Sidney Ball Memorial Lectures

The Sidney Ball Memorial Lectures were established after the First World War in memory of Sidney Ball who was a philosophy fellow at St John's College, Oxford. Sidney Ball was both a political radical and 'an energetic university reformer' concerned that contemporary social and economic problems should be studied at Oxford. He was the first President of Barnett House at its foundation in 1914.

The memorial lectures were to address 'modern social, economic or political questions' and were given annually until the 1940s, and then intermittently in the post war period. They were given by some very distinguished speakers, including GM Trevelyan (1923), JM Keynes (1924), Beatrice Webb (1927), AC Pigou (1929), William Beveridge (1930 & 1940), RH Tawney (1934) and many others.

The annual series was revived in 2006/2007 with the first lecture given by Professor Neil Gilbert (Chernin Professor of Social Welfare. University of California, Berkeley) on The Opt-ut Revolution: Motherhood and Social Policy, which was delivered on 23 April 2007.  

On 1 November 2007, Professor Paul Pierson (University of California, Berkeley) gave a lecture on ''Winner-Take-All Politics: Policy and Inequality in the New American Political Economy'.

The 2008/2009 lecture on 'Early Childhood Poverty and Adult Attainment' was delivered by Professor Greg Duncan (University of California, Irvine) on 26 February 2009 in the Nissan Lecture Theatre, St. Antony's College.  A podcast of Professor Duncan's lecture is available on Oxford iTunes U.

The 2009/10 lecture 'Life Chances and Early Childhood Investments' was delivered by Professor Gosta Esping-Andersen (Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona) on 13 October 2010.  A podcast of his lecture is available on Oxford iTunes U.

The 2010/11 lecture 'Evidence-Based Interventions in Juvenile Justice: Concept, Research, Practice, and Frontiers' will be delivered by Professor Mark Lipsey (Peabody Research Institute, Vanderbilt University) on Wednesday, 9 November 2011 at 5 p.m. in the Nissan Lecture Theatre, St. Antony's College.

A list of the Sidney Ball Memorial Lecturesis available.