Haileybury welcomes Sir Anthony Seldon for annual Attlee Lecture

Last night, we were honoured to receive Sir Anthony Seldon as this year’s Attlee Lecture speaker.

The Attlee Lecture is held annually in honour of former Haileybury pupil and Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who was a devoted supporter of the School his whole life. Clement Attlee even bequeathed his Garter Banner to the School, which now resides in the Attlee Room, where the lecture was held.

Sir Anthony, Head of Epsom College, is well known for his political discourse in the media and his biographies on former Prime Ministers, and so it was exceedingly fitting to have him speak on this special occasion. Sir Anthony’s talk titled ‘300 years of the British PM: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ provided a discussion about the progression of the position of the Prime Minister across its history and the people who filled the role.

Sir Anthony delighted the audience of pupils, parents and staff, by bridging both historical and contemporary politics through the unique brand of both academic and accessible analysis for which he is known. Pupils, many of whom are fans of Sir Anthony’s work, described how they were in awe to be in the same room as the contemporary historian, whilst Sir Anthony remarked that he was bowled over by the quality of the discourse the pupils provided after his talk.

We would like to greatly thank Sir Anthony for taking time from his exceptionally busy schedule to provide us with such a unique opportunity to learn about political history from such a renowned expert.