
Upcoming Events
January 2021
History Bites: Guelph Circa 1999
Join us for a series of bite-sized conversations inspired by current exhibitions and stories from the collection. Guelph Museums curator Dawn Owen will be chatting about current exhibit, Guelph Circa 1999 with special guests Ian Findlay, Mark McAlpine, and Dean Palmer. Watch guests compete in a 90s trivia challenge, as they reflect on the cultural life of Guelph in the 1990s. About Guelph Circa 1999 Like entering a time capsule, visitors will discover Guelph of 20 years ago. Told through…
Find out more »Fourth Friday: Nefe
Kick off your weekend with an online performance by Nefe! The colder months are upon us and the Fourth Friday concert series has moved online during winter 2021. Watch Nefe’s performance at 7 p.m. on Guelph Museums’ Facebook Live or through the ONLINE page. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sponsored by: About Nefe: Adept listeners might be able to trace Nefe’s genre-defying sound back to her endless influences from folk to pop or R&B to reggae but what listeners will actually hear is an idiosyncratic…
Find out more »In the Footsteps of Galt and Burns
Travel to the Scottish town of Irvine from the comfort of your home and celebrate Robbie Burns Day online with the Irvine Burns Club. Explore the links between Robert Burns and John Galt through a virtual tour of the Wellwood Burns Museum and Burns-linked places in Irvine, along with a spirited rendering of his poem “Address to a Haggis” by Irvine Burns Club Directors and Members, including the President David Burns and North Ayrshire Council’s Provost Ian Clarkson. “We treasure…
Find out more »Military Lecuture – The Power of Witnessing in the Work of Battlefield Painter Mary Riter Hamilton
Clearing the Battlefields in Flanders, 1921, Mary Riter Hamilton Dr. Irene Gammel presents, "The Power of Witnessing in the Work of Battlefield Painter Mary Riter Hamilton". Canadian painter Mary Riter Hamilton blazed a trail by painting the First World War graveyards and battlefields in oil and daring to be—unofficially—Canada’s first female war artist. In 1919, just a few months after the armistice, she arrived overseas and worked amid harrowing conditions—inadequate shelter and food, surroundings littered with unexploded shells. In…
Find out more »February 2021
History Bites: Lay of the Land
Join us for a series of bite-sized conversations inspired by current exhibitions and stories from the collection. This History Bites session featuring current exhibition, Lay of the Land. The exhibit orients visitors in time and place through an installation of maps, spanning time immemorial to present day. Lay of the Land invites all visitors to understand our complex relationship to the land, past and present, and to the place that we now call Guelph. How to Access: History Bites is a free…
Find out more »Military Lecture – A Tethered Dragon: The Eight Nation Army Occupation of Beijing & Tianjin, 1900-1902
Meridian gate, the entrance to the Emperor’s quarters in Beijing’s Forbidden City, 1900. Blaine Chiasson presents, A Tethered Dragon: The Eight Nation Army Occupation of Beijing & Tianjin, 1900-1902. In September 1900 American, British, French, Italian, Russian, German, Japanese and Austro-Hungarian troops, the multi-national ‘Eight Nation Army’ occupied northern China, having invaded Qing China in response to the Buddhist millennial Boxer Rebellion, which targeted foreign missionaries and diplomats. For two years Beijing, the northern capital, and Tianjin its port…
Find out more »Fourth Friday: Lifeandthetribe
Kick off your weekend with an online performance by Lifeandthetribe! The colder months are upon us and the Fourth Friday concert series has moved online during winter 2021. Watch Aisha’s performance at 7 p.m. on Guelph Museums’ Facebook Live. Presented in partnership with Guelph Black Heritage Society in celebration of Black Heritage Month. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Sponsored by: About Lifeandthetribe: Lifeandthetribe is the new R&B and Pop project from singer/songwriter Aisha Barrow. Drawing from diverse influences Lifeandthetribe has a bold, fresh, and…
Find out more »March 2021
Military Lecture – Hidden Scars: Uncovering the Lived Experience of Shell-Shocked Ex-Servicemen
Electric Heat Cabinet - Military Hospital Commission - Cobourg, Ontario Heather Ellis presents, Hidden Scars: Uncovering the Lived Experience of Shell-Shocked Ex-Servicemen. 1918 marked the end of the First World War, but for returning soldiers it was the beginning of adjustment, recovery and, in some cases, collapse. The transition from war to peace was especially difficult for those diagnosed with a psychological illness. ‘Shell shock’ has become synonymous with the Great War and frequently appears in the history, literature,…
Find out more »April 2021
Military Lecture – The Great Sickness of 1740: War, Typhus, and the Royal Navy
The Capture of Puerto Bello, 21 November 1739 by George Chambers, Senior, 1836, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich BHC0355 Paul Mansell presents, The Great Sickness of 1740: War, Typhus, and the Royal Navy. In 1739, after two and a half decades of relative peace, Spain and Britain entered into the War of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-48). This war became subsumed into the War of Austrian Succession 1740-48) and has not received a lot of attention from historians. The Royal Navy had…
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