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Talks and events

Surrey History Trust Annual General Meeting (AGM) followed by the talk “Mrs Dalloway” at Woking. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s iconic novel from the Lushington Archive at Surrey History Centre

Monday 30 June, refreshments from 6.30pm AGM and talk 7pm to 9pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

Virginia Woolf’s use of members of her own family and close friends as models for her characters is well known. Her father, that eminent of all eminent Victorians, Sir Leslie Stephen was the curmudgeonly Mr Ramsay in To The Lighthouse and her mother, the beautiful Julia Jackson, is sensitively portrayed as his long-suffering wife. Other characters in the novel are drawn from friends who were invited to stay with the family at Talland House where the Stephen family spent their summer holidays. One of those families was that of the lawyer and positivist, Vernon Lushington whose daughter Kitty married newspaper owner Leopold Maxse and became the model for Mrs Dalloway in Woolf’s iconic novel.

To celebrate the centenary of the publication of Mrs Dalloway, Dr David Taylor will tell the story of Kitty Maxse and her relationship with Virginia Woolf and other members of her family from the Lushington family archive held at Surrey History Centre.

Dr David Taylor is an historian, writer and lecturer. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and Chairman of the Surrey History Trust. He is the author of “The Remarkable Lushington Family. Reformers, Pre-Raphaelites, Positivists, and the Bloomsbury Group” and has lectured extensively on aspects of the Lushington family and their circle both in this country and the USA.

  • Tickets: free, booking essential.
  • Please note, the talk will follow the AGM.
  • Please book a place online.

Beginning your Family History

Wednesday 30 July,10.30am to 11.45am on Zoom

Recent years have seen a huge growth of interest in the family history. Many people are keen to begin their research but not quite sure where to start.  Researching your family history is a bit like writing your own detective story and getting started is really just getting yourself a bit organised and working out the plot.  This talk aims to take you step by step through the basics of family history, where to start, what to do and most important, how you can get help and advice on what is bound to prove an exciting project.  It will also include lots of time (and money) saving tips and ideas, and outline some of the ways to store and present your research.  This is Who Do You Think You Are for everyone!

  • Tickets: £6.
  • Please book a place online.
  • Once payment has been received you will be sent the Zoom joining information shortly, or next working day if booked in the evening/weekend.

Fashion and Folly - Tea and Talk with Jane Lewis

Wednesday 6 August, 2pm to 4.30pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

This tea and talk focuses on the alarming and bizarre things that people have done over the years to enhance their beauty and be regarded as fashionable. It may surprise you to know just how dangerous our ancestors' clothes and makeup were and the extraordinary lengths they were prepared to go to just be a la mode. Let this be a cautionary warning from history! Enjoy refreshments throughout the talk.

Let the Road Rise to Meet You: tracing your Irish ancestors - Tea and Talk with Jane Lewis

Thursday 14 August, 2pm to 4.30pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

This tea and talk offers practical advice as to where to find information on sources for Irish genealogical research, both in the UK and Ireland. It will offer tips and techniques to using the many resources offered online, help tackle some of the problems that might be encountered but also address some of the myths that have grown up regarding Irish genealogical research. Enjoy refreshments throughout the talk.

Virtual Tour Behind the Scenes at Surrey History Centre

Wednesday 3 September, 5.30pm to 6.45pm on Zoom

Our tours behind the scenes are always popular and tickets for them sell quickly at our Open Days, but if you are unable to visit us in person why not join us for a virtual visit to the archives.  See the artworks in our foyer, 'The Surrey Tapestry' and 'Surrey In Glass' commissioned with major funding from the Arts Lottery Fund. Follow us on a tour through the six miles of shelving in our strongrooms and see how we rescue and preserve 900 years of Surrey's written memory. See the work of our archive conservator and visit our search room to see a selection of the archive and printed treasures in our care, and hear about our engagement work to make Surrey's archives accessible and relevant to diverse communities.
  • Tickets: £6.
  • Please book a place online.
  • Once payment has been received you will be sent the Zoom joining information shortly, or next working day if booked in the evening/weekend.

Schools of Thought: Education Records for Family Historians - Tea and Talk with Jane Lewis

Tuesday 9 September, 2pm to 4.30pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

Find out more about the records of schools, universities, colleges and other educational institutions, the information they contain and what these sources and resources available can tell us more about our ancestors. Enjoy refreshments throughout the talk.

Land of My Father's Father: tracing your Welsh ancestors

Wednesday 17 September, 10.30am to 11.45am on Zoom

Croeso! Tracing Welsh ancestry has its own set of specialist research techniques, and this talk will concentrate on where to find valuable resources, what can be found online and how to tackle any unique challenges associated with researching in Wales.
  • Tickets: £6.
  • Please book a place online.
  • Once payment has been received you will be sent the Zoom joining information shortly, or next working day if booked in the evening/weekend.

Picturing the Patient: Photography in Surrey Hospitals, 1850-1960

Wednesday 8 October, 5.30pm to 6.45pm on Zoom

Surrey had many psychiatric and learning disability hospitals, and their archives inform our understanding of historic attitudes to mental illness, epilepsy, and a wide spectrum of learning disabilities.  Medical case notes telling the personal stories of thousands of people, young and old, who were admitted to these vast institutions are often accompanied by a photographic portrait of the patient, bringing us face to face with a person long dead through the emulsion held in negative on a fragile glass plate or sepia image captured on paper.  Often taken on admission to the hospital, we see them at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives and their gaze both challenges and resonates with us through shared emotions and experiences. They are an important resource for the history of asylum photography, shedding light on the history of mental health, the social background of patients and the approaches to care and treatment provided by different institutions in Surrey over more than a century.
  • Tickets: £6.
  • Please book a place online.
  • Once payment has been received you will be sent the Zoom joining information shortly, or next working day if booked in the evening/weekend.

