Meetings

Meeting schedule - when and where we have meetings

Meetings archive - details of all speakers and meetings back to April 2003

MEETINGS SCHEDULE and MEMBERSHIP The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship holds two meetings a year: A winter meeting in November, usually in London A spring meeting in April or May, at different locations around the UK NON-MEMBERS ARE VERY WELCOME AT ALL CMYF MEETINGS Meet speakers, members, their guests, and other prospective members Learn about the Fellowship - with no pressure or obligation to join up! Costs are kept as low as possible, and are usually in the range £15 – £25 for the day. This covers refreshments, room hire and speaker expenses, and often lunch (depending on venue). Want to join? It's cheap and easy – click here for how to join

Earlier Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship meetings ....

Charlotte M. Yonge Fellowship and The Barbara Pym Society

Joint Spring Meeting

Saturday 14th May 2011

'ANGLICANS ABROAD'

St Peter's Methodist Church Hall, St Peter's Street, Canterbury CT1 2BE

The spring meeting in 2011 brings together two literary societies devoted to a pair of authors who have much in common, despite the century which lies between their birth dates: Charlotte Yonge and Barbara Pym. The theme we shall explore is ‘Anglicans abroad’ – a fertile one in the works of both authors. The two writers are often thought of as home-birds, tied to England, if not positively parochial. But in fact ‘abroad’ plays a significant role in their novels: travellers, missionaries, anthropologists, diplomats and tourists visit foreign climes both for work and pleasure, seeking health, wealth ... and cups of tea. And in both authors there is rich interplay between the circumstances of home life and the tempting attractions of travel.

• Ms Triona Adams (writer, broadcaster and performer), on the lure of abroad in Barbara Pym and Charlotte Yonge
• Ms Terry Barringer (Wolfson College, Cambridge) 'Soldiers of Christ and Soldiers of the Queen: CMY's missionaries and military abroad'
• The Revd Colin Oxenforth on missionaries and missions in Barbara Pym's works
• Canon Edgar Ruddock (USPG) on missions then and now

Yonge was one of Pym's favourite authors; and Wilmet Underwood, mainstay of her family in Yonge's The Pillars of the House, gave her name to the (very different) Wilmet Forsyth in A Glass of Blessings. Moreover, the Charlotte M. Yonge Fellowship owes its origin to a remark made at a Barbara Pym Society meeting: 'Charlotte Yonge should have an organisation like this!'

Canterbury is a delightful town, with many wonderful buildings and tempting shops. The papers and lunch will be at St Peter's Methodist Church Hall in central Canterbury (easily reached from either of the Canterbury stations). Then we hope to visit the King's School (formerly St Augustine's missionary college) and the Cathedral. For those arriving on Friday evening, there will be an informal gathering for a pub supper; and for those staying over on Saturday night, an optional restaurant dinner will be organised.

Booking forms will go out to CMYF members with the mailing of the Spring Review in mid-April. (Non-members interested in attending should use the contact form on this website, and put 'Canterbury meeting' in the subject line.)

Symposium on The Pillars of the House
November 2010
and special Pillars issue of The Journal of the Charlotte M. Yonge Fellowship 2011

University Women's Club
2 Audley Square, South Audley Street, London W1K 1DB

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT ALL CMYF MEETINGS

Charlotte Yonge regarded her novel, The Pillars of the House (1873), with special affection; in a letter to a friend in 1896 she admitted that she even preferred some of the characters she created in it to those in The Daisy Chain. Some scholars also believe that The Pillars is Yonge's masterpiece, yet there has been surprisingly little written about this long and absorbing book.

A future issue of The Journal of the Charlotte M Yonge Fellowship will be devoted to this one book, and will include both papers given at this Symposium and pieces by those unable to attend the meeting itself.

