On Saturday 14 April 2018 the VWSGB held a one-day conference, ‘Virginia Woolf and her Relatives’, incorporating the 20th AGM, at London’s Senate House. Dr Marion Dell spoke on ‘Fabulous Forebears: Virginia Woolf’s Ancestors’, and after lunch, Dr Philip Carter of the Institute of Historical Research gave a talk on ‘The Stephens in St Ives: Leslie and Virginia, at Work and at Play’. Professor Maggie Humm spoke on ‘Relational Aesthetics: Virginia Woolf’s Artistic Family and Friends’.
At 5pm the Society’s President, Dame Eileen Atkins, in the presence of the Mayor of Camden and members of the Society, unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to Virginia and Leonard Woolf on the Tavistock Hotel, Tavistock Square, as close as possible to where their house once stood at no. 52. Afterwards, the hotel generously hosted a reception, at which Dame Eileen read from selected writings by Virginia Woolf.
The conference also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Society by presenting each the three founders, Sheila Wilkinson, Stephen Barkway and Stuart N. Clarke, with a hand-painted plate decorated with the original Hogarth Press wolf’s head colophon and a personal inscription of thanks for their dedication and hard work.