Members will have an opportunity to socialise before attending the AGM to receive the reports of the various officers, accept the accounts and raise any queries. After the AGM there will be a talk by Dr Philip Mansel on 'Louis XVIII, Wellington and the Race for Paris, June -July 1815’.

Philip Mansel is a historian of France and the Middle East. His books on French history include Louis XVIII (1981); The Court of France 1789-1830 (1989); Paris between Empires (2001), a history of Paris as a European capital under the restoration and the July Monarchy; The Eagle in Splendour: Inside the Court of Napoleon (reprint 2015); and most recently King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV (2019). On the Middle East he has written on Constantinople, the Levant, and Aleppo emphasising the importance of France and French culture for those cities. His books have been translated into several languages including French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish and Arabic. He has written for many newspapers and magazines, including The International Herald Tribune, The Spectator; History Today; the TLS; and Cornucopia.

In 1995 he was a co-founder of the Society for Court Studies, designed to promote research on courts and dynasties, and in 2010 of the Levantine Heritage Foundation, dedicated to the study of the history and cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2012 he received the London Library Life in Literature award and in 2019 the Franco-British Book Prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Literature, and President of the Conseil scientifique of the Centre de Recherche du Chateau de Versailles.(CRCV).

Please note the East India Club dress code as follows:

Gentlemen should wear a suit or jacket and tailored trousers together with collared shirt, tie, socks and shoes.

Ladies should aim to comply with the spirit of the code. Reasonable guidelines are dresses, smart separates, suits, tailored trousers. Footwear should be in keeping with a smart outfit. Formal boots below the knee are acceptable.

The following are examples of dress that is unacceptable: leather clothing and polo-neck sweaters for men, and for all, casual wear, denim-type material, sportswear, t-shirts, shorts, leggings, training shoes and casual footwear.

Waterloo Association Drinks, AGM and Lecture by Dr Philip Mansel