Symposium Programme

11.00 Opening of Pillars Symposium: Elizabeth Llewellyn-Smith

Session 1: The Press
Chair: Clemence Schultze

Barbara Dunlap: The shop and the reading room: stationery and sensation at Froggatt and Underwood.
Terry Barringer: Pillars, the Pursuivant, and the Victorian Periodical Press
Alys Blakeway: Charlotte Yonge and the press, with special reference to The Pillars of the House

12.15 Session 2: The Church
Chair: Susan Walton

Margaret Birch: "Learning and godly conversation": Preparation for ordination as illustrated by The Pillars of the House.
Barbara Dennis: Pro Ecclesia Dei: the Church in The Pillars of the House

1.45 Session 3: The Family
Chair: Hilary Clare

Sue Eastaugh: Family life and sibling relations in The Pillars of the House
Audrey Fessler: Mary Underwood in The Pillars of the House
Tig Lang: Theodore Underwood – an autistic child?
Penelope Wallace: Alda: the Scarlett O’Hara of Bexley

3.30 Session 4: Final thoughts and discussion
Chair: Barbara Dennis

Julia Courtney: The Pillars of the House as the Pillar of CMY’s fiction

Spring 2010 Meeting – Durham University

Saturday, 15th May 2010

The Spring 2010 Meeting of the Charlotte M Yonge Fellowship was held in the ancient heart of Durham City.

We were fortunate to have Dr Sheridan Gilley, Emeritus Reader in Theology, Durham University as our speaker.
Dr Gilley is author of Newman and His Age.

An optional extra for those of you staying in Durham over Saturday night – an opportunity to carry on the conversation!
Dinner at Oldfields Restaurant, 18 Claypath, Durham, DH1 1RH
Two courses: £20.00; three courses £25.00. Drinks to be paid for individually.

November 2009 Meeting - London

Saturday, 28 November 2009 — London
Friends Meeting Rooms, Euston Road

Principal speaker: Dr Shirley Foster - Sheffield University
'Art and Autobiography: Charlotte Yonge and Elizabeth Sewell'

Dr Foster researches in the fields of Victorian women´s fiction and Anglo-American travel writing,
and she has published widely in these areas. Her recent publications include
a co-edited anthology of women´s travel texts, a literary biography of Elizabeth Gaskell,
and an edition of Gaskell´s Mary Barton.

She has recently published on nineteenth-century American visitors to Britain,
on women explorers and their clothing, on Harriet Beecher Stowe in Europe
and on aspects of American literary tourism.

Click here for map - Friends House is across Euston Road from Euston Station.

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

April 2009 Meeting - Oxford

OXFORD - Saturday 18 April 2009 11 am

West Oxford Community Centre (click for map)
Botley Road, Oxford, OX2 0BT

Dr Pamela Horn

(social historian) spoke about the lives of country house women:

'The Women's Perspective: Some Country House Diaries c.1860-1900'

Dr Horn has written extensively on Victorian life. Some of her works are listed below: for (lots!) more, click here

Ladies of the manor : wives and daughters in country-house society, 1830-1918
Stroud : Alan Sutton, 1991

Labouring life in the Victorian countryside
Dublin : Gill and Macmillan, 1976

Life and labour in rural England 1760-1850
Basingstoke : Macmillan, 1987

Life below stairs in the 20th century
Stroud : Sutton, 2003

Dr Horn also has a special interest in the history of Oxfordshire: for her publications on Oxfordshire click here.

THEN, AFTER LUNCH

The launch of the Fellowship's latest publication,
Charlotte Yonge's 1838 Le Chateau de Melville
(translated from Yonge's original French and edited by CMYF member Hilary Clare).

including a special cake for the book launch, a light-hearted quiz, and an opportunity to visit two nearby churches.

• St Frideswide's, Osney, which has an Alice Liddell connection
• St Thomas the Martyr in Becket Street. the church of Thomas Chamberlain and home of the Anglican sisterhood which he founded. It is also linked with Felicia Skene.

