Events

Guided tour of The Foundling Museum

2:00pm – The Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AZ

The Emmanuel Society invited members to a special guided tour of the Foundling Museum, one of London's most fascinating and unique museums and art collections. 

You'll have the opportunity to explore more than 275 years of London's history through the Foundling's collection of paintings, sculptures, furniture and more. Explore everything from tokens left by mothers with their babies in the hospital's early years, to works of art by the likes of Hogarth, Reynolds and Gainsborough. The Museum is also home to the Gerald Coke Handel Collection, which boasts over 15,000 items relating to Handel and his contemporaries.

Once the visit concludes, why not come to the Emmanuel Society London Drinks Event, held at 6.00pm at Bunghole Cellars, Davy's at Holborn, just 15 minutes' walk away.

Places on the guided tour are £20. Guests are welcome to attend with one guest.

This event is now fully booked. Please click here to join the waiting list. 

Emmanuel Society London Drinks (15 September 2026)

6:00pm – Bunghole Cellars, 57 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6DT

You are warmly invited to our next London Drinks event. This is a great opportunity for networking and a chance to catch up with fellow Emma members from across the subjects and years. As is tradition, there'll be the chance for all attendees to win a bottle of Emmanuel College port.

You don't need to book a place for this event but, to give us an idea of expected numbers, please do register.

RSVP

Members may choose to sponsor this event, which helps us keep it free for all to attend and provide some drinks. There is an option to sponsor the event on registration. Any funds received will go towards this event and subsequent events for members.

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Gathering of Members (2003, 2004 & 2005)

Gathering of Members (2003-2005)

Emmanuel Society Committee Meeting

Robert Gardner Room

Contemporary Art Walk in Central London

2:30pm – Central London

As the art world gathers for the annual Frieze London fair, join art historian Emma Davis (2002) for a gallery hop around a handful of small and medium-sized spaces with introductions by gallerists, curators and artists.

The idea will be to sample, rather than survey, the range of contemporary art being made and displayed in London outside of the blue-chip galleries.

Emma will guide you to several galleries in close proximity, where you will discover some of the newest and most thought-provoking pieces in contemporary art from those who know them well. It’s the perfect time to visit as most commercial and public institutions schedule their best shows to coincide with Frieze London.

The specific galleries and meeting place will be circulated closer to the time, but will likely be in the Fitzrovia or Soho/Mayfair areas of London.

This event is now fully booked. Please click here to join the waiting list. 

Photo credit: Nigel Ip

Curator's Tour of Modern Art Oxford

5:15pm – Modern Art Oxford, 30 Pembroke Street, Oxford, OX1 1BP

Emma members are invited to a curator-led tour of Modern Art Oxford's major autumn exhibition, marking the gallery's 60th anniversary and Mike Nelson's return to the gallery since 2004. Nelson revisits his earlier work, Triple Bluff Canyon, to create an environment that unfolds across space and time and touches on questions of travel, memory and displacement; protest and individualism.

You’ll start the visit with light refreshments and the chance to meet your fellow guests, before embarking on a curator-led viewing of Mike Nelson’s major new work and the new Platform Graduate Award exhibition, showcasing exciting works by emerging artists.

Modern Art Oxford is a leading contemporary art space with an international reputation for innovative and ambitious programming. Across 60 years of bold exhibitions by established, emerging and sometimes overlooked artists, Modern Art Oxford has championed creativity in all its visual forms as an agent of social change. Modern Art Oxford brings artists and audiences into dialogue and celebrates the relevance of contemporary visual culture to society today.

NOTE: The tour will finish by 6.30pm, allowing those attending the Emmanuel Society Dinner at Exeter College to make their way to the college for the reception at 7.00pm. Modern Art Oxford is approximately 7 minutes’ walk from Exeter College.

Places are £13, which includes a curator-led tour of the new major exhibition by Mike Nelson and the Platform Graduate Award exhibition, and light refreshments in the cafe. Members are welcome to attend with up to three guests.

Book your place here.

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Emmanuel Society Dinner at Exeter College, Oxford

7:00pm – Exeter College, Turl Street, Oxford, OX1 3DP

You are warmly invited to a special joint formal dinner with our ‘sister’ college, Exeter College, Oxford.

Generously hosted by Exeter in its 400-year-old dining hall, this occasion offers a unique opportunity to spend an evening in good company, renewing friendships, recalling shared experiences, and meeting members of both Emmanuel and Exeter from across generations. The longstanding relationship between our two colleges makes this a fitting and convivial gathering celebrating 90 years of connection!

The evening will begin at 7.00pm with a drinks reception in the Rector’s Lodgings, followed by dinner in Hall. We are delighted that the Master of Emmanuel, Doug Chalmers, and the Rector of Exeter College, Andrew Roe, will be in attendance and will address the gathering.

