Bishopsgate Institute Podcast

From tales of notorious murderers to eccentric sleuths, crime infested slums to the shadows of Soho, London has been the setting and inspiration for many crime novels.

Sarah Wise takes a fresh look at Arthur Morrison's A Child of the Jago and its portrayal of a supposedly notorious 1890s East End criminal slum and Paul Duncan explores Gerald Kersh's London noir classic of the 1930s, Night and the City, and its depictions of clubs, call girls and chancers. Andrew Lane revisits Arthur Conan Doyle's creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes and a city of hansom cabs, 'pea souper' fogs and endless mystery and Valentine Cunningham introduces the more recent evocation of London at its most hopeless amongst a semi-criminal milieu in The Hard Shoulder by Chris Petit. The event was chaired by Andrew Whitehead.

This series is organised in collaboration with London Fictions, a website exploring representations of the city in fiction.

The 1911 census was the 12th national census of the United Kingdom, and in many ways it represented a watershed in the history of census taking in this country - it was the first to use electronic technology and was by far the most intrusive. The census captured a picture of society at the time when the ‘upstairs downstairs’ world was about to be turned upside down. It records Britain’s ‘lost generation’ - the 885,000 men who would lose their lives fighting in the war - and it adds a fascinating insight into one of the most important issues of the day, the campaign to give women the vote. In this talk, David Annal introduces the 1911 census and shows what it reveals about society at the time.

David Annal was formerly the Principal Family History Specialist at The National Archives and is the author of Census: The Expert Guide.

Thirties Britain was a land of contrasts, at once a nation rendered hopeless by the global Depression, unemployment and international tensions, yet also a place of suburban home owners aspiring to have a baby Austin in the garage. In this talk, Juliet Gardiner examines this restless, uncertain, ambitious decade through the experiences she has found in newspapers, memoirs, letters and diaries. She will look at the British people of the 1930s, part-mesmerised by modernism, leisure, glamour and sensation yet, at the same time, imbued with a pervasive awareness of loss of Britain's influence in the world and of accepted political, social and cultural signposts.

Juliet Gardiner is a former editor of History Today. She has been an academic and publisher and is now a full-time author and broadcaster. Her most recent books include Wartime: Britain 1939-1945, The Thirties: An Intimate History and The Blitz: The British Under Attack.

This event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.

Critics argue that the modern census and other forms of data collection are coercive and intrusive. The census asks you to reveal your ethnicity, religion and other matters many consider to be too intimate to disclose. Supporters, however, point to the need to gather information about populations to serve them better, arguing that citizens need to periodically submit information about themselves in the interest of government planning. Is it in all our interests to be counted in or should we be protesting against a growing surveillance state?

Speakers are Jil Matheson (Office for National Statistics) and Phil Booth (NO2ID). The event will be Chaired by Tom Crook (Oxford Brookes University).

Bringing together four of London’s favourite contemporary writers, this panel discussion takes a closer look at some long-lost, but nonetheless captivating, novels from the capital’s past. All the books discussed are worth reading for what they tell us about the history of our city and maybe about our city right now - the buildings may have changed but are the people the same?

Speakers include:

Ken Worpole on Alexander Baron (King Dido, The Lowlife, Rosie Hogarth)

Iain Sinclair on Roland Camberton (Scamp, Rain on the Pavements)

Sarah Wise on John Henry Mackay (The Anarchists)

Andrew Whitehead on Gissing (The Nether World)

This event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.

The City liked to pride itself that it lived up to the Stock Exchange motto, ‘My word is my bond’, but this claim has no credibility with the public following the banking crisis. There is nostalgic talk of the need to return to old values but did the City’s culture, ethics and business practices ever meet the ideal? Is it possible to establish a credible ethical code in the modern financial world and do today’s bankers deserve their reputation for sleaze and greed?

Philip Augar led NatWest’s global securities business, and was a Group Managing Director at Schroders before turning to writing in 2000. His fifth book, Reckless: The Rise and Fall of the City, has just been released in paperback and he has completed a trilogy highly critical of the modern financial services industry.

Thomas John Barnardo arrived in London in 1866 with little but evangelical zeal. Aged just twenty, his ambitions to become a missionary in China were soon put aside when he encountered the appalling conditions of the working poor of London’s East End. His main concern became the welfare and education of children, and two years after his arrival he created his own organisation, the East End Juvenile Mission. In his constant search for funds to support his expanding philanthropic enterprise Barnardo was quick to understand the power of photography in publicising his cause. This talk explores how Barnardo utilised photography for fundraising purposes, including controversial ‘before and after’ images of children who had been in Barnardo’s care.

Erica Davies is Director of the Ragged School Museum and has worked in a variety of national, local authority and independent museums. As Director of the Freud Museum in Hampstead she organised many exhibitions in the UK and abroad.

In this talk Jonathan Rose provides an intellectual history of the British working classes from the pre-industrial era to the 20th century. Drawing on workers’ memoirs, social surveys, library registers and more, Jonathan uncovers which books people read, how they educated themselves and what they knew. He will discuss the history of people who were not expected to think for themselves and explore the politics, ideology, popular culture, and social relationships across two centuries of the British working-class experience.

Jonathan Rose is the founder and past president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing and co-editor of the journal Book History. He is Professor of History at Drew University (New Jersey), where he directs the graduate programme in book history.

The event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop and chaired by Juliet Gardiner, an author, broadcaster and former editor of History Today.

Join Stefan Dickers for an introduction to the numerous photographic collections held by Bishopsgate Institute on the social and cultural history of London. Highlights will include a look in the boxes of glass slides created by the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society at the turn of the century, the eclectic London History Workshop collection and the huge London Co-operative Society photographic archive. Stefan will also talk about and show examples from some of the Library’s more recent additions, including the London Collection Digital Photographs Project and the Jackson/Davies Collection on Old Spitalfields Market.

Stefan Dickers is Bishopsgate Institute’s Library Manager and looks after the Raphael Samuel Archive, along with its other numerous collections on the history of London, the labour movement, co-operation, freethought and humanism. He previously worked in the archives of the London School of Economics and Senate House Library.

From the 1880s to the 1920s, a profound social awakening among women extended the possibilities of change far beyond the struggle for the vote. Amid the growth of globalised trade, mass production, immigration and urban slums, American and British women broke with custom and prejudice. Taking off corsets, living communally and joining trade unions, these ‘dreamers of a new day’ conceived new ways of arranging daily life from childcare to industrial relations. In the process they challenged ideas about sexuality, mothering, housework, the economy and citizenship.

In this talk Sheila Rowbotham uncovers how women created much of the fabric of modern life and how these innovative dreamers raised questions that remain at the forefront of our 21st century lives.

Sheila Rowbotham‘s many books include Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love which was shortlisted for The James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2009.

This event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.