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Scheduled dates

, 12:00:00 - 13:00:00 Add to calendar
, 13:30:00 - 14:30:00 Add to calendar
, 15:00:00 - 16:00:00 Add to calendar
, 16:30:00 - 17:30:00 Add to calendar

Since the 19th century, groups associated with Conway Hall have held secular ceremonies to mark births, deaths, and marriages.

Join researcher Clare Stainthorp and the Library and Archives team at Conway Hall to discover how people have celebrated life events outside of religious traditions, in Victorian times and today. Drawing upon 19th-century anthologies of secular songs and poems, read some of the poems used to bring secular communities together and discuss their role within the Victorian radical freethought movement.

Visitors are invited to bring along any texts that they have included in a ceremony or celebration - or would like to! Together the group will think about the themes and ideas the texts share and the emotions they evoke. This is an opportunity to visit the beautiful Conway Hall Library, where there will be a pop-up display featuring rarely-seen volumes from the archives that explore secular celebration and its intertwined history with Conway Hall Ethical Society.