The cost of the dinner is £67 per head or £45 for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers at the Univeristy of Oxford (any college).

The dress code is lounge suit or equivalent. Members are invited to attend with a guest. If you will attend with college friends, you will have the opportunity to let us know who you would like to sit with upon booking.

This event is now fully booked, please click here to join the waiting list.

Our cancellation policy can be viewed under our Member Events Terms and Conditions.

Supporting graduate students

Those who matriculated at Emmanuel and are now studying at the University of Oxford (any college) are invited to attend this dinner at a subsidised rate of £45.

The Emmanuel Society has a long-standing tradition of inviting students to events at a discounted rate.

The college and Society would very much appreciate the generosity of members willing to sponsor a recent graduate to attend the dinner. There is an option to do so on the booking form.

Emmanuel Society Culture Club - A visit to the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

4:45pm – Institute of Astronomy, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA

We are delighted to once again offer members the opportunity to visit Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy for a special guided tour and talk with Paul Fellows (1979), Chair of the Cambridge Astronomical Association.

The guided visit will comprise a tour of the historic buildings and telescope observatory, and a talk by Paul on the discovery of planets beyond the solar system.

If the evening is clear, you'll have the opportunity to look up at the night's sky through the telescopes and learn to navigate the constellations. If the weather is not conducive to stargazing, you'll enjoy a planetarium-style show indoors. An event not to be missed!

This is event is free of charge to members of the college.

Book your place. Booking closes on Friday 6 November or when the event is fully booked.

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Emmanuel Society AGM

Robert Gardner Room / Harrods Room

Ely Book Talk and Tea with Charles Moseley

12:00pm – Ely Museum, The Old Gaol, Market Street, Ely, CB7 4LS

Join us for an afternoon of stories, history and tea in the city of Ely with Charles Moseley.

After Charles Moseley's popular talk about his book on St Etheldreda a few years ago, he's back with a new book on Hereward the Wake, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman and leader of local resistance to the Norman Conquest of England.

Spend the afternoon with Charles and members of the college, discovering the story of Hereward in the city that was his base of resistance. Starting at midday, Charles will speak on the mayhem and myth that surrounds Hereward at Ely Museum from 12.00pm.

We’ll convene again at 2.30pm at the 13th-century Almonry Kitchen, in the cathedral grounds, where we’ll continue the conversation over a sumptuous afternoon tea.

For those that wish to join, we’ll close the afternoon with evensong in the cathedral, one of the architectural wonders of the medieval world.

Between the talk and afternoon tea, you’ll have some time to explore the museum’s collections or the delights of the city, including the cathedral, Toppings bookshop or the riverside antiques emporium.

Here's what Charles says about the book:

'We know virtually nothing for certain about Hereward, later surnamed 'the Wake'. But for a couple of years after William the Bastard won at Hastings - and nearly did not - Hereward gave him a good few sleepless nights. The resistance he helped lead, based on the almost impregnable Isle of Ely, might even have succeeded had the Danes not been bought off by a bribe from William. Hereward escaped and nobody knows what happened to him.

But of such a man stories can be made, and many were, from (probably) an Old English heroic poem to a hugely influential nineteenth century novel, and many modern iterations in various media down to our own day - and he gives his name to pubs, schools, a long-distance footpath and care homes.'

Join us for a fascinating exploration of Hereward: Mayhem, Man, Myth.

About Charles

Dr Charles Moseley FSA FEA taught medieval and renaissance literature at the University of Cambridge for many years, as College Lecturer at Magdalene College, Director of Studies and Fellow at Wolfson College, and Senior Tutor and Director of Studies at Hughes Hall. He is an accomplished lecturer and public speaker, and is the author of books including To the Eel Island: An Evening Journey, Etheldreda’s World: Princess Abbess Saint and To Everything a Season: A View from the Fen.

Charles is the husband of Rosanna Moseley Gore (1979), Emmanuel Society committee member, and a friend of the college, having given talks for members on a range of subject over several years.

How to book 

The cost for the full day, including afternoon tea, is £33 per person. If you are able to join only for the talk, the cost is £8, which includes a year of return entry to the Ely Museum.

Book now.

Copies of Charles's book will be available to purchase. 

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Emmanuel Society Committee (29 January 2027)

7:00pm – Harrods Room

Gathering of Members (2011, 2012, 2013)

Telephone Campaign

RJP Seminar Room

Emmanuel Society Committee (14 May 2027)

7:00pm – Robert Gardner Room

Frankland Society Event

11:00am – Hall

Development Garden Party

Lecture Theatre, Old Library, Hall

Gathering of Members (2003, 2004 & 2005)