ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS DURING 2000-2001

During the 2000-2001 Session the Society continued its recent successes in fulfilling its objects as listed above, including a growing number of artistic and scientific events for members as detailed below. During the year the Society welcomed 11 new members, so that at the end of September 2001 the total number stood at 106 (an increase of 4 over the year). We urge members to make an effort to bring the Society and its activities to the attention of their potentially interested friends and colleagues.

 

The Society has a new domain name for its web-site: www.leedsphilandlit.org.uk. We plan to expand the site and arrange for its more frequent updating.

 

Events for Members

Bangs and Flashes, 3 November 2000. As a preview of Bonfire Night, academic chemists and pyrotechnicians Mike Hoyland and Vladimir Volkovitch demonstrated some spectacularly bright and noisy chemical reactions to an audience of a hundred or more, of all ages.

Annual General Meeting, 5 December 2000. The one-hundred-and-eightieth Annual General Meeting of the Society was held on Tuesday 5 December 2000 in University House. The President announced with great pleasure Council’s decision to confer Life Membership of the Society on Mr Ian Moxon, in recognition of his distinguished service as Editor of LPLS publications. Following the meeting and dinner, we heard a lecture by our guest Mr John Thorp, Civic Architect for the City of Leeds, entitled ‘Visions of the City’, accompanied by slide illustrations from classical times to the present; the lecture gave an account of how the centre of Leeds developed over the centuries, and ended with the Architect’s own vision for Millennium Square – due to be formally opened at the New Year.

Joint meeting with the Leeds Astronomical Society, 15 January 2001. Around 45 persons were present to hear three lectures by staff of the Physics and Astronomy Department of the University of Leeds, demonstrating cutting-edge research into three different types of cosmic ray. Only the disappointing cloud-cover, preventing use of the telescopes to get a clear sight of Saturn, slightly spoiled what was otherwise in every respect a most successful evening.

Leeds Science Societies Fair, 24 March 2001 (Saturday of SET week). This event, our first venture into this kind of activity, brought together the officers and members of around 15 local science-based societies as well as making a contribution to the annual Science, Engineering & Technology week. It was so successful that it is a ‘must-repeat’ for future years.

Tour of the new Abbey House Museum, 2 May 2001. Some 24 members were guided by Miss Kitty Ross of the Museums Service around the refurbished Museum. Since re-opening, the museum has been attracting visitors in their thousands, so LPLS members particularly valued the opportunity to view the holdings in relative peace and quiet.

My Life and Times, and Metabolic Charts: a Lecture by Donald Nicholson, 21 May 2001. This occasion, including dinner in University House, attracted a most appreciative audience of 40 or so, to hear Dr Nicholson’s account of the processes of research and persistence which led to the development and later commercial exploitation of his now universally acknowledged metabolic pathways maps.

Organ recital by Carlo Curley, 23 June 2001. This recital, held at St Edmund’s Church, Roundhay, was not an LPLS event, but the Society had made a financial contribution in memory of the late Dr Max Roberts, LPLS Council member and also member of St Edmund’s. Carlo Curley’s exuberant playing style, together with his descriptions of the music and explanations of the working of the organ, made this an evening to remember.

Wood-Pasture and Cultural Savannas in Europe, by Dr Oliver Rackham, 27 June 2001. This lecture was sponsored by the Society as part of the annual meeting of the UK Agroforestry Forum. Using many excellent illustrations, Dr Rackham described the differing relationships between trees and farmland across Europe, from highly-structured wood-pasture of the English Royal Forests, to informal combinations of trees with grassland or heath, and natural savannah.

Unveiling of Blue Plaque, 28 June 2001.The Leeds Civic Trust, in consultation with LPLS, has provided a blue plaque, sponsored by LPLS and the Museum Friends, to mark the site of the Philosophical Hall, the Society’s home from 1822 until its demolition in 1966. The unveiling of the plaque by the President of LPLS was followed by a reception provided by HSBC Bank, a branch of which now stands on the site.

 

Scholarships, Prizes and Grants

In 2000-01 the Arthur Chadwick Memorial Prize was awarded to Helen Stimpson of the School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Modern Languages Prize to Nicholas Mathys of the Department of East Asian Studies. The Society’s University of Leeds Research Scholar, Emma Millington, was placed first in the School of Chemistry’s second year research seminar competition. Professor Ronald Grigg FRS reports that she is a ‘truly outstanding student, extremely creative and very hard working’. Her scholarship is for the period 1999-2002.

 

In an attempt to encourage more applications from a wider range of applicants, the Grants Committee distributed several posters and flyers advertising the Society’s grants, in local universities, colleges, and libraries. A similar notice was placed on the Society’s web-site. The number of applications has risen, though most still come from the University of Leeds. The Society has also submitted details of its grants policy to the publishers of directories of grant-making bodies.

 

During 2000-01, individual grants were awarded by the Society to:

·        Mollusca for the Millennium, the City Museum Mollusc Project

·        Mrs Eveleigh Bradford towards publication costs of a book on Woodbine Terrace

·        The Leeds International Medieval Congress to assist with the payment of bursaries for scholars from Eastern Europe attending the Congress

·        Mrs Josephine Lloyd to cover the cost of making microfilms of William Hey’s notebooks

·        The UK Agroforestry Forum (Leeds, June 2001) to support a public lecture by Dr Oliver Rackham on Wood-pasture and Cultural Savannas in Europe

·        Louise Ward towards the cost of attending the World Dragonfly Symposium in Sweden

·        Professor Brian Richardson towards the publication of his critical edition of the first Italian grammar printed in 1516

·        Lindsay Frost towards the cost of attending the Global Young Leaders Conference in Washington

·        Oakwood and District Historical Society towards the publication costs of the first issue of their publication, Oak Leaves

·        Nikki Harle towards the costs of joining the Yorkshire Schools Exploring Society’s expedition to the Republic of South Africa

·        Leeds City Museum, towards the costs of their Going, going, gone exhibition.

