well known is Dickens’s florid medical history. Having carefully read over 14,000 of Dickens’s letters Dr Cambridge has identified 20 separate medical conditions that Dickens suffered from and he believes that Charles Dickens was in denial with some of them. Dr Cambridge will describe these medical conditions in detail and the doctors Charles Dickens was associated with. This lecture will be held on zoom…

For the last thirty years of his life, Isaac Newton lived in London and ran the Royal Mint as well as the Royal Society. Formerly a reclusive scholar at Cambridge, now he moved in aristocratic circles, exerted political influence and became very rich. Through exploring a painting by William Hogarth that is packed with Newtonian references, Patricia Fara describes aspects of Newton’s life and fame that usually receive little attention. Taking the picture as her cue, Patricia reintegrates him into…