LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY F O U N D E D 1 8 5 5
Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society The Society meets in Leicester's historic Guildhall, dating back to 1390 as a meeting place for the Guild of Corpus Christi and was purchased by the Corporation when the Guild was dissolved in 1548. The Upper Floor houses the Society s Library, open to members on Sunday afternoons.
At the moment, the Guildhall houses the Richard III Exhibition!
LECTURE SERIES 2012-3 4 October 2012 Viking Leicester Dr Michael Wood 18 October 2012 Vernacular Erections: Lincolnshire Coastal Development and Conservation before 1940 Dr Susan Barton 1 November 2012 Orson Wright: Champion of the People Peter Cousins 15 November 2012 Deeply buried prehistoric archaeology at Must Farm, Cambridgeshire: Understanding past peoples movement in a time transgressive environment Mark Knight 10 January 2013 A Blessing to the Town: the Vaughan Working Men's College Cynthia Brown 24 January 2013 Excavation of a Roman Temple at Egleton, Rutland Jim Brown 7 February 2013 W. Alan North Memorial Lecture Chedworth Roman Villa: research and redisplay Professor Simon Esmonde Cleary 21 February 2013 Centres of Royal Power in Anglo-Saxon Leicestershire: The place-name evidence Dr Jill Bourne 14 March 2013 The identity and Leicester associations of the important early Tudor composer, Hugh Aston Professor Patrick Boylan 4 April 2013 In Search of the Heartland of Mercia Dr Paul Bowman
LAHS AND ULAS The Society benefits greatly from its association with the University of Leicester Archaeological Unit (ULAS) which carried out the Richard III dig. The LAHS website is run from ULAS: one of the Directors, Richard Buckley, is the Chairman, and the other, Patrick Clay, oversees the annual report on Archaeology in Leicestershire and Rutland, which in the last issue of Transactions ran to 70 illustrated pages. Major articles are also published in Transactions by members of ULAS.
PUBLICATIONS Transactions From 1862, LAHS has produced an annual volume of Transactions. These have been fully indexed and hard copies of the Index have been produced as well as the facility for on-line search. A major project is under way to scan and make fully searchable all volumes: many are already available on-line, including the earliest ones.
The most recent volume contained an update on the Hallaton Hoard, including an account of the conservation and display of the important 1 st century A.D. helmet.
LAHS also produces The Leicestershire Historian, which first appeared as the annual publication of the Leicestershire Local History Council in 1967, but when that body ceased to exist in 1995, the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society took over its publication. Two Newsletters per year are also published
RESEARCH FUND Thanks to a legacy, LAHS maintains a small Research Fund which makes grants of up to 1000 per year available to local archaeological and historical societies for small projects, publication etc. Recent examples have included: A local history trail Funding for the drawing of artefacts from a local dig Pottery reports
NETWORKS PROJECT As the oldest history society in the county, LAHS felt it should stretch out its support and interest into the wider community, encourage local groups, embrace amateur historians, and throw off its possibly somewhat elitist, over-academic image! 70-80 interested groups joined the scheme in 2007, and their names, contact details and activities were published as an appendix in the Leicestershire Historian 2008, so that participants could network to share information or advertise their events. Three History and Heritage Fairs have so far been held in 2007, 2009 and 2012.
Right: Beaumanor Hall, 2012 Sir John Moore s School, Appleby Magna
LAHS LAHS aims 'to promote the study of history, archaeology, antiquities and architecture of the county. Runs a lecture series with good speakers Tries to maintain high academic standards of publication in its annual Transactions, and publish the most recent archaeology of the county. Produces a newsletter and The Leicestershire Historian as more popular publications. Has a small Research Fund to assist local groups. The Networks Project aims to bring local groups together so that they can network on speakers etc and participate in major collective events.
LAHS PROBLEMS Membership stands at around 400 and in addition some 100 institutions receive our annual publications around the world. But elderly membership and lack of young people. Much of the work done by a few people that s why the involvement of ULAS is so important. Increasing costs of publication should we continue to produce hard copy journals? We need to run more excursions but lack of time by committee members. Competition history and archaeology groups in local U3As -21 in Leicestershire and Rutland.