Category Archives: Public Lecture Series

The society meets monthly from September to May to hear and to discuss individual papers about personalities, places, and events integral to the history of Nova Scotia. Lectures are free and open to the public. Meetings begin at 7:00 p.m. and, until further notice, will be held via Zoom. For upcoming lectures visit here.


“Curling and Empire: Imperial Scottishness at the Halifax Curling Club”

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Wednesday, September 17th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Dr. Arthur McCalla is Professor in the Department of History at Mount Saint Vincent University. He specializes in nineteenth-century European intellectual history, but in 2024 published On Life’s Slippery Rink: 200 Years of the Halifax Curling Club to mark the bicentenary of the HCC, of which he has been a member since 2006.

Abstract: 
This talk draws on the records of the Halifax Curling Club, founded 1824, to show how over its first century—which included its founding by a Royal Navy officer, immigrant Scots early membership, links to Governors-General, and participation in curling exchanges with Scotland—the HCC contributed at a local level to British Empire-wide attempts to construct a unified imperial identity, ultimately placing the sport of curling in the service of the concept of “imperial Scottishness.”





 

 

“Divided by Oceans, United by the Empire: Nova Scotia and Bengal, 1756-1867”

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Wednesday, October 15th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Madhuparna Gupta is an Instructor it the Department of Global Development Studies, and a Research Associate at the Gorsebrook Research Institute, Saint Mary’s University, Canada. She has over seventeen years of experience in teaching and research. She received her Ph.D. in International Relations from Jadavpur University, India, and served as an Assistant Professor of Political Science in Kolkata, India, before immigrating to Canada. She has authored books, edited academic volumes, and published research papers on the themes of Political Science and International Relations in peer-reviewed journals. She has delivered lectures in international conferences, participated in panel discussions and has public presentations on the themes of Canada-India relations, International Development, Human Rights and International Security. 

One of her research articles titled, “Bonds of Empire” was published in Canada’s History, and its Podcast titled, “India and Canada: Bonds of Empire”, was the winner of the Canadian Ethnic Media Award (CEMA) in the Podcast Category in 2023. 

Abstract: 
This presentation explores the connection between the provinces of Nova Scotia (Canada) and Bengal (India) by virtue of the British and French colonial endeavours, where the eventual triumph of England had culminated in their emergence as British colonies. This research presents a comparative study on the nature of British administration in these provinces. Using selected themes, it explores whether similar or contrasting measures were being pursued that had resulted in their emergence as colonial cousins.





 

 

“East Port l’Hebert Community Mapping Project”

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Wednesday, November 19th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Abstract: 
Members of the East Port l’Hebert Community Mapping Project will discuss their work.



 

 

“– Strange Comrades – The story of Lt Col Guy Maclean Matheson and Robert the Bruce – 25th Battalion (Nova Scotia Rifles)”

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Wednesday, December 10th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Major Ken Hynes, CD, MA, Royal Canadian Artillery (retired), served for 30 years in the Canadian Army, both across Canada, in the United States, and overseas. He is the former Chief Protocol Officer of the Royal NS International Tattoo and was Curator of The Army Museum Halifax Citadel from 2012 until retiring from the post in 2022, when he received the Certificate of Merit from the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. In 2023, Major Hynes was invested with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his services to heritage and culture.

Abstract: 
Included as a chapter in my new book: “Service and Sacrifice – Extraordinary Nova Scotians in the Great War”, my talk will draw on the life and times of Lt Col Guy MacLean Matheson (Big Baddeck) and the mascot of the 25th Battalion (NS Rifles), Robert the Bruce (RTB). RTB was a small Belgian goat, acquired and chosen by the Battalion as their mascot during the unit’s service in Flanders and France, during the Great War, from 1915 to 1919. Both Guy and RTB came home with the Battalion in 1919 and their story is one of perseverance and comradeship – a strange and notable tale in the military history of Nova Scotia.





 

 

“Ireland, Atlantic Canada and the Crimean War: imperial connectivity and shared experiences?”

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Wednesday, June 25th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Dr Paul Huddie is a historical researcher from Ireland, who is interested in war and society, principally within the British Empire in the long 19th century. He is a graduate of University College Dublin (BA, 2008; MA 2009) and Queen’s University Belfast (2014) and the author of The Crimean War and Irish Society (2015). His research has been published in several edited volumes and multiple peer-reviewed journals, including the British Journal for Military History, Women’s History Review, and Mariner’s Mirror, and he is also the co-editor of New Perspectives on Conflict and Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, which will be published by Liverpool University Press in Spring 2025. He is currently employed as a Research Project Manager at University College Dublin, where he supports three prestigious European Research Council-funded projects.

Abstract: 
How did Canadians’ experience of the Crimean War of 1854-56 compare to people in Ireland (or Britain)?  Using the Welsford-Parker Monument in Halifax as its focal point, this lecture will explore the themes of popular culture, identity, and memory within both the imperial and settler-colonial contexts of Atlantic Canada and contrast them with the Irish experience. All with a view to identify shared experiences of imperial warfare in the nineteenth century. This research and lecture has been supported by the Ireland Canada University Foundation’s Craig Dobbin Legacy Programme.

