Founded on 24 April 1947, the British-Luxembourg-Society’s main aim was to foster good relations between the two countries. The society was an immediate success and held a wide range of activities including lectures, study trips, exhibitions, concerts, theatre performances, and language and literature classes. It even offered holidays in Luxembourg to under-privileged British children, many of them orphans, and created a library of English books in Luxembourg.

One of the highlights of the British-Luxembourg-Society calendar was the annual Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture, which attracted a high calibre of guest speakers including Lady Thatcher, Secretary-General of Nato George Robertson, the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris (now Lord) Patten, and former British foreign secretary Lord Hurd. Earlier this year, the guest speaker at the 2022 Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Lecture was former Luxembourg prime minister and president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

The society was relaunched in 2018 by a group of Brits and Luxembourgers who thought that the promotion of bilateral relations was going to be even more relevant with the approach of Brexit. The reboot has proven to be a success, with support from the British embassy first under John Marshall and now with incumbent ambassador Fleur Thomas serving as a Patron-ex officio. 

Indeed, it was Thomas who made available the garden of her residency for the 75th anniversary celebrations on 12 July, with sponsorship from Nasir Zubari in a personal capacity and from recruitment company Anderson Wise making the whole shebang possible. Mia and the Moon provided musical entertainment and Beam Suntory supplied the event with Sipsmith gin. 

British-Luxembourg-Society president Louise Benjamin and ambassador Thomas both praised the society’s committed membership and pointed out the many ways in which UK-Luxembourg relations continue to thrive, both commercially and culturally.