Beaufort Society
Annual Meeting 2025

The Master of St John’s College, Heather Hancock, is pleased to invite you to the Annual Meeting of the Beaufort Society on Saturday 11 October. This event is an opportunity for the College community to thank you for your generosity in choosing to support St John’s with a gift in your will.

Programme

12pm: Champagne on arrival in the Central Hall, Old Divinity School. Welcome note from the Master, Heather Hancock.

1pm: Lunch in Hall with guest speaker and College Librarian, Tanya Kirk.

3.30pm: Afternoon lecture with Professor Helen McCarthy, Fellow and College Lecturer in Modern History, and Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History in the Faculty of History, in the Main Lecture Theatre, Old Divinity School.

Living the Dream? The Rise and Fall of Retirement in Britain, 1945 to the Present

Retiring from work at sixty or sixty-five has a surprisingly short history. For most British workers, only in the postwar decades did a period of leisure and material security become a normal expectation for later life. Retirement age steadily fell until the mid-1990s, a result of labour market changes, improved pensions and more opportunities for travel, education and hobbies. From the millennium, demographic and economic pressures prompted a new policy emphasis on extended working lives, accompanied by media-driven narratives of generational conflict centred on ‘selfish’ baby-boomers, now approaching late middle-age.  Drawing on a rich trove of personal testimonies, this lecture explores how older Britons have navigated the transition out of work since the Second World War and asks what retirement might look like for future generations.

4.45pm: Tea and cake in the Senior Combination Room.

5.45pm: Event closes.

6.30pm: Evensong in the Chapel.

Please use the form below to book your place.