Department of Economic and Social History with a four-year lecture series in labour and social history. The endowment became perpetual through a trust and so emerged the Alderman Sydney Smith Lecture. He was in his mid 80s by this time and while he attended the first lecture he was blind and nearly deaf. In subsequent years details of the lecture were related to him orally and tape recordings of the lecture were made, many of which are available in the University Library. The lecture went into abeyance in 1988 and it was not brought back into University life again until 2010 when it became associated with the work of WISE. References 1885 births 1984 deaths Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1945–1950