At the end of the First World War, funds were given to University College, Nottingham, to set up a lecture in the name of Harry Cust, of Belton House, Grantham.

The Cust Foundation lecture was deployed through the inter-war years as a means of presenting the claims of the College to a full university charter to ministers, MPs, and policy makers.

In this lecture, John Beckett will reflect on some of the issues which have interested him over the course of his career, particularly in relation to the creation of the university in the context of the East Midlands, as he comes to the end of a long career at the University of Nottingham.

Professor John Beckett joined the staff of the University of Nottingham in 1979 and became a member of the Thoroton Society in 1980. He served as Chair of Council of the Thoroton Society from 1992-2020. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Regional History at the University of Nottingham and a Vice-President of the Thoroton Society.