Paul Huddie, UCD Centre for War Studies

 

 

 

“Nova Scotia’s first public servant: the Governor’s Secretary”

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Wednesday, March 19th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link to attend the talk virtually.

Christopher McCreery has served as an advisor to the Canadian and British governments on honours policy. Author of eighteen books, his works, The Canadian Honours System and The Order of Canada are the principal works on the history of honours in Canada. McCreery has served in various positions in the Senate of Canada and Privy Council Office and is one of the Commonwealth’s foremost scholars on the symbolic and constitutional position of the Crown. Since 2008 he has served as Private Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. From 2012-18 he served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Museum of History. Along with Professor Michael Bliss and Richard Gwyn, he was part of the triumvirate of historians who diversified and made more accessible the museum’s Canada History Hall which was opened in 2017.

Abstract: 
The arrival of the first Governor of Acadia accompanied by his secretary, Jean Ralluau in 1604, signalled the haphazard beginnings of an administrative structure that would eventually develop into a formal public service. This lecture will examine the development of the position of the governor’s secretary and its transition from transient patronage post, sometimes secure, and topic of vociferous legislative debate, into a statutory office that would come to be replicated across Canada.

 

“The Tides of History: Exhibit Renewal at Halifax Citadel National Historic Site”

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Wednesday, February 19th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here to join the Zoom call. 

Keith Mercer is the Cultural Resource Manager for Parks Canada in Mainland Nova Scotia. Michael Kilfoil was the Project Manager for the “Fortress Halifax: A City Shaped by Conflict” exhibit development.

Abstract: 
In 2022, Parks Canada opened a new flagship exhibit at the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. “Fortress Halifax: A City Shaped by Conflict” replaced the “Tides of History,” an aging but much-loved theatre-style historical experience from the late 1970s. Learn about the exhibit renewal project and how historians attempted – and sometimes struggled – to diversify the range of stories told at this British military site.

“Not Just Nice Guys: Uncovering the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union”

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Wednesday, April 16th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link.

Born in Truro (the glittering metropolis an hour’s drive from Halifax), Alex Robben is a graduate of Dalhousie’s MA History program. Alex’s research focuses on labour, a specialization inspired by a litany of odd jobs, especially warehouse work for a certain Atlantic Canadian grocery chain. His work attempts to bring Nova Scotia’s public-sector labour culture to the fore in an area dominated by central Canadian, private-sector labour history. Having worked in positions ranging from shuttle driver to substitute teacher, Alex has more recently been involved in Halifax-area political organizing.

Abstract: 
Not Just Nice Guys attempts to advance the existing patchwork history of the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union between the 1940s to the 1980s. In this predominantly archives-based work, particular attention is paid to re-discovering the militant elements of the union and how they were contained by internal and external actors. It situates the union in the postwar professionalization of the Canadian labour movement and details teachers’ struggles with all levels of government and themselves.

 

“An Unspeakable Crime”: The Divisive Reaction of the Halifax Press toward the July Crisis and Outbreak of the First World War

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Wednesday, January 15th, 2025, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Lindsay Children’s Room on the 2nd floor.at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link. 

Bio:
Liam Caswell (he/they) is PhD candidate studying within Dalhousie University’s Department of History and specializing in twentieth century British imperial and foreign policy. In addition to their academic work, Liam has over a decade of experience working in local historical interpretation through affiliations with the Dartmouth Heritage Museum and Friends of McNab’s Island. The present lecture is an adaptation of their 2016 Mount Saint Vincent University Honours Thesis, which Liam is thrilled to have an opportunity to share with the wider Halifax community.

Abstract: 
Examining the Halifax press reaction to the July Crisis and outbreak of the First World War, this lecture contests the popular notion of Canadian society subscribing to a universally jingoistic and celebratory “spirit of 1914”. By comparing the attitudes expressed by Halifax’s two most widely circulated dailies – the Liberal-leaning Morning Chronicle and the Conservative-affiliated Halifax Morning Herald – it is demonstrated how divisive the popular press reaction was toward the possibility, and eventual reality, of Halifax’s participation in a major European War.

The Painter, His Muse and Their Marriage: George Harvey and Priscilla Wells in Late Victorian Halifax

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Wednesday, December 11th, 2024, 7:00 pm (Atlantic), in-person at the Paul O’Regan Hall room at the Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Click here for the Zoom link. 

A graduate of Dalhousie University, Lois Yorke is the former Provincial Archivist and Director of the Nova Scotia Archives. She has spent over forty years as an archivist, editor, researcher and consultant in cultural heritage. Her long-standing involvement in women’s history has produced various articles on ‘interesting’ women from Nova Scotia’s past. Priscilla Wells is the most recent, and was discovered by accident while working on a much larger project – the first biography to explore fully the life and times of Anna Harriette Leonowens, ‘The English Governess at the Siamese Court’ – possibly the most interesting woman of them all.

Abstract: 
George Harvey lingers in our cultural history today only as a footnote, faintly remembered as the first headmaster of Halifax’s new Victoria School of Art and Design (now NSCAD University) in 1887. His wife Priscilla is remembered not at all. Their lives were lived at the intersections of Victorian art, literature and music in bohemian London, while in Halifax they were well-known and liked – but afterwards, the erasure of their memory was complete and deliberate. This illustrated presentation will revisit their world, reclaim their lives, and give them the voices they so richly deserve