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

November 2008 Meeting - London

2008 AGM London - Saturday, 22 November, 10 am

with author, journalist and Victorianist

Judith Flanders

Saturday, 22 November 2008 — London
Friends Meeting Rooms, Euston Road
Friends House is across Euston Road from Euston Station.

To contact us about this meeting, or anything else, please use our Contact form

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

Plans include

• a visit to Winchester College
• a walking tour of the town centre
• a look at St Cross, which Violet visited on her honeymoon (Heartsease).

In the afternoon, we hope to visit John Keble's parish of Hursley.

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

DETAILS OF THE DAY

This is the first year that the Spring meeting is not also the AGM, and we have taken advantage of not needing a room for any formal business to have a meeting based on Winchester and including a coach tour of "Charlotte M Yonge Country", followed by a CMY walk around Winchester.

10.30

Coach leaves Winchester railway station.

10.45

Arrive Hursley. We will be able to enter the grounds of the House, and hope to stop outside the Church and Vicarage.

11.25

Depart for St Cross (which Violet in Heartsease visited on her honeymoon).

11.40

Tour of St Cross - approximately one hour.

12.30

Lunch at St Cross.

1.15

Return to coach. A tour around Otterbourne and Pitt.

2.00

Return to Winchester. A CMY walk round Winchester (Approximately 1 hour)

November 2007 Meeting - London

London, Saturday, 17 Nov 2007

UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S CLUB
2 Audley Square, South Audley Street, London W1K 1DB

10.30 a.m. ARRIVAL AND COFFEE
The meeting took place in the Library of the Club's elegant house in Mayfair.

11 a.m. TALK BY

ROSEMARY MITCHELL

ON CHARLOTTE YONGE'S HISTORICAL NOVELS
Rosemary Mitchell, B.A., D. Phil. (Oxon.) is Senior Lecturer in History at Leeds Trinity and All Saints.
Her research interests lie in Victorian historiography and historical cultures,
with a special interest in women historians and the historical representation of women.
Her two major research projects at present are:
gender and domestic ideology in Victorian historical genre painting,
and nineteenth-century historical comedy.

12.30 p.m. LAUNCH OF ESSAY VOLUME
Characters & Scenes. Studies in Charlotte M. Yonge,
edited by Julia Courtney & Clemence Schultze
Published by Beechcroft Books (the publishing name of The Charlotte M. Yonge Fellowship)
ISBN 978-0-9557096-0-9

1 p.m. BUFFET LUNCH

AFTERNOON ‘CHARLOTTE YONGE’S PARLOUR POEMS’
Readings (both light and serious) from the poetical works of Charlotte Yonge,
her mother Fanny Yonge, John Keble and other members of their circle,
as well as of some poems to which Yonge alludes in her works.

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

April 2007 Meeting - Reading

University of Reading
Saturday, 21 April 2007

to view Victorian children's books and other relevant material.

The meeting focussed on nineteenth century literature for children, with a talk from Mary Sebag-Montefiore,
author of Women Writers of Children's Classics (Northcote House, forthcoming 2007).

The meeting took place next to the Museum of Rural Life in the London Road,
with an opportunity to visit afterwards.

Mary Sebag-Montefiore
gave a talk on:

PIOUS SLAUGHTER AND THE CHEERFUL FAMILY TALE.

2.00 Fiona Barnard, the Rare Books Librarian, spoke about the Children's Collection

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

November 2006 Meeting - London

18 November 2006
Friends' House, Euston Road, London:

Speaker:
Dr Gavin Budge
who works on the role of aesthetics, symbolism and religion in Victorian literature.

