Date: Saturday 27 July 2024 – Saturday 24 August 2024
Free Entry
Monday – Saturday. 10am – 4pm.
Closed Sundays & Bank Holidays.
Plan your visit here.
Location: Discovery Box. 2nd Floor.
As part of their 150-year celebrations, an exhibition is being held at The Atkinson to showcase both the history of the University Extension Movement and the thriving nature of SUES today.
This unique initiative will provide an opportunity for local people, and visitors to Southport, to better understand all about this important movement created to enable people to experience university teaching that they had not been able to access before simply because they were women or poor or uneducated.
The exhibition will display rare documents throughout SUES’ long history, will explain key events that have enabled the society to survive and grow and, in particular, will celebrate the lives and contributions of many forward-thinking people.
About SUES:
Our story began when the University Extension Movement came to Southport and Birkdale in 1874 as the University of Cambridge reached out to send lecturers into the community. This unique initiative provided an opportunity for local people to experience university teaching that they otherwise had not been able to access either because they were women or poor and uneducated. Hundreds of local people attended such talks and began to understand the power of education, the enjoyment of learning and the possibilities that could be available to them in their lives as a result improving their knowledge.
Today, we at SUES continue to promote learning through regular talks and courses and visits on a variety of interesting topics – all at little or no cost. We wish to ensure everyone can gain and enjoy the benefits that learning throughout the life-course can bring. We are supported this year by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to support our 150th anniversary as the sole remaining University Extension Society. Our exhibition at The Atkinson is one way of informing, and celebrating with, adults and children about how learning has helped to empower and enrich the lives of so many people in our community.