Schools of Thought: Education Records for Family Historians

Wednesday 29 October, 10.30am to 11.45am on Zoom

Find out more about the records of schools, universities, colleges and other educational institutions, the information they contain and what these sources and resources available can tell us more about our ancestors.
  • Tickets: £6.
  • Please book a place online.
  • Once payment has been received you will be sent the Zoom joining information shortly, or next working day if booked in the evening/weekend.

Moving On: Tracing our Emigrant Ancestors - Tea and Talk with Jane Lewis

Wednesday 12 November, 2pm to 4.30pm at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

Discover why (and how) our ancestors emigrated and the records we can use to trace their journeys and new lives.  Explore techniques and resources for overseas research, including Ireland and mainland Europe.

Exhibitions and displays

South Asian Heritage Month

Thursday 17 July to Thursday 14 August during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

South Asian Heritage Month runs from 18 July to 17 August and provides an opportunity to discover British South Asian history and identity through education, arts, culture and commemoration. South Asian influences can be found everywhere in Britain, from our food and clothes to our music and even our words. The streets of our towns and cities are rich with the colours, sights and sounds of proud South Asian identity. Its culture permeates all parts of British life and adds to the diversity of the nation.

This Side of the Looking Glass: Archives from the Real Life of Lewis Carroll

Wednesday 1 to Thursday 30 October during normal opening hours at Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, GU21 6ND

Surrey History Centre’s Lewis Carroll collections have grown over the last 75 years. 160 years after the first publication of ‘Alice’, we’re celebrating the archives of the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and his fascinating writing persona, Lewis Carroll, with a free foyer display and cabinet exhibition in our searchroom. On public view for the first time are items from important collections received over the past two years, including from the Dodgson family.

We regularly showcase free exhibitions and displays inspired by our collection in our foyer. We also host external displays by groups and organisations and would welcome any displays with a Surrey history connection. If you would like to exhibit at Surrey History Centre please contact us.

Recorded talks to purchase

If you missed one of our online talks, why not purchase the talk recording to view in your own time?

The talks available are:

  • A Burden on the Parish: sources for the history of Poor Relief in Surrey
  • A 'Great' amongst Victorian Architects? Royal Holloway's W H Crossland
  • A Snark Celebration: celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's poem 'The Hunting of the Snark'
  • Aladdin's Cave: Some Major Family and Estate Archives in Surrey History Centre
  • Artists, Antiquaries and Collectors: illustrations of Georgian Surrey collected by Robert Barclay of Bury Hill, Dorking, circa.1800 to 1825
  • Bananas: How a Surrey Garden Played a Pivotal Role in the History of the World's Favourite Fruit
  • Behind the Scenes in Conservation - Arsenic and Old Lace
  • Behind the Scenes in Conservation - repairing posters, maps and plans
  • Behind the Scenes in Conservation - Tithe Maps
  • Bombs, Aircraft, Doodlebugs and More; They All Fell on Surrey
  • Corsets and Cameras
  • Fashion and Folly
  • From Patient to Professor
  • From Punishment to Pride: LGBTQ+ archives at Surrey History Centre
  • Gertrude Jekyll, Gardener and Craftswoman
  • In the Shadow of the Great War: Surrey 1914 to 1918
  • James Henry Pullen (1835 to 1916) and the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots, Redhill
  • John Evelyn in Surrey
  • Land of my Father's Fathers: Tracing your Welsh ancestors
  • Let the Road Rise to Meet You: Tracing Your Irish Ancestors
  • Life and Labour in a County Village - or learn to love your Ag Labs!
  • Magna Carta, Runnymede and all that
  • Maps for Family Historians
  • 'Michael Field' in Reigate: Queer Women Writers and Surrey in the 1890s
  • Netherne circa 1955: A Surrey Psychiatric Hospital in Focus
  • Oliver House: The story of a 16th century cottage
  • Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Sources for the History of Surrey's Mental Hospitals, 1700 to circa.1990
  • Planting Ideas: Sources for the History of Gardening in Surrey.
  • Portrait of a Surrey Town between the Wars: the photographic archive of Sidney Francis
  • Reflections on the Lewis Carroll archives, on the 150th anniversary of 'Alice through the Looking Glass'
  • Researching in Archives
  • Richard III: A Drama in Three Acts
  • Sir William More of Loseley
  • Surrey Writers
  • Terror from the sky: mapping air raids on Surrey in World War Two
  • The afterlives of executed bodies from Kennington Common
  • The Book That Changed My Life
  • The Changing Face of Nursing: Black Nurses in Surrey Hospitals
  • The Gentleman's Magazine: A Panorama of Georgian Surrey for Family and Local Historians
  • The Most Wretched Man in the World: The Life and Loves of the 5th Viscount Midleton
  • The Princess Mary Village Homes in the Twentieth Century
  • The Portable Antiquities Scheme in Surrey
  • To the Manor Born: An Introduction to Manorial Records for Family Historians
  • What did you do after the war, Grandad? – 1918 to 1925: de-mob, jobs, pensions, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the British Legion
  • Where There's a Will
  • Who Do You Think They Were? Discovering the lives and experiences of our ancestors

Most talk descriptions can be found on our Talks and Tours page. Each talk consists of a 45 minute to an hour illustrated presentation followed by questions asked during the live talk. You can also email us with any questions you may have after the talk and we will pass them on to the speaker to answer. Price £6. To purchase a recording please visit the Surrey Heritage Shop. Please note talks may contain references to historical legal terminology, sexual practices and crimes, used in the historical context but which some viewers may find offensive.

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