OUS MANCHESTER

 

The Manchester group organises several events for members each year – typically these include an informal meal and a speaker from Oxford, a May Bank Holiday walk, a visit to a place of historic interest and a lecture in the autumn.

 

The following events are being planned.

  • AGM and Informal Dinner 2024

This will take our customary format of a brief AGM, then a two-course meal followed by a talk by an Oxford speaker. On 21st February, our speaker will be Professor Alan Silman, Professor of Musculoskeletal Health at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College. He will be talking on: The Secret Medical History of JFK.  John Kennedy was the youngest person ever to become President of the USA, he was also the unhealthiest. The talk will discuss how much the public knew then and what we know now about his various health conditions, how they may have contributed to his presidency and possibly to his death.

  • May Bank Holiday 2024

Our traditional Bank Holiday walk will be on Monday May 6th. We are intending to have a walk to the south of Manchester.

  • Summer visit

We are currently looking at a number of possibilities for our summer visit and details will be published in due course.

 

Details of these events will be sent out to our membership approximately 6 weeks before each event. To find out more about our events, please email the group's Secretary, giving your contact details, Alumni number, Oxford college, subject and year of matriculation, so that we can add you to our mailing list and keep you informed. 

Autumn Lecture 2023: Martin Sixsmith - Lessons of the Cold War.

Our autumn lecture was by author, journalist and Russia expert Martin Sixsmith on ‘Lessons of the Cold War’, based on his research into the psychology of leaders and the public during that traumatic era – a topic of direct relevance today as war rages in Ukraine.

While people tend to think of the Cold War as a clash of ideologies and political systems, ‘the main battle was the human mind’, said Martin to a packed lecture theatre. ‘The aim was to control not just territory and resources, but loyalties, beliefs and the nature of reality. Both sides used psychological tricks and fake news to shape thinking.’

martin sixsmith pic

Using contemporary TV clips, he examined the mental stresses of leaders such as Khruschev, Stalin, Brezhnev, Nixon, Reagan and Gorbachev. He also described the times when the world came scarily close to nuclear war during decades of mutual incomprehension. ‘Both sides were convinced that the other was bent on world domination and both insisted that their own intentions were peaceful and that their massive arsenals of guns and missiles were defensive, but neither was willing or able to accept that that might just possibly be true of the other side also.’

Martin pointed out that nuclear missiles are still pointed at our cities and ‘our lives still depend on the quirks, paranoia and anxieties of the men and women who lead us’.

Freshers Event September 2023

In September we held our annual Freshers’ Meeting, which was once again generously hosted by Eversheds Sutherland at their Manchester office. A panel of five current undergraduates gave presentations and answered questions from an excited group of thirty-six freshers representing twenty-one degree subjects and twenty-one different colleges.

freshers event sept2023

The presentations covered many aspects of academic and social life and then the floor was open for questions which this year centred on study skills and time management. After the formal proceedings there was time for lively conversations as freshers discovered others from their future subjects and colleges, or quizzed the panel members further on all aspects of Oxford life.

Visit to Haworth Art Gallery, Accrington – September 2023

A group of twenty-eight members visited the wonderful Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington, Europe’s largest collection of Tiffany glass in Lancashire’s finest Arts & Crafts house and garden – a hidden gem and a perfect place to be on a hot September day.

After a soup-and-sandwich lunch provided by the Gallery Kitchen, curators Samantha and Gillian explained the history of the house and its famous collection of glass from the studio of New York’s Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), who was associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements.

Tiffany glass

The collection has 150 pieces comprising almost every type of Tiffany glass, the gift of Accrington-born designer Joseph Briggs, who worked for Tiffany for forty years. Briggs rose from being an apprentice to a top designer. In the dark days of the 1930s, he sent a large collection of unsold items back to Accrington.

known as ‘the Yorkshire Lutyens’ or ‘the Lutyens of the north’

The house was built in 1909 for cotton manufacturer William Haworth and his sister Anne, designed by York architect Walter Brierley, known as ‘the Yorkshire Lutyens’ or ‘the Lutyens of the north’. It was bequeathed to the people of Accrington in 1920 and stands in nine acres of handsome parkland.

May Bank Holiday Walk 2023

The weather stayed fine for our traditional May Bank Holiday walk, which this year was the ‘Six Reservoirs’ walk in glorious moorland above Littleborough, in Rochdale borough, close to the historic border between Lancashire and Yorkshire, including a bit of the Pennine Way.

six reservoirs walk

A party of 22 plus a dog called Tess (the Reservoir Dog?) set off from the car park next to the White House inn on Blackstone Edge, 1,300 feet above sea level. From there we crossed Bryon Edge and walked beside the reservoirs of Blackstone Edge, White Holme, Light Hazzles and Warland before descending to follow part of the Rochdale Canal, England’s highest broad canal at 600 feet above sea level, completed in 1804.

six reservoirs walk

From there we climbed back up to the White House via Lower Chelham and Higher Chelham Reservoirs and an animal sanctuary (a sixth reservoir, Wardle, could be seen in the distance). We were joined by a couple of others at the pub. The White House is a former coaching house dating from 1671. The Coach and Horses (its original name) was where “the young bloods of Littleborough having guarded the mail coach from highway men would seek recompense for their labours with vigorous applications to strong liquors”.

It was a welcome end for our walkers, as it must once have been for the horses.

AGM and Informal Dinner February 2023

Our year got off to a lively start on 9 February with our AGM, followed by a two-course meal and an entertaining talk by Anthony Burton (Wadham) on the Arts and Crafts Movement. For the first time this was held at the Deanwater Hotel in Woodford, Cheshire. Anthony is a life-long expert on the fine arts from his long career as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which included writing the standard history of the V&A before retiring to his native north west. He described the movement, a significant tendency in the design of British consumer goods and architecture in the late nineteenth century.

william morris

Beginning with John Ruskin and William Morris, he explained that it may not have had a consistent style, but had a wide-raging impact on the taste and way of life of Britain well into the twentieth century. “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” said Morris. Its influence stretched across the country, including guilds in northern England, and ranged from Charles Rennie Mackintosh to grand country houses.

It produced not only attractive objects, but aimed to inspire a way of life, including suburban architecture such as that of semi-detached houses in Bramhall.

If you live in or near Greater Manchester and wish to be kept in touch with OUS Manchester group events, please email the group's Secretary and ask to be added to the contact list.