Scientists and Innovators in West London History

31st West London local History Conference

On Saturday 26 March 2011 at Montague Hall, Montague Road, Hounslow

This year’s theme considers people with inventive and inquiring minds who have lived and worked in our area. The sponsoring societies’ publications will be on sale, as will books by some of our speakers, enabling you to keep in touch with local history across West London. 

Speakers on Dr Dee in Mortlake, George III and science at Kew, pharmaceuticals in Brentford, Battersea candle-makers and pioneer gardeners

TICKETS £8.00 available only in advance, from sponsoring societies or by post from J McNamara, 31B Brook Rd South, Brentford TW8 ONN. Please send SAE and cheque made out to “West London Local History Conference”

The conference is sponsored by the local history societies of Acton, Barnes & Mort-lake, Brentford & Chiswick, Fulham & Hammersmith, Hounslow, Richmond, Twickenham and Wandsworth with the West Middlesex Family History Society

PROGRAMME

9.30                Doors open for viewing of sponsoring societies' stalls

10.00              Welcome by Val Bott, chairman of the organising committee

10.05              ‘Cosmos in a Cottage’ - reconstructing Dr Dee’s extraordinary house in Mortlake
Benjamin Woolley, author of  The Queen's Conjuror: The Life and Magic of Dr. John Dee

10.55              COFFEE

11.25               Experiments at Kew: George III’s Collection and Observatory Jane Wess, Senior Curator of Science, Science Museum, London

12.10              Prices’ candles: how 19th century industrial chemistry transformed an ancient craft  
Jon Newman, author of Battersea's Global reach, The Story of Price's Candles and Archivist, L B Lambeth

1.00                LUNCH
 
2.15                Inventors, contraptions and institutions
Contemporary documents read by the organising committee

2.40               Innovation on the Great West Road: Beechams and Macleans T A B Corley, Henley Business School, author of Beechams 1848-2000: Pills to Pharmaceuticals (2011).

3.20                TEA

3.50                Patent elms and Williams pears: nursery gardeners in West London, Val Bott, Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society

4.30                Summary of the day’s proceedings and Conference ends

The conference fee includes morning coffee and afternoon tea but participants should organise their own lunch. You are welcome to bring a packed lunch; there are also cafés and food shops nearby in Hounslow High Street.

February 9, 2011