All The next meeting of the Oxfordshire Family History Society will take place on Monday 28 May 2012 at the usual venue at Exeter Hall, Oxford Road, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1AB. Doors open at 7.15pm for coffee, help with both genealogy and computers, and the bookstall, exchange journals and the library. The subject of the talk is "The night-time haven of the wandering tribes : the common lodging-house in Victorian England". This will be presented by Liz Woolley. Our speaker tells me that in Victorian times, common lodging-houses sheltered large numbers of working-class people, particularly those travelling the country in search of employment as navvies, labourers, hawkers and street entertainers. However, to middle-class observers, they represented the antithesis of the Victorian ideal of family and "home", as they were squalid, raucous and lacking in privacy. Focussing on common lodging-houses in Oxford and in Oxfordshire market towns, this talk examines life in these establishments and their role in prompting reform in the provision of working-class housing and in improvements in public sanitation. Our speaker Liz Woolley lives in Oxford and has a Diploma and MSc in English Local History from the University's Department for Continuing Education. Her MSc dissertation was a study of common lodging-houses in St Thomas’ in Oxford. All members, potential members and their guests are welcome. For directions as to how to get to the Exeter Hall, please see :- http://www.ofhs.org.uk/ExeterHall.html For a list of future OFHS meetings, please see :- http://www.ofhs.org.uk/meetings.html Any queries, please contact me. Paul Gaskell Publicity Officer Oxfordshire Family History Society www.ofhs.org.uk