Past Events
June 2021
Lunar Lecture: Life after Gravity: Isaac Newton’s London career Patricia Fara, Clare College, Cambridge
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…
Find out more »July 2021
Lunar Lecture – The Birmingham Toy Trade: Eighteenth-Century Adornments
The lecture explores the manufacture of toys in eighteenth-century Birmingham and their uses by those who bought them, 'toys' being decorative adornments such as buttons, buckles, and snuffboxes rather than those for children during this period. It looks at the beginnings of the trade in the late 1600s and early 1700s, the appeal of new kinds of making to purchasers of toys, and highlights the relationship between Josiah Wedgwood and the Birmingham toymakers in making a new range of toys in…
Find out more »August 2021
“Time to Refresh” – a guided walk in our herb garden
Lose yourself in our peaceful historic Herb Garden and join a gentle guided walk led by members of our gardening team. Listen to stories of the herbs, taste and smell some, and learn about their age-old properties for health and wellbeing. Tickets available here
Find out more »“Time to Refresh” – a guided walk in our herb garden
Lose yourself in our peaceful historic Herb Garden and join a gentle guided walk led by members of our gardening team. Listen to stories of the herbs, taste and smell some, and learn about their age-old properties for health and wellbeing. Tickets available here
Find out more »Lunar Lecture – Erasmus Darwin’s Gardens by Professor Paul Elliott
Erasmus Darwin’s Gardens by Professor Paul Elliott, Derby University The role of the botanic garden near Lichfield in Erasmus Darwin’s career is well known, especially the inspiration it provided for his poetry, but he also kept gardens and what he called an orchard or farm when living in Derby. This talk examines the relationships between Darwin’s gardens at Lichfield and Derby and his work in medicine, botany and natural history, represented especially by the Botanic Garden (1791), Zoonomia (1794/6) and…
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