The Norwich Society

Events TALKS

TALK What the Normans did to ….. and for Norwich. Speaker: Adrian O'Dell

  • Thu 24 Jul 2025
  • Open to all
  • The Forum, Norwich, NR2 1TF
  • 7:30 pm
  • £8.00 non-members / £4.00 members

Norwich has always welcomed Strangers to its city but some have been more welcome than others. The Normans disrupted Anglo-Scandinavian life, breaking the 200-year link with Denmark and reconnecting with France and Europe.

Dominant new buildings were raised and the layout radically changed but the Normans brought order, recognition and prosperity.

This talk is part of the Norwich History Festival

Adrian O'Dell is the son of a Polish Air Force officer and a nurse from Lancashire  and was educated at the City of Norwich School. After an international career in the oil industry, he 'retired’ to Norfolk and has devoted himself to the study of Norfolk and Norwich’s history and heritage. He is a freelance city tour guide and was also a trustee of the Norfolk & Norwich Heritage Trust (Dragon Hall) before it was passed on to the National Centre for Writing. He has completed post-graduate studies in Landscape History at UEA. He is Chair of the Norfolk Polish Heritage Group which researches and archives stories of Polish immigration into Norfolk since World War II and has dual British/Polish nationality. Adrian has taken an active interest in the present plight of Poland’s neighbour Ukraine.

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TALK Sir Peter Eade, in his own words, at the bicentennial of his birth. Speaker: Phyllida Scrivens

  • Sat 10 May 2025
  • Open to all
  • The Forum, Norwich, NR2 1TF
  • 10:30 am
  • £8.00 non-members / £4.00 members

In celebration of the bicentenary of his birth in Acle during 1825, this talk from biographer Phyllida Scrivens, will explore the life of Peter Eade. Over his long lifetime, Peter became known as a senior man of medicine, a generous benefactor, a knight of the realm, Mayor of Norwich on three occasions, and keeper of pet tortoises.

Using many of Peter’s own words, including from his autobiography published in 1916, his Collectanea of Addresses and Papers and articles from the British Medical Journal, Phyllida will map out Peter’s remarkable career, sharing her insight into this man who gave so much to the people of Norwich.

Phyllida Scrivens is a local historian and biographer, Her third book The Great Thorpe Disaster 1874 was published in 2021. Phyllida has given many illustrated talks to groups around Norfolk but has now decided to retire from face to face talks, so this may be the last chance to hear her speak in person.

Photo: Peter Eade as a young man. Image from The Autobiography of Sir Peter Eade, edited by Sydney Long, published by Jarrold and Sons, 1916.

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TALK Mr Woodward's Memoir - keeping it in the family. Speaker: Matthew Williams

  • Thu 22 May 2025
  • Open to all
  • The Forum, Norwich, NR2 1TF
  • 10:30 am
  • £8.00 non-members / £4.00 members

Horace Woodward, Assistant Director of the nation’s Geological Survey, returned in 1875-1884 to Norwich, the native city of his grandfather, father and uncles to undertake a definitive survey and mapping exercise of the area. He ended up spending the happiest years of his life here amongst the quarries and railway cuttings. Half a century earlier, his grandfather Samuel Woodward (1790-1838), an antiquary who became known as The Norfolk Geologist, had blazed a trail and had earned an epitaph as an ‘indefatigable investigator’.

Matt Williams will look at the historical significance of this family and explore local connections.

Matthew Williams is a geologist and historian with a particular interest in Norwich as a physical entity.  His latest books are Norwich's Netherflow on the history of the sewerage system and The Masterful Mr Collins on Norwich's city engineer 1894-1925.

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