Study Days

2025

To be Announced

The annual Study Day on October, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ. A live streaming is available

The speakers include

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Cost: £25 per person (includes lunch)

Members and/or guests unable to attend in person will be able to watch a live stream of the event online. To register for this, please contact Sarah Jardine-Willoughby at SarahJWilloughby@aol.com. The cost will be £12, payable in advance. A link to the live streaming will be sent by email immediately prior to the event.

Please send your remittance (cheque or cash) to: Robert Kirkpatrick

Alternatively, payment can be made by bank transfer direct to the Society's bank account:

Name of the account:Children's Books History Society

NatWest plc, Lower Sloane Street Branch

Sort code 60-19-26 Account no: 23712457

Download application form»

Please note: these documents are in PDF format, and may require you to download Adobe Reader in order to view them.

Please note if paying by PayPal please use SarahJWilloughby@aol.com

Past One-day Conferences or Study Days

2024

The annual Study Day was held on October, 19th , at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ with a live streaming

The speakers included

Peter Hunt on Arthur Ransome: Pigeon Post (1936)

Jacqueline Wilson on Eve Garnett: The Family From One End Street (1937)

Alan Powers on Lucy Boston: A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961)

Jane Badger on K.M. Peyton: The Edge of the Cloud (1969)

Nicholas Tucker on Philip Pullman: Northern Lights (1995)

2023

Families in Children's Literature (Part 2)

The annual Study Day was held on October, 28th , at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ. with a live streaming

The Speakers included

Brian Sibley Tove Jannsson's Family Moomintroll: The family we'd all like to have

Hilary Clare Charlotte Yonge, the first teenage writer for girls **celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Charlotte Yonge**

Howard Bailes: The Carey Family: an exploration of the novels of Ronald Welch

Sarah Jardine-Willoughby The Gatty Family: Close and Talented

2022

Education and Children's Literature

The annual Study Days held on 22 October, 9.30-4.30, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland, Russell Street, London WC2B 5EZ. with a live streaming

The Speakers included

Jonathan CooperLaughing and Grief: The Portrayal of Classics in School Stories

Hilary ClareReal Education in Fictional Girls'Schools

Susan BailesA Glimpse of Jane Johnson's rare 18th century Nursery Library

Lesley DelaneyEighteenth-century Nursery Reading: Ellenor Fenn's Pioneering Home Learning Scheme

Robert KirkpatrickCharles Dickens and Dotheboys Hall: Fact or Fiction?

2021

Non-Fiction Children's Books

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 23rd October at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The Speakers included

Sue WalkerCreativity and collaboration: Marie Neurath's information books for children

Joe PearsonPuffin Picture Books

Helen DayThrough the eyes of a Ladybird

Alan Powers"A House is a House for me": Architecture in children's books

2020

2019

Celebration of 50th Anniversary of the Children's Books History Society and and talks on Families in Children's Literature

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 16th November at the Art Worker's Guild, Queen Square London.

The Speakers included

Jane CooperHappy Families? What does go on in Mrs Molesworth's children's books

Elizabeth GalvinThe Extraordinary Life of E. Nesbit

Dr. Jacqueline WilsonMissing Mothers

Celebration of CBHS and tributes to Pat Garrett, co-founder with Brian Alderson

Nicholas TuckerAttempting to protect family values through nursery rhymes

Ann ThwaiteThe remarkable novels of M.E. Atkinson

2018

Animals in Children's Literature: Writers and Illustrators

The Society's annual Study Day was held on 27th October at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The Speakers included

Annemarie BilcloughA 'seeing eye'- Beatrix Potter's animals

Emma LawsThe animals of the 100 Acre Wood

Dr. Victoria de RijkeAnimal Metaphor in Children's Literature Illustration

John EricsonThe Wind in the Willows REVISITED through its illustrations

Jane Badger'Get off my foot, Kipper' The Horse and the Pony in Children's fiction

Chris Coles & David OsborneThe Animals of 'BB' otherwise known as Denys Watkins Pitchford author of "Little Grey Men".

2017

Nursery Rhymes

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 28th October 2017 at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included:

Morag Styles'Ding Dong Bell': from Shakespeare (Mother Goose's Melody) to contemporary bards, the role of nursery rhymes' in the canon of children's poetry

Elizabeth Hammill'Over the Hills and Far Away': A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes From Arround the World

Debbie PullingerFalling down and chopping off the threatening world of nursery rhymes

Anne Harvey & Caroline Walker'Nursery Rhymes of London Town' by Eleanor Farjeon

Ian BeckIllustrating Nursery Rhymes

Brian AldersonThe Opies

2016

The Contemporaries of Peter Rabbit.

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 22 October 2016 at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included :-

Andrew Nash The printing and publishing scene round about 1900

Lesley Delaney L.Leslie Brooke 1862 - 1940

Susan Bailes Florence Upton 1873 - 1922

Dennis Butts Kipling in Animal Land

Iain StevensonThe publishing activities of Grant Richards

Anne Stevenson Hobbs ‘Arthur Rackham Arrives’!

2015

Isaac Watts and Early Children's Poetry

The Society's annual Study Day was held on Saturday 17 October 2015, at the Church Hall of the Crown Court Church of Scotland in Covent Garden, London.

The speakers included :-

Pat Pinsent Saving young sinners from hell: the children's poetry of John Bunyan and Isaac Watts

Dennis Butts Parables from the Prison and the Asylum: The Children's Verse of Christopher Smart

Anne Harvey Two Sisters & A Friend: Poetry by Ann & Jane Taylor and Adelaide O'Keeffe

Louise Joy Children's poetry and the comic mode

Morag Styles‘Love me, my baby’ (Rossetti): Some distinctive trends in women writing poetry for children in19thC

Brian Sibley "It is wrong from beginning to end”: Lewis Carroll and the Poetry of Parody

2014

Lesser-known Women Illustrators of the Late Victorian/Early Edwardian Era

October 2014, Crown Court Church of Scotland in conjunction with IBIS (The Imaginative Book Illustration Society).

A Grey Hole in History, Children’s Books publishing, at the point “machine-press period” has its beginning, roughly 1830 – 1859

May 2014 St Paul's Girls' School, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BS.

2013

Children's Book Publishing in the Hand-Press Period: Progress in research

St Paul's Girls' School, Brook Green, Hammersmith, London W6 7BS

2012

Two Hundred Years of the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2011

The Centenary of The Secret Garden

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2010

Flights of Fantasy: flight in children's literature

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2009

Moveables: paper techniques and their use and development in children's books

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2008

'Beloved Kids'? Children's Writers as Parents:'easily spoiled and easily dehumanised'

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London

2007

Scotland and its influence on children's literature

Crown Court Church of Scotland, Covent Garden, London