City lecture in honour of peace campaigners (From Worcester News)

City lecture in honour of peace campaigners

10:00pm Thursday 27th September 2012 in News By Mike Pryce

AN inaugural lecture is to be held in Worcester on Saturday in honour of Dorothy and Edward ‘EP’ Thompson, the husband and wife partnership who were hugely influential on modern thinking in a number of fields, particularly peace campaigning.

They lived for many years at Rushwick, just outside Worcester, and after Mr Thompson’s death in 1993, Mrs Thompson moved to Worcester city until her death in 2011.

Both were renowned historians and much more.

Mr Thompson is possibly best known for the seminal The Making of the English Working Class and his wife for the ground-breaking The Chartists.

Both were major figures in the national and international peace movements and made substantial contributions to building a serious left alternative to the mainstream.

Lecturer Sheila Rowbotham will present the inaugural Dorothy and EP Thompson Lecture entitled Remembering Dorothy and Edward at the Perdiswell Young People’s Leisure Club, Droitwich Road, Worcester.

Doors open at 1pm and the lecture will start at 1.30 pm.

The event is being organised by a group called Dorothy and EP Thompson Remembered, which aims to establish a local, annual event to celebrate the lives of this influential partnership.

Mrs Rowbotham was a student, colleague and friend of the Thompsons. She is writer in residence in the Eccles Centre for American Studies in the British Library, an honorary fellow at the Universities of Manchester and Bristol and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Tickets for the lecture cost £3 or £1 for low/non-waged. Further details are available from dandeptlecture@ talktalk.net and worcestertuc. org/page7.htm.