Our single-session talks, at All Saints Church Hall, are on Friday afternoons (14:30-15:30) followed by refreshments (tea/coffee/biscuits) and an opportunity to socialise. There is no charge for SUES members. Non-members considering joining the Society are welcome to attend one talk free of charge, as a ‘taster’.
Talk 1: Herbert Rowse: The most significant 20th century Architect in Liverpool – Professor Iain Jackson
Friday 19th September 2025
Herbert Rowse trained at the Liverpool School of Architecture. He designed many notable Liverpool buildings, including Martins Bank (1927–32), Lloyds Bank (1928-32) the Mersey Tunnel approaches, entrances and ventilation towers (1931) and the Philharmonic Hall (1936-9). In all of Rowse’s work there was a commitment to technological innovation, careful composition and an insistence on quality. He collaborated with artists, to create lavish interiors and never overlooked the civic duty of architecture. His home city of Liverpool, in particular, benefitted from his architecture, sculpture and landscaping.
Professor Iain Jackson is an architect and architectural historian at the Liverpool School of Architecture. His research mainly focuses on the architecture of the tropics in West Africa, but he also writes about Liverpool’s architecture and architects.
He has recently published a new monograph called Architecture, Empire, and Trade: The United Africa Company, based on the archives held at Unilever. Prior to entering academia Iain worked as an architect in Manchester and Liverpool designing schools and educational projects.
Talk 2: The Whimsical World of Rowland Emett – Jill Newsham
Friday 17th October 2025
Rowland Emett was a successful cartoonist and inventor of whimsical kinetic sculptures but not many people know the story of Emett’s wonderful trains and can answer the question ”whatever happened to Nellie?”.
This lecture details Emett’s journey from Punch cartoonist to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, stopping at Southport Station, The Festival of Britain and then on to Far Tottering and Oyster Creek.
Jill Newsham was born in Southport, where her family was in business. Her career, in the hotel sector and then in management development, took her all over the country, but she remains a passionate Sandgrounder. Having always had an interest in art and design, she completed a BA, then an MA, in Antiques and Design at the University of Central Lancashire, leading her to teach on the Masters programme until she retired. Her specialism is in 20th century glass and ceramics. Jill is also a SUES Committee member and is currently in her third year as joint chair of the Southport Arts Society.
Talk 3: John Donne: Poet and Preacher – Kate O’Leary
Friday 21st November 2025
John Donne is largely remembered for his love poetry but, in his day, he was widely regarded as a preacher, becoming Dean of St Paul’s in 1621. This talk will explore Donne’s life and work, focusing on how the impact of the Reformation informed his early upbringing, his conversion to the new religion and the anxieties and torments that resulted in this theological shift. Extracts from his early poems, meditations and sermons will reveal a complex and sometimes difficult writer but one whose work is singularly passionate and utterly unique.
Dr Kate O’Leary currently works at the University of Liverpool in the Department of Continuing Education, offering a wide range of courses from Chaucer, Shakespeare and Donne, to Jane Austen and Henrik Ibsen. Her PhD research covered theological anxieties in Shakespeare and John Donne and she is particularly interested in Early Modern theatre practice and how dramatic action affects audience/congregation responses. both in Shakespeare’s plays and in Donne’s sermons.
Talk 4: My Accidental Life – Escaping the Nazis and arriving in England as a young Jewish Refugee – Harry Kessler
Friday 16th January 2026
This talk is an account of the circumstances which enabled a small Jewish family to escape from the Nazis in 1939 and to arrive in England as refugees. It continues with the speaker’s life during and after the war until about 1954.
Harry Kessler was born in Vienna in 1930 and is now 94 years of age. As a holocaust survivor, he works with the Holocaust Educational Trust and gives his talk in schools and colleges. For this work, he was awarded the British Empire Medal by the late Queen in January 2022.
Talk 5: House of Memories (A National Museums Liverpool Project supporting people with dementia) – Lizzie Ward
Friday 20th February 2026
House of Memories is a flagship and award-winning dementia awareness programme within National Museums Liverpool. Through the power of objects, workshops and digital technology, those living with dementia and those caring for loved ones are invited to co-produce resources and activities which support the wider community. Since launching in 2012, House of Memories has engaged with over 50,000 individuals through its international programme and has created a tool for health and social care professionals, carers and the wider dementia community through creative and cultural legacies.
Lizzie Ward is Programme Manager for House of Memories. She has spent the last decade involved in community programmes across an extensive national and international network of cultural, arts, museum and health partnerships. Her work has been recognised for invaluable social impact and for its creativity and ability for collaborative processes. Lizzie has a notable career at National Museums Liverpool, working with cross-sector organisations to create dementia friendly programmes.
Talk 6: Romans and Britons in South West Lancashire – Rob Philpott
Friday 20th March 2026
South-west Lancashire was, until recently, considered a blank space on the map of Roman Britain. Ptolemy indicates the area was inhabited by the British tribe of the Setantii but little is known directly of their way of life prior to Roman occupation. The talk will look at some of the evidence for settlement in the late Iron Age and Roman period that has come to light over the past 30 years. This includes an unsuspected Romano-British village near Halewood, a legionary tile-making site at Tarbock and the rediscovered Roman fort at Burscough, known to Nicholas Blundell in the early 18th century.
Dr Rob Philpott has worked in the north west of England for several decades, on sites from the Iron Age to the 19th century. Formerly Head of Archaeology at National Museums Liverpool, he is now a Research Associate in the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. His longstanding interests in colonial archaeology have continued with excavating and writing up finds from Nevis and the Falkland Islands. However, the most recent projects once again focus on north west England, co-directing excavations at Norton Priory and in Wirral at Greasby and Bromborough.
Talk 7: Planets, Stars and Galaxies – Rick Tyers
Friday 17th April 2026
How planets form in the accretion disks of new stars, how these new stars form in vast clouds of dust & gas called nebulae, and finally how the earliest stars after the ‘Big Bang’ clustered to form early galaxies.
Rick Tyers is Chairman of Southport Astronomical Society.
Talk 8 (following the SUES AGM): Gosh! Is Auntie BBC more than 100 Years Old? – Mervyn Saunders
Friday 17th July 2026
Mervyn G Saunders has enjoyed a life-long interest in entertainment in its many forms. He has given talks covering various aspects of the subject, including the centuries-old Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, London, the beer gardens of the 17th century, music hall, variety, pierrots, circus, film, radio, television, and the internet.