ANNUAL DINNERS
When The Trollope Society initially put up its flag in London, the first
ideas which occurred to the Committee before any publishing began
were to have an Annual Dinner and an Annual Lecture. Since the Chairman, John Letts, was
a member of The Reform Club in Pall Mall, it seemed simplest to hold the
Dinners there. Since then, a whole host of distinguished speakers have
addressed The Trollope Society. The first two speakers were Roy Jenkins,
writer, historian, one time Chancellor of the Exchequer, President of
the European Union; and The Rt. Hon. John Biffen, also a Cabinet Minister,
and formerly Financial Secretary to The Treasury.
Other speakers have included thriller writer P. D. James; lawyer and philanthropist
Lord Goodman; ex Prime Minister and Vice President of the Society John Major;
historian Lord Blake; editor and journalist Max Hastings; Governor of
The Bank of England, Robin Leigh-Pemberton; writer and playwright John
Mortimer; editor and journalist Simon Jenkins; Cabinet Minister and parliamentarian
Enoch Powell; The Bishop of Oxford; the President of the Society the Bishop of London,
the Rt Revd Richard Chartres; thriller writer Ruth Rendell; Judge
and Inspector of Prisons Sir Stephen Tumin; Brussels Commissioner and
barrister Lord Tugendhat; best-selling novelist Joanna Trollope; cabinet
minister and barrister Lord Young; industrialist Sir Alistair Grant; cabinet
minister Lord Wakeham; and Liberal Party Chairman Lord Holme.
After seven years in the Library of The Reform Club (which holds at most 150), the Society moved to
The Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn for a number of years. Latterly, dinners have been held
in the Fishmongers Hall, the Lucarno Room of the Foreign Office, the House of Lords and
the House of Commons (in 2009) when the speakers were the Rt Hon and Rt Rev Richard Chartres,
President of the Trollope Society and Lord Tyler.
In New York, an equally distinguished list of speakers at Dinners and Lectures have included such
writers as Louis Auchincloss, Dominick Dunne, Michael Thomas and Jeffrey
Archer (novelist and English parliamentarian), distinguished publishers
Harold Evans (Random House) and Donald Graham (Washington Post), Victoria
Glendinning, and N. John Hall (both biographers of Anthony Trollope),
and Morton P. Sosland (Kansas City Industrialist and arts benefactor).
The New York Dinners have been held at the equally handsome Knickerbocker Club (one
of New York's most elegant late Victorian buildings) and the Grolier Club.
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