Putney Society Celebrates the Putney Debates

Cancelled talk by Diane Purkiss rescheduled for this month

One of the most important and radical encounters in Britain's constitutional history took place in St Mary's Church, Putney, in October 1647 - the Putney Debates.

Such was the disappointment at the late cancellation of the talk "Background to the Putney Debates" organised by the Putney Society which was to have been given at the beginning of October that this has now be rescheduled in St Mary's for Thursday January 10.

The speaker, Diane Purkiss, professor at Keble College, Oxford, and the author of 'The English Civil War: A People's History', will talk on the background to the Putney Debates. She will outline the ideas which excited the Levellers, Diggers, Anabaptists, Parliamentarians and Landowners - and talk of their leaders.

The Civil War was a time when ordinary men who fought and women who lived with tragedy found their political voice for the first time - a voice so strongly heard in St Mary's Church, Putney.

January 2, 2008