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The BBC in Wartime
Radio was unquestionably the key medium of the Second World War: the means by which the combatant nations heard news of victories and defeats; a constant source of information and propaganda; and a key tool in keeping the populace focused on the job in hand. The war’s impact on the BBC was transformative, turning this hidebound and insular organisation into an unrivalled centre of creativity and a broadcasting service that, for a time, truly led the world.
With the aid of scores of historic broadcasts, this course will look closely at how the BBC kept the nation not only informed and entertained but united. We’ll revisit its leading personalities and thinkers, and consider the messages portrayed and reinforced through programmes as diverse as ‘Music While You Work’, ‘ITMA’ and ‘Radio Newsreel’.
The course will cover the following topics over the five sessions:
- The BBC before WW2: how it was perceived, how it operated and was funded; changes in staff and broadcasting philosophy on the outbreak of war; dispersal of programme departments; and how the early months of the war were reported.
- War correspondents at the BBC; the adoption of new technologies such as battlefield recording; and BBC programmes as vehicles for propaganda and information.
- Wartime entertainment: variety & comedy shows, troop entertainment, keeping the BBC orchestras going, shows such as Garrison Theatre, Life with the Lyons, and Vera Lynn’s Sincerely Yours; and the impact of American entertainment, especially after US entry into the war.
- BBC’s overseas services, to enemy and allies alike; how the BBC’s role changed after D-Day; and reporting the war in its last weeks and days.
- VE Day and after: the relaunch of services under new names; how the BBC emerged as a thoroughly-changed institution, with a renewed Royal Charter and funding for transmitter construction and the re-launch of television; and the wartime legacy of the BBC.
The course tutor
Stephen Barnard started his career as a music journalist, and has been writing and lecturing on broadcasting, film and popular music on a part-time basis for nearly 40 years. He has run courses for the WEA, De Montfort University, Letchworth Settlement, and the City University. He has written five books, including ‘Studying Radio’, the standard academic textbook on the subject.
The course will run over five weeks on Tuesday afternoons at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 13.45 to 15.45, starting on Tuesday 24th February and ending on Tuesday 24th March. The course costs £40 or you can join individual sessions for £10.
Gustave Wappers & Robert Braithwaite Martineau
A beginning and an ending
In this series of talks, Adam Smith uses art from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries to look at aspects of history. This talk looks at works by Gustave Wappers (1803-74) and Robert Braithwaite Martineau (1826-1869).
The revolutions which shook various European countries in 1830 may not be well remembered in the UK, but they are in Belgium, as they led to the creation of the country. We will use Wappers’ monumental painting ‘An Episode from September Days on the Place de Hotel de Ville, Brussels‘ to try to understand how Belgium separated from the Netherlands and why its independence was guaranteed by Britain. Victorian morals come to the fore in Martineau’s picture ‘The Last Day in the Old Home‘, which shows a country house on the verge of being sold due to its owner’s gambling and drinking. We will look at how such sales were more common in fiction than in reality, and at Victorian attitudes to family and fecklessness.
The course tutor
Adam Smith is a former museum curator who has been lecturing on English Country Houses and their Estates for over 20 years. He holds degrees from the Universities of Durham and Leeds in History and Country House Studies.
This talk will be on Monday 23rd February 2026 at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 10.15 to 12.15. It costs £10.
Frederick Hardy & John Leech
Details of Victorian life
In this series of talks, Adam Smith uses art from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries to look at aspects of history. This talk looks at works by Frederick Hardy (1827-1911) and John Leech (1817-64).
Today, Hardy is little known, but his genre studies of cottage and farmhouse interiors were admired by many Victorians, and give us an opportunity to see inside a variety of Victorian homes. Leech’s drawings, as a humorous social commentary, gave English the word “cartoon” as we understand it today. His views and stereotypes of mid-19th century England give us a window into a world of servants, hunting and sea bathing.
The course tutor
Adam Smith is a former museum curator who has been lecturing on English Country Houses and their Estates for over 20 years. He holds degrees from the Universities of Durham and Leeds in History and Country House Studies.
This talk will be on Monday 2nd March 2026 at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 10.15 to 12.15. It costs £10.
John Robertson Reid & Robert Walker Macbeth
Working in the English Countryside
In this series of talks, Adam Smith uses art from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries to look at aspects of history. This talk looks at works by John Robertson Reid (1851-1926) and Robert Walker Macbeth (1848-1910).
Reid’s painting ‘Toil and Pleasure‘ shows a group of workers pausing from the turnip harvest to watch a hunt pass by. We will look at what this has to say about class, field sports and agriculture in mid-Victorian England. Macbeth’s painting ‘Osier Peeling on the Cam‘ shows the preparation of willow twigs for basket-making, and will provide an opportunity to consider how important crafts using coppiced timber were in the 19th century.
The course tutor
Adam Smith is a former museum curator who has been lecturing on English Country Houses and their Estates for over 20 years. He holds degrees from the Universities of Durham and Leeds in History and Country House Studies.
This talk will be on Monday 9th March 2026 at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 10.15 to 12.15. It costs £10.
Sir (Samuel) Luke Fildes & Sir Francis Grant
Realism and portraits
In this series of talks, Adam Smith uses art from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries to look at aspects of history. This talk looks at works by Sir (Samuel) Luke Fildes (1843-1927) and Sir Francis Grant (1803-78).
Fildes made his name with realistic depictions of poverty, in both illustrations for publication and paintings; we will see how these contrast with his more commercial paintings of Italy and his portraits. Sir Francis Grant built up a considerable reputation as a portrait painter and was much in demand by the Victorian elite. We will meet several of his sitters including members of the artist’s family, aristocrats such as Earl de Grey, the fellow artist Edwin Landseer and industrialists like Thomas Brassey. This will enable us to see how Grant’s portrait formula was so successful in his lifetime, but has now faded from popularity.
The course tutor
Adam Smith is a former museum curator who has been lecturing on English Country Houses and their Estates for over 20 years. He holds degrees from the Universities of Durham and Leeds in History and Country House Studies.
This talk will be on Monday 16th March 2026 at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 10.15 to 12.15. It costs £10.
Sir Alfred Munnings & Charles Pears
Horses, Ships and Official War Artists
In this series of talks, Adam Smith uses art from the 19th to the mid-20th centuries to look at aspects of history. This talk looks at works by Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and Charles Pears (1873-1958).
Munnings is remembered as a great painter of horses, and a reactionary critic of modern art, but his large body of work reveals interesting aspects of rural life, particularly in East Anglia. He was also friends with both Frederick Elwell and Laura Knight. Charles Pears specialised in seascapes, and was a war artist in both World Wars, as well as producing commercial art. Through the eyes of this little known artist, we will see aspects of life at sea in war and peace.
The course tutor
Adam Smith is a former museum curator who has been lecturing on English Country Houses and their Estates for over 20 years. He holds degrees from the Universities of Durham and Leeds in History and Country House Studies.
This talk will be on Monday 23rd March 2026 at Hatfield Road Methodist Church in St Albans from 10.15 to 12.15. It costs £10.