Glossop Guild for enquiring minds
Zooming Through the Autumn
On-line Courses
September 2025 ~ December 2025
Your Zoom Season Pass
In order to make "Zooming Through the Autumn" on-line term as flexible as possible, we are again offering a single payment "season pass" which will entitle you to join any or all of the autumn sessions below. The Autumn Zoom Season Pass costs just £22 per member or £35 per non-member*.
* To pay for the lectures as a non-member select the arrow in the white box opposite to this text, then on the drop-down menu select the non-member price of £35, next select "Buy Lectures" and follow the prompts.
Note:- The non-member price of £35 means you get the Autumn Zoom Season Pass and Guild Membership, entitling you to member discounted prices for all our other autumn and future spring term courses until the end of April 2026. NB: If two persons are viewing in a household two session passes are required.
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A day or two before each Zoom session you will receive an email from us with a link to join the session.
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Dvorak - One Composer, Two Nations
Tutor: Rosemary Broadbent
Monday 22nd September 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Dvorak was proud of his Czech heritage and he created music which uniquely
embodied it. It is therefore remarkable that he took on the same task for
the American nation when he was invited to teach, conduct and compose in New
York. By comparing one work from each nation - the 'Dumky' Piano Trio (Op.
90 in E minor) and the 'American' String Quartet (Op. 96 in F major), we
shall investigate how successful he was in these two very different
cultures, through the medium of two popular and attractive works.
The 1890's
Tutors: Steve Milward & Frank Vigon
Monday 29th September & 6th, 13th & 20th October 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Leeds City Varieties
Music Hall
Steve Millward & Frank Vigon 29th September 2025
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THE BRITISH MUSIC HALL - The dominant form of British popular entertainment of the time Music Halls attracted all echelons of society. Performers like Marie Lloyd and Vesta Tilley were household names and commanded enormous salaries. Popular culture starts here.
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​FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY: THE EMPIRE LEICESTER SQUARE - The Old Queen was on her way out with the millennium. The sun was also setting on the British Empire as competition for resources and colonies in Africa and Asia increased tensions amongst nations. The Boer War was but a symptom of an ailing geopolitical ambition.
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Steve Millward & Frank Vigon 6th October 2025
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FLORENCE FARR: ‘THE NEW WOMAN’ - Actor, writer and director Florence Farr was a renaissance woman and feminist of the 1890s. An intimate of George Bernard Shaw, WB Yeats and Ann Horniman, she was also a priestess of The Golden Dawn - a secret society.
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A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE: IMMIGRATION AND JACK THE RIPPER - A wide range of people: Italians, Irish, East Europeans, Jews, criss-crossed the world looking for prosperity and security. They brought skills and labour but often lived in poverty stricken ghettos
- incubators of violence as well as talent.
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​Frank Vigon 13th October 2025
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THE SCAPEGOAT COMPLEX: MY REPUTATION, OH MY REPUTATION (DREYFUS) - In the heat of trade and military competition some Great European nations determined that their form of government and culture were under attack. In France a Jewish soldier became the centre of a scandal that divided the nation.
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THE GILDED AGE: ECONOMIC DECLINE AND SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
The late 1890's saw a new age of economic escapism in entertainment, in decoration, and in moral conduct. It was also an age of rapid technological progress: railways, motor cars, electricity, the first flight of man. Giant ships crossed oceans, and wireless communication heralded a new age - a second industrial revolution.
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​​Steve Millward 20th October 2025
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ELLIS ISLAND: GATEWAY TO AMERICA – From 1890 New York’s Ellis Island was the point of entry into the USA for over 10m people. All wanted a new life free from oppression and persecution - some went on to reach of the top of their profession - particularly in the entertainment industry
THE NOT-SO-BELLE EPOQUE - The 1890s was an era of prosperity, and scientific & technological advancement. Music reflected these apparently good times but as the fin-de-siècle loomed nearer, an edginess and ambiguity crept in reflecting growing nationalism and imperialism.
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Museum of Brittany, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Alfred Dreyfus
Jack the Ripper
Immigrants to America
The Next Generation of Transport
Tutor: Simon Webb
Wednesday 29th October 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
The next generation of transport
How will we get around the country and planet in the next decade? What will be the next generation of planes, trains and automobiles?
This talk will explore the drivers and options for new vehicles and new forms of transport. It will also explore where and how these could be made and part the UK may have to play.
NASA Next generation supersonic passenger jet
JMW Turner
Tutor: Steve Millward
Monday 3rd November 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
From as early as 1750, a distinctive tradition of landscape painting was emerging in England, partly a reflection of 18th century English landscape gardening. Turner was a leading artist in this field.
2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of JMW Turner. A master of both watercolour and oil painting, he also produced 71 prints of his work, all of which are currently on show at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (exhibition ends 2 November 2025). Turner rose from humble beginnings to become arguably one of Britain's greatest artists. In this talk Steve will help us understand some of Turner’s paintings, why they have endured and explain why his work influenced art movements from Impressionism onwards and still continues to resonate to the present day.
JMW Turner, 1799
J. M. W. Turner, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
James Vs Wells
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Monday 10th, 17th & 24th November 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Henry James (1843-1916) and H.G. Wells (1866-1946) became friends in the mid-1890s and held each other in high esteem, despite differing aesthetic views. James, a master stylist and theorist about the novel, disagreed with Wells who argued for the usefulness of art.
By a study of some of their own writing, we shall discuss the disagreement between two titans of English literature that led eventually to a falling out.
Henry James
H.G. Wells