Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lectures

Eric Abbott was Dean of Westminster between 1959 and 1974. Before that, he was Dean at King's College, London (1945–1955), Chaplain to King George VI and HM Queen Elizabeth II, and Warden of Keble College, Oxford.

He died in 1983 and was buried in the Abbey's Nave. His friends set up a memorial trust to provide for an annual lecture on spirituality, and we held the first one in 1986. The lecture is repeated each year at Keble College.

2024 lecture

On truth telling and storytelling

Canon Dr Paula Gooder will give this year's lecture in the Abbey at 6:30pm on Thursday 23rd May.

Join us as she discusses truth telling and storytelling.

Book tickets (free) 

Painting of Eric Symes Abbott, Dean of Westminster 1959-1974

Further Reading

You can obtain booklets of the Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lectures from King's College London.

Read Eric Symes Abbott's The Mystery of the Transfiguration: Seven Meditations.


Past lectures archive

37th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

From Black Theology to Black Lives Matter and Back Again

Speaker: Professor Anthony Reddie, Director of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture

Thursday, 25th May 2023

36th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Securing a Europe of Peace, Freedom and Justice

Speaker: Lord Adonis, Chair of European Movement UK and Visiting Professor at King's College London

Thursday, 12th May 2022

35th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Money, Bias and the Geography of the Heart

Speaker: Loretta Minghella, Master of Clare College, Cambridge

Thursday, 11th November 2021

34th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The Most Spiritual of the Arts: Music, Modernity, and the Search for the Sacred

Speaker: Sir James MacMillan, composer, conductor and artistic director

Thursday, 9th May 2019

33rd Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Beating the Bounds: Parish Ministry and Spirituality Today

Speaker: The Reverend Richard Coles FKC, Vicar of Finedon, Northamptonshire

Thursday, 24th May 2018

32nd Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Faith and Imagination – How the Arts speak to the reality of the Unseen

Speaker: Salley Vickers, author and critic

Thursday, 11th May 2017

31st Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The Sacred, the Profane and the Desecrated

Speaker: Professor Roger Scruton, philosopher, public commentator and author

Thursday, 26th May 2016

30th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Blessed are the Hypocrites?

Speaker: The Reverend Lucy Winkett, Rector, St James's Piccadilly

Thursday, 21st May 2015

29th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Beyond Justice

Speaker: The Reverend Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields

Friday, 25th July 2014

28th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Constantine's Vision and the Church Today - From the Battle of the Milvian Bridge (AD 312) to the twenty-first century

Speaker: Professor Dame Averil Cameron FSA FKC, Former Warden of Keble College, Oxford

Thursday, 2nd May 2013

27th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Mis-establishment - Locating, and Re-locating, the Church of England

Speaker: The Right Reverend Dr Peter Selby, President of the National Council for Independent Monitoring Boards, Visiting Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, King's College, London; formerly Bishop of Worcester and Bishop to HM Prisons

Thursday, 10th May 2012

26th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The Word in Print

Speaker: The Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Richard Chartres KCVO, Bishop of London

Thursday, 26th May 2011

25th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The End of the Permissive Society? Towards a Christian understanding of the common good

Speaker: The Right Reverend the Lord Harries of Pentregarth FKC, Former Bishop of Oxford, Gresham Professor of Divinity, and Honorary Professor of Theology at King's College London

Thursday, 6th May 2010

24th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Religious and Scientific Faith - The case of Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’

Speaker: The Reverend Professor Alister McGrath Professor of Theology, Ministry and Education at King's College London

Thursday, 14th May 2009

23rd Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The Mystical Turn - Religious Experience in the Modern World

Speaker: The Reverend Canon Dr Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity, Chaplain and Fellow, New College Oxford and Canon Theologian, Salisbury Cathedral

Thursday, 8th May 2008

22nd Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Being Biblical? Slavery, Sexuality, and the Inclusive Community

Speaker: The Reverend Dr Richard A Burridge, Dean, King's College, London

Thursday, 10th May 2007

21st Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

A New Song in a Strange Land - The contribution of women to the priestly ministry of the Church

Speaker: The Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, Dean of Leicester

Thursday, 11th May 2006

20th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

A Room with a View - the Aspiration of a Parish Church

Speaker: The Reverend Nicholas Holtam Vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields

Thursday, 12th May 2005

19th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

The Crisis of Truth Telling in Our Society

Speaker: Father Timothy Radcliffe OP

Thursday, 27th May 2004

18th Eric Symes Abbott Memorial Lecture

Beyond Racism and Sectarianism: Is Religion the Problem or the Solution?

Speaker: The Reverend Professor Duncan B Forrester New College, The University of Edinburgh

Thursday, 8th May 2003