By KLTV Newsdesk
When it became clear last year that it would be some time before societies could meet together once again, Huddersfield Local History Society took the decision to move their talks programme online.
The society is now happy to present their monthly talks in a new format they call ‘History from Home!’.
The talks will take place once a month on the Local History Society’s website, with a different topic each month.
Highfields
January’s talk, Highfields: A Most Handsome Suburb is presented by Huddersfield historian David Griffiths.
Mr Griffiths says that Highfields “with its crumbling gentility and regularly repurposed public buildings have fascinated me for some time and I have now explored the area’s story in a new book published by Huddersfield Civic Society”.
He is now sharing some of the insights and observations included in his new book in his talk for Huddersfield Local History Society.
Highfields was one of Huddersfield’s first middle-class suburbs and home to many of the town’s movers and shakers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and although it has undergone many changes since then, those who take the time to look may well be surprised.
Highfields: A Most Handsome Suburb will be available on Youtube and accessed from Huddersfield Local History Society’s website from 25 January as can the four earlier talks in this season’s programme.
Variety
Other talks in the series so far include discussion on the Huddersfield Thespians who celebrated their centenary in 2020; how a shop in Railway Street sold wool to the world; and how the aftermath of Peterloo was experienced in the Huddersfield district.
Future talks will look at how places such as the Holme Valley, Almondbury, and Kirkburton appeared in medieval times.
Another will show how ‘shell-shocked’ ex-servicemen in Storthes Hall Hospital told their own stories.
This year’s Annual Luddite Lecture, normally held in April and organised in conjunction with the University of Huddersfield has also moved online.
Professor Edward Royle, who has written extensively on the subject will be talking about Radicalism in the West Riding between 1790 and 1890.
More information about the Huddersfield Local History Society and ‘History at Home!’ talks can be found on the Society’s website.