The Ordnance Society

Ordnance & Artillery of All Periods


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ORDNANCE SOCIETY 2025 AGM & CONFERENCE 2026

Ordnance Society AGM 2025

 

The Annual General Meeting of the Ordnance Society will be held at 1900 UK time on Tuesday 25th February.  We will be holding it online via MS Teams, so if you would like to join, please mail neilgrant2@yahoo.co.uk

 

As part of the AGM, all committee positions are eligible for election.  If you wish to join the committee, please mail the same e-mail address above.

 

The agenda will cover a report from each committee member, plus discussion of future plans.  If you would like to raise anything else as “Any other business”…you guessed it, mail the same e-mail address.

 

The committee look forward to seeing as many members as possible at the AGM.

 

 

The Ordnance Society Conference 2026

 

The OS delivered a very successful conference this year, held at Fort Nelson and based around the theme of “Artillery post 1800 – targets, technology & tactics”.

 

We are looking to hold our next conference in late 2026, but sensibly need the call for papers to go out by the end of 2025 to give potential presenters time to research and write them.  By that time, we need to have sorted out two key things, and would like input from the membership on them.

 

– Theme.  The conference needs some sort of theme, or it will be too nebulous to attract an audience, as few people are willing to attend a conference that only has one paper that interests them.  Equally, a theme cannot be so narrow that it limits the potential audience – a conference on French Siege Artillery 1850-1870 is unlikely to get many participants.  We would like any suggestions for a theme within the constraints above.

 

– Venue.  Our last conference was in the south of the UK, so we would like to consider a more northerly venue for the next one.  However, we have noticed that fewer people are willing to travel north than to travel south.  Any venue should also ideally have artillery connections that would make good tour in the conference lunch break, rather than simply being a meeting room.  The venue will also need to seat at least 50, with AV facilities and toilets, and cannot be expensive, given that we regard it as essential to keep ticket prices at £20 or under.  We would like any suggestions for a venue which might meet the above constraints

 

Please send any suggestion to the chair at neilgrant2@yahoo.co.uk, and we will review them during the conference planning process.


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NEW ORDNANCE SOCIETY JOURNAL EDITOR

The Ordnance Society is delighted to announce that we have a new Journal Editor.  Alison Kentuck responded very positively to our invitation to take on the role and has provided her impressive CV:

I have a degree in Archaeology and Ancient History from the University of Liverpool and a post graduate degree in Maritime Archaeology from the University of Southampton. I spent a few years working as an editor for a publishing company, working with a range of publications from historical romance novels to technical and scientific publications, but always wanted to focus on maritime archaeology. When the opportunity to work in the Receiver of Wreck team came up, I left the publishing job to accept a three-month contract with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. That three-month contract turned into six years as Deputy Receiver of Wreck and 12 years as Receiver of Wreck. I stepped down as Receiver of Wreck in 2019 and was honoured to be awarded an MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to marine salvage and underwater heritage. During my time as Receiver of Wreck, particularly when dealing with historic wreck, members of the Ordnance Society were so generous with their time, support and expertise and I am looking forward to having an opportunity to repay some of this by taking on the editorship of the journal.

Alison can be contacted on ‘journal@ordnancesociety.org.uk’

Neil Grant

Ordnance Society Chairman