When The Trollope Society initially put up its flag in London, the first ideas which occurred to the Committee ­ before any publishing began ­ were to have an Annual Dinner and an Annual Lecture. Since the Chairman, John Letts, was a member of The Reform Club in Pall Mall, it seemed simplest to hold the Dinners there. Since then, a whole host of distinguished speakers have addressed The Trollope Society. The first two speakers were Roy Jenkins, writer, historian, one time Chancellor of the Exchequer, President of the European Union; and The Rt. Hon. John Biffen, also a Cabinet Minister, and formerly Financial Secretary to The Treasury.

Other speakers have included thriller writer P. D. James; lawyer and philanthropist Lord Goodman; historian Lord Blake; editor and journalist Max Hastings; Governor of The Bank of England, Robin Leigh-Pemberton; writer and playwright John Mortimer; editor and journalist Simon Jenkins; Cabinet Minister and parliamentarian Enoch Powell; The Bishop of Oxford; thriller writer Ruth Rendell; Judge and Inspector of Prisons Sir Stephen Tumin; Brussels Commissioner and barrister Lord Tugendhat; best-selling novelist Joanna Trollope; cabinet minister and barrister Lord Young; industrialist Sir Alistair Grant; cabinet minister Lord Wakeham; and Liberal Party Chairman Lord Holme.

The speakers on Wednesday 25 March 1998 were Caroline Moore (senior literary critic on London's Daily Telegraph) and Albert Gordon (Chairman of the Trollope Society of New York). Al Gordon is the legendary figure from the heyday of Wall Street, who is an outstanding benefactor to Harvard (The Gordon Track and Tennis Centre) and Princeton (The Firestone Library now has his collection of Trollope manuscripts and first editions). Al Gordon (born in 1901) attended this year to make a special presentation.

This distinguished list of speakers have entertained members to such effect that, after seven years, the Library of The Reform Club (which holds at most 150) had to be abandoned in favour of The Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn, since every year some seventy to a hundred people were being turned away.

In New York, an equally distinguished list of speakers at Dinners and Lectures have included such writers as Louis Auchincloss, Dominick Dunne, Michael Thomas and Jeffrey Archer (novelist and English parliamentarian), distinguished publishers Harold Evans (Random House) and Donald Graham (Washington Post), Victoria Glendinning, and N. John Hall (both biographers of Anthony Trollope), and Morton P. Sosland (Kansas City Industrialist and arts benefactor).

These days the London Dinner takes place in The Great Hall at Lincoln's Inn (which can accommodate up to 290). Meanwhile, at the equally handsome Knickerbocker Club (one of New York's most elegant late Victorian buildings), The New York Dinner has often been full to the brim in the larger of the two dining rooms, which holds 110 at the most.