Upcoming Courses

In this one off session, Andy Beharrell will take us through the story of three natives of Tierra del Fuego who accompanied Dartwin on his voyages on the Beagle, were sent to school in Essex, were presented to King William 1V and finally returned to their homeland to help convert and civilise the Fuegian people.

This is a branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292  or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £7 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class

Thames Through Time

Renowned geologists Ros and Ian Mercer bring their vast knowledge and expertise to focus on the River Thames, taking us on a journey through time, ice, floods and a moveable river, helping us understand the past in order to cope with the present and plan for the future. Everything we know about Earth’s past has been learnt by digging into rocks and studying them; Ian and Ros will reveal glimpses of the history of the Thames in Essex through the current Ice Age.

This is a branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292   or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £7 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class

This is a Branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292   or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £7 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class

Jane Austen’s Grown-up Novel – Persuasion

WEA Tutor Adrian Eckersley

Jane Austen’s final text lacks none of the grace and wit of her earlier works, and is as intense a romance as them all; but it is also rich in perspectives on disappointment, on the passage of time, and on the nature of glamour.

Join our small, friendly group – come and study the nuance and detail of one of the finest novels in English

5 sessions March 4 to April 1  2025

Fee £42.00

Enrol on line:  wea.org.uk   or phone 0300 303 3464

If the course is not yet listed on the main WEA website, register your interest with Branch Secretary
Rhiannedd Pratley  07876 717292 or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk

History of Little Baddow and Elm Green School during and just after the War

Long standing resident of Little Baddow, Dr Michael Tubbs, recounts his memories of the village before and shortly after WW1 and its development from a farming-community with four shops to its current state. Also, we will learn of the history and development of the successful Elm Green School, founded by the speaker’s mother who was its principal for 30 years until her death in 1974.

This is a branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292  or email  rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £7 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class

London’s docks: their rise and fall.

Guest speaker Tony Tuckwell, Chair of Essex Branch of the Historical Association

From the crowded pool of London with its old Elizabethan Legal Quays and a City monopoly of the control of exports and imports to the development of ship technology which required ever bigger wooden ships and high-walled docks to contain them and protect their cargoes. Then came iron ships which pushed the docks even further out to the deeper water of the Isle of Dogs, emaciating the Thames ship-building and naval industries, driving them to the North-East, Ulster and Scotland.  And then the death-knell of traditional restricted practices in the face of competition from deep-water ports for mega cargo ships with containerised cargos with which a silting river could not compete, save for Tilbury which fitted the bill perfectly.

This is a branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292   or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £7 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class

Where there’s muck there’s money: the Importance of Public Health in the History of Medicine

Guest Speaker Richard Till

Richard Till, an old friend of Danbury and Little Baddow branch, will spend 3 sessions with us looking at the development of public health over the past 2000 years with emphasis on the growth of towns and cities – the great creators of wealth but also hotbeds of disease as, sadly, their sanitary needs were not always met. Money had to be found on the grand scale and that meant taxes. A willingness to pay was crucial, but what tipped the balance for or against?

This is a branch Learning Circle: to register interest contact Branch Secretary Rhiannedd Pratley

Text 07876 717292 or email rhiannedd.pratley@wea.ac.uk  

Pay £21 contribution to Learning Circle costs in class