Mrs Holmes Taught Sherlock all he Knew:
Uncovering the Truth About Victorian Women Detectives
Dr Sara Lodge,
School of English, University of St Andrews
Date: 21st of January 2026
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
A revelatory history of the women who brought Victorian criminals to account—and how they became a cultural sensation.
From Wilkie Collins to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the traditional image of the Victorian detective is male. Few people realise that women detectives successfully investigated Victorian Britain, working both with the police and for private agencies, which they sometimes managed themselves.
About the speaker:
Sara Lodge is Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of St Andrews, specializing in nineteenth-century literature and culture. She is the author of Thomas Hood and Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Jane Eyre: A Reader’s Guide to Criticism. Lodge has also worked as a speechwriter for the United Nations Secretary-General in New York and, as a journalist, writes regularly for the British and American press.
OTHER EVENTS
Traces of the Silk Road in Northwest Europe
Date: 18th of March 2026
Time: 20:00
Venue Zoom
Speaker: Prof Susan Whitfield, University of East Anglia
We think of the Silk Roads as a luxury trade route from East Asia to markets such as Damascus in Syria. But there is much more to this story. This trade involved diplomatic, religious and other contacts between different cultures as far as Europe.
Partying like it’s 1679 in Stony Stratford, Or, Mable Graves’s Very Bad Day: Political Protest Songs in 17th century England
Date: 15thof April 2026
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Dr Angela McShane, Hon Reader in History, University of Warwick
Partying like it’s 1679 in Stony Stratford, Or Mable Graves’s Very Bad Day. In 1679, the landlady of The Cock in Stony Stratford was visited by agents of the powerful local magnate, Sir Richard Temple of Stowe. They were investigating a seditious pop song that had created a local and national sensation – and libelled their master. Did she know anything about it? Trouble was … Mabel did know … a lot. Come and hear the story of that sensational song, the era’s huge pop song trade in general, and find out what happened next for Mabel and her family.
The Unlikely Spies of Medieval Europe
Date: 20th of May 2026
Time: 20:00
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Prof Jenny Benham, Medieval History, School of History, Archaeology & Religion, Cardiff University
Spies were a common feature of political, diplomatic and courtly life in the period of early medieval Europe. In this article, Jenny Benham explores some interesting contemporary representations of spies, in both literature and art. These stories and images reveal key features of the culture and practices surrounding these so-called ‘little birds’ who listened to and passed on important secret information.