The Wiles Lectures were founded in 1953 by Mrs Austen Boyd of Craigavad, Co. Down, in memory of her father, Thomas S. Wiles of Albany, New York. Mrs Boyd generously endowed a trust fund to support an annual series of lectures at Queen's University Belfast ‘to promote the study of the history of civilisation and to encourage the extension of historical thinking into the realm of general ideas’.

The fund brings to Belfast each year an expert in a particular field of historical scholarship to deliver four lectures on successive days, related to the lecturer's research and reflecting on the wider implications of their work for historical understanding.

The Wiles Trust also supports other scholarly activities at Queen's, including a series of Wiles Colloquia on historical topics, convened by members of School staff.

Janet Boyd and the Wiles Lectures

For more information, contact the Chair of Trustees, Prof. Peter Gray

The Wiles Lectures 2025 will be given by Professor Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of American History at Harvard University

on the topic:

'Capitalism: A Global History'

These four public lectures will be given in person at Queen's University Belfast on 28-31 May 2025.

More details to follow.