NOTE: this talk is on a Tuesday, due to speaker's unavailability most Thursdays

And now for something completely different - some maritime industrial archaeology.

Today's speaker Geoff has been a railway enthusiast since his schooldays.  At 15, he left school and started his career as an engine cleaner, working in the boilersmith’s shop and eventually becoming a top-link fireman based at Guildford Motive Power Depot. This gave him a privileged opportunity to work with a diverse group of drivers and locomotives until the final day of steam on the Southern Region, Sunday 9th July 1967.

In 1846, a patent was awarded to a new type of corn-mill - it triggered a series of court cases which ran for more than 20 years.  This talk tells the story of the invention and how the court cases provide examples of what makes an invention patentable in the UK today.

The work women of the Land Army in World War 2 is well known.  This talk tells the story of the less well-known women who volunteered in the 1940s to keep traffic flowing on Britain’s canals. However they may have referred to themselves, they were far form “idle women”.

This talk uncovers a lost industry of the Adur valley – the making of salt. Salt is something we probably all take for granted, sprinkling it on our roast potatoes or adding it to our salads. Or even, perhaps, trying to eat less of it nowadays.

The First World War inspired Heath Robinson to dream up a series of increasingly outlandish and bizarre military inventions with which the opposing armies would try to outwit each other. From the kaiser’s campaigning car or a suggestion for an armoured bayonet curler, to post-war ‘unbullying’ of beef, his cartoons are a fantastically absurd take on wartime technology and home-front life.

The AGM of the Medieval Studies Forum will be followed by a talk Professor Ian Freestone (UCL Institute of Archaeology) on Medieval Glass.

The Annual General Meeting of Surrey Archaeological Society will be held via Zoom. It will be followed by a lecture by Professor Michael Parker Pearson and is free of charge. The Zoom link will be made available in due cours.

Full title "The Last Line: The 1940 anti-invasion defences between Guildford & Dorking'”. A Dorking Local History Group event which SIHG are promoting. See www.dlhg.org.uk for more on Dorking Local History Group

Archaeologist Paul  (from SYAS) will give us an archaeological evaluation of the 1940 anti-invasion defences between Guildford and Dorking.

Talk by Peter Hoar of the Barnes Wallis Foundation
Effingham resident Barnes Wallis is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the RAF’s “Dambusters” but many of his inventions were in civilian aircraft & communications technology. Come along and hear more. 

Doors 7PM, talk starts 7:30. £2 for non-members. Tea and biscuits available.

A Dorking Local History Group event promoted by SIHG. More at www.dlhg.org.uk