The first-ever Brian Manning Memorial Lecture will be given by Norah Carlin on Saturday 14th May 2005, and is entitled "'For liberties, justice and settlement': petitioning for revolution in 1648-9". It will be held at the Institute of Historical Research and begins at 1pm.

The Brian Manning Memorial Lecture is organised by the London Socialist Historians Group and is designed to follow the approach to history followed by the late Brian Manning.

Brian Manning's books and articles were dedicated to the study of England in the 1640s; to the Good Old Cause of republicanism; to Cromwell against King Charles, the Agitators against Cromwell, the Levellers against the New Model Army. He embodied a notion of socialist history with roots outside the academy, as a member of the New Left and CND in the 1950s, and the revolutionary left forty years later.

Each year, the Brian Manning Memorial Lecture will showcase the newest insights and the best research that builds on the same tradition of committed, activist history.

The Brian Manning Memorial Lecture will be followed by the Annual Members’ Meeting of the London Socialist Historians Group. Members of the LSHG are being informed about this separately, but it will be an open meeting and all are welcome to stay and participate.