The Leconfield Lecture is named after the first Chairman of the British-Italian Society, Hugh Wyndham, who was Chairman for 12 years in the 1940s and 1950s, and became Lord Leconfield in 1952. After Lord Leconfield’s death in 1963, Sir Ashley Clarke, then Chairman of the Society, inaugurated this series of  prestigious lectures. Since 1978 the Leconfield Lectures have been the main event in the Society’s annual calendar (no Leconfield Lectures were held in the years 1970-72, 1975 or 1977). The lectures have always been given by a speaker of particular distinction.