This year’s Weatherill Lecture will take place next Thursday, March 17, at 1pm, at Croydon Parish Church, when Robert Wilson OBE, the former Clerk to Parliamentary Select Committees, will speak on “Citizenship and integrity in public life and the place of The Speaker”.
Bernard Weatherill, alongside his portrait in the robes of office of The Speaker of the House of Commons
This will be the second annual Weatherill Lecture, the first having been delivered last year by Tony Benn.
The event is organised by a group of his Croydon friends who have formed The Weatherill Society, which describes itself:
“The newly founded Society was initiated by a group of his Croydon friends who, having attended his memorial service in Westminster Abbey agreed that all of his fine ‘old fashioned’ principals of honesty, integrity, decency and compassion are essential ingredients of a civilized society, The Weatherill Society will promote the qualities and virtues that he personified so that future generations might share his vision and values of public service not self service.”
Thought-provoking stuff. Inside Croydon wonders whether the likes of local leading lights Richard Ottaway, Dudley Mead or Nathan Elvery will bother to turn up and, most importantly, listen?
- It is worth noting that Croydon “Parish Church” is about to get an upgrade, and will soon have the status of “Minster”, just a notch short of being regarded by the established church as a cathedral. Traditionally in England, to be considered as a “city”, a town’s main place of worship needed to be a cathedral.
