Victoria branch: Two winter lectures with a special afternoon tea

Lecture 1: Ecstatic about seaweed: eighteenth-century women tourists & scientific collecting

‘The Miss Beauforts were ecstatic about the seaweed’, wrote Jane Austen in her unfinished novel, Sandition. For the sisters, seaweed collecting was not just a scientific activity, but also a social one that could be enlisted in their search for an eligible bachelor, one ‘who would not mind sopping his shoes occasionally in sea water to bring back a few trophies.’

Some, like the Beauforts, were more interested in specimen collecting as a social and aesthetic activity, others sought to become actively involved in scientific endeavour.

In this talk, we will take a brief look at three such women.

Lecture 2: Souvenir botany: Napoleon’s willows

The trade in botanic specimens in the 18th century was not only about science. Prior to the transferal of Napoleon I’s remains to Paris in 1840, it was common for sailors to take willow clippings from his grave on St Helena when they stopped for mid-Atlantic provisions. Since then, narratives have developed about willow trees in Australia, NZ and the US with lineage dating back to ‘Napoleon’s willows.’  In this talk, we will turn to newspaper clippings and sketches from the 19th and 20th centuries to look at some of the stories that evolved around Napoleon’s willows in Australia.

Lecturer: Dr Emma Gleadhill is a young historian based in Melbourne. Her research interests are in gender, material culture and travel. Her first monograph, Taking travel home: the souvenir culture of British women tourists, 1750-1830, was published in May 2022 and argues that the rise of the souvenir is representative of female agency, as women used them to form spaces in which they could create and control their own travel narratives

Time: 1.45pm for 2pm start for lecture one, afternoon tea then lecture two at 3.45pm finishing at 4.45pm.

Venue: Phyllis Hore Hall, adjacent to Kew Library, corner Cotham Rd and Civic Drive, Kew.

Getting there: Lots of easy parking or tram route 109.

Cost: Members $40, non-members $50.

Book: at Trybooking.

Enquiries: Wendy Dwyer 0408 340 967 or Robyn Teed 0447 256 518.