"Irritable and Mesmeric Women in the Novels of Charlotte M Yonge: towards a non-secular definition of realism"

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

April Meeting 2006 - Jane Austen's House, Chawton

Saturday 22 April 2006
Jane Austen's House, Chawton GU34 1SD

Speakers

Dr Ellen Jordan, University of Newcastle, Australia
on Charlotte Yonge and her publishers

Dom Andrew Johnson of Alton Abbey
on The Six Cushions

NON-MEMBERS VERY WELCOME AT THIS AND ALL CMYF MEETINGS

November 2005 Meeting - London

London - Saturday 19 November 2005

The Drayton Suite, Friends House
175 Euston Road London NW1 2BJ

April 2005 Meeting - Gatty Hall, Ecclesfield (Sheffield)

Gatty Hall, Ecclesfield (Sheffield)
Saturday, 9th April 2005

Clare Jenkins of BBC's Woman's Hour has been talking to the authors of a book about the Gattys,
Mel and Joan Jones, at St Mary's Church in Ecclesfield, where this remarkable family lived.

Click here or the Listen button below to hear a BBC radio interview with Mel and Joan Jones,
authors of 'The Remarkable Gatty Family of Ecclesfield'

Click here to see more on historical Ecclesfield,
Mrs Gatty, and her daughter Mrs Ewing

Click this line to see a recent Woman's Hour webpage with an new Gatty item, or
Click the Listen button below to hear the whole programme again.

November 2004 Meeting - London

London - Saturday 13 November 2004

Our speakers were Dr Susan Mumm, on Charlotte Mary Yonge and Anglican sisterhoods,
and Janet Howarth, on developments in girls' education in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Susan Mumm is author of
Stolen Daughters, Virgin Mothers: Anglican Sisterhoods in Victorian Britain (ISBN 0 7185 0269 8).
Dr Mumm is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Department of Religious Studies, The Open University,
Click here to see the covers, contents, index and first few pages of Stolen Daughters at Amazon.com

Janet Howarth is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Oxford.
She has published on the late-Victorian liberal party and on university history and the history of women and gender in later-nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. Her current research interests include university reform (circa 1870-1914), feminist biography and the history of women's education and the women's movement.

April 2004 Meeting - St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford - Saturday 3 April Includes a visit to the newly-established CMYF archive in the library of St Hugh's college, Oxford Barbara Dennis: "Clever Women of the Family: Charlotte Yonge and the Higher Education of Women" Barbara Dennis, formerly Head of Victorian Studies at the University of Wales, Lampeter will be talking about Elizabeth Wordsworth, the great niece of the poet, who founded St Hugh's College in 1886 Barbara Dennis is the author of Charlotte Yonge, Novelist of the Oxford Movement (Mellen: 1992) and has edited The Daisy Chain (Virago: 1988) and The Heir of Redclyffe (World's Classics). A contributor to the New Dictionary of National Biography, and the CEBL, she has written an Introduction to The Warden (1994) and edited, with David Skilton, Reform and Intellectual Debate in Victorian England (Croom Helm:1987). She is also the author of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: The Hope End Years (Seren: 1996). Although her main concern is with literature, especially the novel, she maintains a broad interest in several cultural areas of the Victorian period, notably architecture and church history. November 2003 Meeting - London Saturday, 15th November 2003 Charlotte Mitchell: 'Charlotte Yonge's Letters: Facts and Problems' Charlotte, from the Department of English, University College London; is currently working on an edition of Charlotte Yonge's letters Portraying Marriage We will be looking at how the unmarried Charlotte Yonge portrays and explores the relationship of marriage, centring on a paper by Gwen Watkins which will be read by Alison Millard. April 2003 Meeting - Edinburgh Edinburgh - April 5 2003 meeting Papers by Hilary Clare and Julia Courtney Our Spring 2003 meeting was held on Saturday April 5 2003 in Edinburgh. in the Church Hall attached to the the fine old church of St Columba's by the Castle, Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2PW SATURDAY 5th April Dr May's Medical Education in Edinburgh – Hilary Clare Charlotte M Yonge and Sir Walter Scott – Julia Courtney SUNDAY 6th April Optional visit to Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's House, on Sunday morning

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