Baggs Memorial Happiness Lecture 2018

Location
Great Hall - Aston Webb (R6 on campus map)
Dates
Monday 12 November 2018 (18:30-19:45)

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This year’s Baggs Memorial lecture on the theme of Happiness will be delivered by The Reverend Richard Coles, a Church of England priest in the village of Finedon, Northamptonshire.

Richard is also known as one half of pop band The Communards, together with Jimmy Somerville. During the 1980s The Communards had three UK Top 10 hits, including the biggest-selling single of 1986, Don’t Leave Me This Way, making him the only vicar to have ever had a number one single.

Between 1990 and 1994, Richard studied for a theology degree at King’s College, London. After a 10–year period as a Roman Catholic, Richard returned to Anglicanism, and in 2005 was ordained into the Anglican priesthood. The same year he was awarded an MA by research from the University of Leeds for work on the Greek text of the Epistle to the Ephesians. Following his ordination Richard spent time as a curate at St Botolph’s Church in Boston, Lincolnshire and then at St Paul’s Church, Knightsbridge.

Richard continues to balance holy duties with a glittering media career, as co-presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live and as a regular guest panellist on shows such as Have I Got News For You and QI. Often described as Britain’s most famous vicar, Richard was the inspiration for the main character in the BBC hit comedy Rev, a programme for which he also served as consultant. In January 2014, he won the BBC’s Celebrity Mastermind, and has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing.

This year’s Baggs Memorial Lecture is the 40th, the series began in 1976. Born in Birmingham in 1889, Thomas Baggs was an alumnus of the University of Birmingham who bequeathed a substantial sum to the University to provide an annual public lecture on the theme of ‘Happiness – what it is and how it may be achieved by individuals as well as nations.’