Winter Programme 2025/26

Tuesday 7 October 2025 2pm: The Lives of the Lead-swingers
-Tim Knebel
Tim works as an archivist at Sheffield City Archives and, outside of
work, he is a founder member of 'Peak in the Past' local community
heritage group which aims to explore and share interesting episodes of
the Peak District history.
Faithful in Difficulties (In Arduis Fidelis) was their regimental motto. In
between saving lives on the First World War battlefields of Flanders,
including at the bloody battles of the Somme and Passchendaele, a
small band of young Royal Army Medical Corps servicemen from
Sheffield, with shared artistic and literary interests, came together to
produce a trench magazine chronicling “the lighter side of war”.
Delightfully illustrated, The Lead-swinger was packed with humorous
articles, witty cartoons, imaginative short stories and poems but the
contributors hid behind pen names, concealing their true identities. We
unmask the men behind the magazine and reveal the remarkable
characters at its heart, including the dashing doctor and VC hero
whose post-war life would later be blighted by opium addiction, and
the eccentric violinist turned cartoonist who would go on to inspire
and mentor a young Quentin Blake and help change the face of
illustration as we know it.

Tuesday 4 November 2025 2pm: Treating the Soldiers of the Crimea
-Danielle Burton
Danielle is a Derbyshire-based historian, author and history blogger.
Mary Seacole, Betsy Cadwaladr and Florence Nightingale - how three
women from Jamaica, Wales and England, all in different ways, went on
to nurse injured soldiers in the Crimean War, despite prejudice.

Tuesday 6 January 2026 2pm: Job Brassington, 1894-1916
-Carl Clayton
Carl lives in Walton and is a retired librarian. He has a BA from the
Open University, and a BSc from the University of Sheffield. He is
interested in local and family history and has had an article on Roman
roads published in the Derbyshire Archaeological Journal.

During the First World War, more than 700 men from Derbyshire (the
county furthest from the sea) joined up to serve in the Royal Navy.
Most of those brave men came from the mining villages of Northeast
Derbyshire and they served as ship's stokers. In this presentation he
will look at the life of Job Brassington and why young men from
Derbyshire were recruited to serve in the Royal Navy.
Job was born in the Dog Kennels area of Chesterfield which was
notorious for its slums. As an ordinary person from the lowest class of
society, there is not a great deal of information about Job’s life, but
Carl will explore life in the slums, his employment with the Chesterfield
pottery works and his life in the Navy. His story ends with his death at
the Battle of Jutland.

Tuesday 3 February 2026 2pm: “On the Run” -Stuart Chapman
Stuart was a police officer for 31 years, from constable to Chief
Superintendent in Sheffield. In those years, he also found time to
undertake a three-year scholarship at the University of Sheffield,
successfully completing an honours degree in law. After his police
service he was senior police liaison manager for the UK’s leading stolen
vehicle company. His two careers introduced him to public speaking,
from a large audience of detectives at Scotland Yard, attendees at an
international vehicle crime conference, to a few dozen people.
An exploration of infamous cases where criminals go on the run and
why, plus how they were detected. The Great Train Robber, Ronnie
Biggs, The MP John Stonehouse, Canoe Man, John Darwin, and M25
killer, Kenneth Noye.
Then a detailed review of how escaped prisoner, William Thomas
Hughes, held a family hostage before killing three generations in a
cottage just outside Chesterfield. The talk asks whether new technology
such as facial recognition will prevent such cases.

Tuesday 3 March 2026 2pm: “Henry Seebohm, Ornithologist,
Steelmaker and Traveller ” -Paul Hobson
Paul came to Sheffield in the 1970s to study Natural Environmental Science. He
worked as a teacher and lecturer for 25 years before switching to become a full
time photographer. His fascination with Henry Seebohm started in 1980, and forty years of
research has resulted in the first full biography of this amazing Victorian.
Henry was a fascinating character, creating an enterprising steelworks in
Sheffield and working with other naturalists to create the first Sheffield natural
history groups. By the end of his amazing life, he had undertaken two
ground breaking trips into the heart of Siberia and was arguably the most
popular and influential ornithologist in Britain.