·        The Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society’s appeal

Publications

Although no LPLS publications have been issued between October 2000 and September 2001, the Publications Committee has been actively involved in the preparation of two publications and is entering into negotiations for a third. A booklet based on the Excavations at the King’s Mill in the centre of Leeds (now the site of a multi-storey car park) is being written by Dr Stuart Wrathmell of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service. This has involved the preparation of several special line drawings illustrating the building of the Mill, part of the cost of which has been covered by a grant from LPLS.

 

The Society has also undertaken to publish a booklet on the Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888-1922 based on a manuscript submitted by Professor Dennis Child OBE. This will include colour illustrations of paintings, biographies of artists, and appendices listing the exhibitors in that period. We anticipate that the booklet will be available for the Exhibition ‘Yorkshire’s Finest – A celebration of the Yorkshire Union of Artists 1888-1922’ being held at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, from November 2001 until January 2002.

 

Finally we are considering a second edition of the successful publication The Building Stones of Leeds, taking into account some of the effects of the enormous building developments which have taken place in Leeds since the book was first published in 1996.  

 

In accordance with Council policy, the LPLS in addition actively supports, through grants, publications of other bodies or individuals which meet the Society’s objectives of promoting studies which relate to all aspects of Leeds and its region. These are then distributed to the Society’s members. The most important of such publications this year was Leeds Museums and Galleries Review. The Society is represented on its editorial board. While regretting that the City appears unable to finance this publication without charitable assistance, Council resolved to continue its support at this time when the future of the City Museum is at a critical stage. A smaller publication, A Respectable Terrace: the Story of Woodbine Terrace, Headingley, by Eveleigh Bradford, was distributed to LPLS members in January 2001.

 

Society’s Archive

Potential researchers into the history of the Society and its contribution to Leeds are reminded that the whole of the Society’s archive is deposited with the Brotherton Library save for certain minute books and current working documents. (The Society’s library was donated to the University Library in 1936.) The archive has been allotted the Special Collections accession number MS Dep.1975/1, and its contents are listed in considerable detail in Handlist 30. There are plans to make this handlist available on the Web. The archive was drawn on for a School of History MA thesis entitled “Scientific improvement, polite learning, and social diversion: an examination of the foundation and early development of the Leeds Philosophical & Literary Society” (1997) by Carole Johnston (classmark: Spec.Collections: Leeds Phil. & Lit. Y-0q LEE/J).

 

The prospect of a new Central Museum for Leeds

Together with the Leeds Civic Trust, the Thoresby Society and the Friends of the Leeds Museums, we are preparing a joint document, putting forward our ideas about the form the new museum should take. The prime aim of this document is to support the City’s lottery bid in December 2001 – and this date marks the deadline for its publication.

 

During this year, six meetings of the joint working party have been held and the overall form of the document has been determined. We have a broad agreement on the following points:

 

We propose that the collections should be grouped under five major headings. The structure of the collections largely dictates three of these:

·        The ancient world (Egypt, Greece, Rome etc)

·        World civilisations (the ethnography collection)

·        The natural world (the natural history and mineral collections)

 

In addition, we propose two themes not represented in any substantial way in the previous central museums. The first is a gallery displaying material relating to the history of the City of Leeds. The second is a display illustrating the concepts of modern pure (as distinct from applied) Science. This would include displays relating to geo-sciences, molecular biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy.

 

We are all of the opinion that the ultimate viability of the museum depends on two factors: firstly, its ability to attract and cater for school parties in significant numbers, and secondly, its ability to catch the public imagination with an active programme of special exhibitions and events.

 

We shall argue as forcefully as we can that many local societies (and particularly LPLS and the Friends) are eager to participate in the operation of the new Museum and must be given facilities from which they can operate.

 

In the middle of the Summer, representatives of the four societies were invited to a presentation at Armley Mills where the report of consultants commissioned by the City Council was presented. Although we concurred with much of this report, there were some points about which we have alternative views. We were invited to make an immediate reply – which we did in a three-page letter. We also decided to refer to their proposal in our report and to include a discussion of the principal areas where we feel the consultants’ suggestions should be modified or spelt out in more detail. 

 

Our prime intention has been to formulate a detailed plan of how the new museum should operate and how the collection should be exhibited. However, we have been drawn into discussions concerning the siting of the new museum (by the specific invitation of the Lord Mayor). In particular we have been asked to comment on the proposal to displace the Civic Theatre from the Leeds Institute building. As far as we can judge, the overriding consideration is that of lottery money. We fully appreciate why the Lottery Commission has encouraged the city to submit plans for the conversion of the Leeds Institute building. This proposal combines the provision of a suitable home for the museum collection with finding a viable use for a historically important building, which is (following the departure of the Music College) underused and in need of extensive repair. It kills two birds with one stone. Like many correspondents to the local press, we are concerned that the various amateur dramatic societies which use the Institute building should have an acceptable new home and we are pleased to see that plans for this (in the Electric Press building) are underway.