Historic Sunderland Lit & Phil Society revived after 150 years

Now, 150 years since its last meeting, the Sunderland Lit & Phil Society has brought discussion back to one of the city centre’s most-historic buildings.

The revived society will host monthly talks at The Athenaeum building in Fawcett Street, which was built to accommodate the then town’s original Lit & Phil.

Its impressive lecture hall, complete with Victorian vaulted ceiling, is still intact today and will host the first talk of the new Sunderland society on Thursday, February 6.

The society has been brought back to life by Auburn Langley who discovered the existence of the group whilst undertaking a history project.

The keen historian was commissioned by TOWN, the developer creating the Nile + Villiers housing community in Sunniside, to look into the rich heritage of the area.

Talking about the significance of the building, Auburn said: “Joseph Swan, a young man from Pallion, came here one April evening and attended a lecture by James E. Staite about filaments which unlocked his ability to create the first incandescent lightbulb.

“For 60 years the Lit & Phil hosted lectures, discussions, a library and meeting house for networking ideas. They directed activity in the city, from building projects and public services to sharing learning from around the world. It's been a long hiatus, we are so glad to be back.”

Auburn added: “People think about Lit & Phil as a history society, but it’s much more than that: it’s about the present and where we are going, as well as thoughts on the past.”

No topic is off the table at a Lit & Phil Society, which stands for Literature and Philosophical, and there will be a broad range of monthly discussions moving forward.

“The joy of philosophy is that you can talk about everything,” said Auburn who is also a presenter on the city’s Spark FM.

“There is a lot of issues around identity happening in Sunderland at the moment and I feel we still haven’t addressed what happened in the summer,” she explained. “This gives people space to air their concerns and access to experts who know what’s going on.”

The first discussion, which is almost fully booked, looks at the building community in the 21st century and features speakers, Kate Percival, development manager at TOWN, and Chris Barnard, CEO of Ouseburn Trust.

Next month’s discussion takes place on Thursday, March 6, and will look at the future of publishing in Sunderland.

As well as housing the original Sunderland Lit & Phil Society, The Athenaeum building housed the first council-funded museum outside of London in the UK.

James Field Stanfield, who founded the society, also created a subscription library in the building to cater to the readers of Sunderland before the town had a Public Library

It went on to house the Liberal Club and is today operated by Breeze Creatives who host regular art exhibitions in the space.

The Sunderland Lit & Phil Society project is part funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

You can find out more about the society on its social media platforms and a website will soon be created.

A podcast will also be created of each of the discussions.

Free tickets to the discussions are available on EventBrite.

You can contact the Sunderland Lit & Phil Society on [email protected]