Merseyside Branch Programme 2025-26

Branch contact: For all enquiries, please contact Dr Heather Hatton Merseysideha@gmail.com

Venue: All talks start at 6:00 pm and take place in the Liverpool John Moores Student Life Building, room 2.06, unless otherwise stated. Address: Copperas Hill, Liverpool L3 5AJ The venue is next to Liverpool Lime Street Station and for those driving parking can be found at Mount Pleasant Car Park, 38 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool L3 5TB

Associate membership: £15 per year.

Admission: Free to HA branch members. £4 per event for non-members.

Branch website: Merseyside HA

Tuesday 23 September 2025

Building community through Environmental Regeneration in the Northwest since the 1970s

Speaker: Dr Pierre Botcherby (Teaching Fellow in French Studies at University of Warwick)

Dr Botcherby explores the effects of de-industrialisation and environmental regeneration on (working-class) communities in the Northwest, using St Helens as an illustrative case study.

 

Thursday 23 October

Environment in Science Fiction: Exclusive insights from the Science Fiction Archives at the University of Liverpool Special Collections

Venue: Special Collections, University of Liverpool, meet in the reception area of the Sydney Jones Library, Chatham St, Liverpool L7 7BD, at 4.20pm

Time: 4.30-5.45 pm

Speaker: Dr Tom Dillon (Science Fiction Collections Curator, University of Liverpool)

Desert planets, ocean moons, and worlds covered by jungle – the planetary scale of science fiction has long made it a literature suited to exploring ecology. With the onset of climate change, science fiction novels have increasingly mirrored the concerns of environmentalism and to this day continue to reflect on the effects of humanity on our world, whether this be through the analogy of an alien planet or depicting climate catastrophe in our own future.

The event will be an opportunity to explore how science fiction has engaged with questions of the environment, through a display of science fiction related materials and a short talk by the collection’s curator Tom Dillon. Items will be drawn from the Science Fiction Collections at the University of Liverpool, the largest collection of science fiction in the UK. The talk will give an overview of the theme of environment in science fiction and then focus on the works of Brian W. Aldiss, an author who consistently engaged with ecology in his career.

 

November 2025 – date TBC

Clean water in Merseyside? From the 1849 Cholera Epidemic to Current Day

Speakers: Dr Geraldine Reid, Lead Curator of Botany, Geology and Science at Liverpool World Museum and Professor Darren Grocke, Professor of Stable Isotope Geochemistry at Durham University

Dr Reid and Professor Grocke trace the environmental and human impacts on the Mersey River from Victorian public health crises to modern day pollution concerns and consider future implications for community interaction with the waterway.

 

February 2026 – date TBC

Disraeli, Football, and the Urban Environment in Liverpool after 1870

Speaker: Dr Ben Williams

An exploration of how football, civic pride, and urban development intersected in Liverpool during and after the Victorian era.

 

Thursday 26 March 2026

History of the Liverpool Botanical Gardens

Speaker: Stephen Lyus, Chair of the Liverpool Botanical Trust

Learn about the 220-year history of the Liverpool Botanical Gardens and discover Liverpool’s rich legacy in global botanical science, featuring materials from the collection.   

 

April 2026 – date TBC

Hunter-gatherer (Mesolithic) peoples, landscapes, and sea level change in Formby and beyond

Speaker: Dr Richard Gregory, Head of Post-Excavation, Oxford Archaeology

Dr Gregory discusses discuss the relationship between Mesolithic Peoples and their environments, focusing on landscape interaction and the effects of sea level change in Formby and surrounding areas.

 

May 2026 – date TBC

Let’s Walk about Empire

Walking Tour TBC

June 2026 – date TBC

History of Liverpool through music and architecture

Walking Tour TBC