Canterbury Historical Association
The Inaugural Geoff Rice Lecture, 13 March 2012
Professor Geoff Rice (Canterbury, History Department)
‘Garrick’s Friend: People and Places in the Life of the Fourth earl of Rochford (1717-81), Anglo-Dutch courtier, diplomat and statesman’
Geoff Rice is well known to everyone in the Association through his long service as Secretary, which is acknowledged by the inauguration of the annual Geoff Rice lecture. He taught History at the University of Canterbury from 1973 until his retirement in 2011. His paper deals with the subject of his book, The Life of the Fourth Earl of Rochford (2010), and discusses Lord Rochford’s role in British foreign policy during the troublesome period of the 1770s, as well as some of his less formal activities.
Click here for more details of Geoff's paper
Lectures this year will take place in South Arts Lecture Theatre A4 (a printable map is attached to the programme).
Membership costs $25 annually.
Enquiries regarding membership should be addressed to the Secretary, David Monger (phone 364-2287).
About the Canterbury Historical Association
Originally founded in 1922, and revived in 1953 after a wartime recess, this is now the largest and most active of the university-based historical associations in New Zealand, with a membership of 165 including staff, students, retired History teachers and general public. Meetings are held on campus monthly from March to November and usually comprise a lecture (often illustrated) followed by discussion and supper. Attendances average about forty, rising to eighty for special occasions.
Visiting lecturers in recent years have included Professors James Joll (London), E Le Roy Ladurie (Paris), John Broomfield (Michigan), JGA Pocock (Baltimore), Geoffrey Blainey (Melbourne), Austin Woolrych (Lancaster) Barrie Rose (Hobart), Sir Geoffrey Elton (Cambridge), Richard Evans (East Anglia), Patrick O'Farrell (Sydney), Frank O'Gorman (Manchester) and Jack Green (Baltimore).
Apart from visitors, speakers include staff reporting on study leave, senior students on their thesis research, and local historians on their current projects.
The association has been instrumental in recent years in obtaining funding for the Christchurch 2000 History Project's 1996 Historic Photo Search and in helping to establish the Canterbury History Foundation. (see sections 6.4 and 7.6).
See also G. W. Rice, A Short History of the Canterbury Historical Association (Christchurch, 1997).