Past Speakers
Each February, a distinguished speaker addresses the Society. Recent occasions have coincided with the Annual General Meeting, held in the attractive surroundings of the Art Workers’ Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AT. A list of past speakers can be found below.
2025: Dr Emma Sdegno, ‘“Drawing Nearer the City with a Camera”: Views of Ruskin’s Venice’, including the UK Premier of The city is lost. Ruskin’s Venice Today, by Alessandra Lancellotti (produced by FoRS (Focus on Ruskin Studies) at Ca’ Foscari University, Caucaso Film Factory 2024)
2024: Sarah Quill, ‘”Infinite Variety”: Ruskin and the Capitals of the Ducal Palace, Venice’
2023: Dr Stuart Eagles, ‘”Sparks blown into flame”: Revisiting Ruskin’s Sheffield Museum’
2022: Dr Nicholas Shrimpton, ‘‘The girdle of the Grace’: Ruskin on Art in the 1860s’
2021: Dr Rachel Dickinson, ‘Ruskinian Wealth To-Day’ (Online Event)
2020: Dr Marcus Waithe, ‘Insulting Ruskin: Fors Clavigera and the Uses of Offence’
2019: Professor Stephen Wildman, ‘Milestones on the Road to One’s Country: Ruskin’s Four Score Birthdays’
2018: Clive Wilmer, ‘Ruskin and the Venetian Scuole’
2017: Dr Cynthia Gamble, ‘Ruskin’s Passion for France’
2016: Prof. Francis O’Gorman, A talk on The Cambridge Companion to John Ruskin
2015: Peyton Skipwith, A talk on Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street
2014: Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper, ‘The Model Wife? Effie Gray, Ruskin, and Millais’
2013: Dr Lawrence Goldman, ‘R. H. Tawney and John Ruskin: The Ruskinian Roots of British Socialism’
2012: Dr David Peacock, ‘Ruskin and the May Queen’
2011: Dr Anthony Seldon, ‘Ruskin and Education Today’
2010: Professor Stephen Wildman, ‘‘‘Black wind and white fire”: Ruskin in Sicily 1874’
2009: Dr Gill Cokram, ‘The Interpretation of History in Ruskin’s Social Thought’
2008: Professor Michael Thorne, ‘The Political Economy of Education: Harder Than It Looks?’
2007: Christopher Newall, ‘John Ruskin and John Brett in the Alps’
2006: Sir Richard Body, ‘Ruskin’s Tory Socialism’
2005: Dr James S. Dearden, ‘Ruskin, Bembridge, and Brantwood’ (a conversation)
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