Lewes History Group

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Gideon Mantell Memorial Lecture: a Lewes Dinosaur Project event

Ellinor Michel: Walk with Dinosaurs

There’s a chance to find out more about the park in South London where you can Walk with Dinosaurs – although these are not as we imagine them now. These Dinosaurs were ‘given flesh’ in the first attempt at three-dimensional life-like reconstructions when they formed the centrepieces of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’s inspired Crystal Palace geological islands.

Ellinor Michel chair of the Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs will speak in Lewes for the Gideon Mantell Memorial Lecture about the challenges and importance of these models. She is a taxonomist and evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum.

Mantell was born in St Mary’s Lane Lewes on 3 February 1790 and spent much of his early life in Lewes as doctor, geologist, early palaeontologist and writer. Every year around this time we invite a speaker on a related theme to present a talk.

Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs

Venue: Linklater Pavilion, Railway Lane, Lewes BN7 2FG

Entry: £3 from the venue

For more information, contact Debby Matthews

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As dusk fell on Remembrance Sunday, 12^th November 2017, 236 volunteers approximately the same age of as each of the 236 casualties named on the Lewes War Memorial walked from the home address of that individual to the memorial, carrying a flaming torch.

As each casualty’s names, addresses, causes and dates of death and ages were read out, the volunteer stepped forward, doused their torch and disappeared into the crowd.

This unique and highly moving tribute to Lewes’s war dead was recorded on film shot by four professional film makers resident in Lewes. This 15 minute film, produced with the backing of Lewes Community Screen, will be shown at the Studio, at Depot Cinema, Lewes, from Monday 5th February to Sunday 11th February.

The showings will be between 5 and 7pm on Monday 5th, (not Tuesday 6th), Wednesday 7th, Thursday 8th, Friday 9th, and 2-6pm on Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th. Admission to these showings is free.

There  will also be an exhibition of the original information sheets filled in by relatives of the fallen, who are commemorated on War Memorial erected in 1922. These will be accompanied by a selection of photographs from the Edward Reeves Archive.

This unforgettable event was organised by the Edward Reeves Archive Project, with the full cooperation of all seven Lewes Bonfire Societies, and the support of Lewes Town Council.

Lewes War Memorial, Remembrance Sunday, 12^th November 2017
Photo © Reeves, Lewes

Poignant Torchlight Tribute to Town’s War Dead, Sussex Express, 15 November 2017
 

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