Challenging many of the values and conceits of western civilization, the gay socialist writer Edward Carpenter had an extraordinary impact on the cultural and political landscape of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. An advocate of, among other causes, free love, recycling, nudism, women’s suffrage and prison reform, Carpenter’s work anticipated the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and placed him at the epicenter of the literary culture of his day. In this talk, Sheila Rowbotham discusses Carpenter’s life and thought in relation to the contemporary social, aesthetic and intellectual movements of the time.

Sheila Rowbotham is Professor of Gender and Labour History at the University of Manchester, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Her many books include A Century of Women and Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties. Sheila’s critically acclaimed Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love has recently been published in paperback.

The evening was chaired by Dr Matt Cook, Senior Lecturer in History at Birkbeck College.

British detective fiction has its origins in the heart of the capital. In the stories about Sherlock Holmes, Thorndike and Dorcas Dene, London is central to the narrative and geographically and culturally intrinsic to its development. With the advent of the ‘Golden Age’ however, and the stories of Sayers, Christie, Allingham and Marsh, the role of London changes and becomes a more nebulous, transient environment, a counter-space to the country houses and villages that are the characteristic milieu of the detective stories of this time. This talk explores the different ways that London is represented as British Detective fiction develops, through the era of Sherlock Holmes to that of Lord Peter Wimsey.

Dr Esme Miskimmin is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Liverpool, where her main research interest is in crime fiction, specifically the work of Dorothy L. Sayers. She is the co-editor of two volumes in the Palgrave ‘Crime Files’ Series: 100 American Crime Writers and 100 British Crime Writers, due out in 2010.

The phrase ‘those lovely trans-Atlantic invaders’ from Edith Wharton’s novel The Buccaneers describes the many young American women who lived in the UK between 1870 and World War I and made places for themselves in English life. These included independent professional women such as journalist Elizabeth Banks, actress Mary Anderson and singer Antoinette Sterling. They knew everyone in London, from HM Queen Victoria to George Bernard Shaw and many other leading figures.

This illustrated talk provides an overview of this group of determined and talented women who contributed to the literary, political, social and artistic life of their adopted country. Some stories are romantic, some tragic, but all are compelling.

Dr Jane S. Gabin is an educator and writer living in New York City and North Carolina. Dr Gabin has published three books, most recently American Women in Gilded Age London, and has also contributed to several encyclopedias and volumes of essays.

Early museums and picture galleries tended to be private and open to a very restricted public. It was only in the 19th century that they took on the character we would recognise today. Taste in pictures, gallery installations, educational initiatives, and the behaviour of the public all contributed to the special character of these places. This talk explores the growth of galleries and museums in the 19th century, particularly in London, with a special focus on philanthropic efforts by social reformers to make them places that would improve the morals and education of the socially deprived.

Speaker Giles Waterfield is an independent curator and writer and currently Director of Royal Collection Studies and an Associate Lecturer at the Courtauld Institute of Art. He was previously Director of Dulwich Picture Gallery from 1979 to 1996. His publications include Palaces of Art, Art for the People and Soane and Death.

Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the 19th century. A co-founder of international communism and co-author of The Communist Manifesto, Engels was far more than Marx’s right-hand man. He was a profound thinker in his own right who predicted the social effects of today’s free-market fundamentalism and globalisation. In this talk, Tristram Hunt discusses his biography of Engels, The Frock-Coated Communist, and considers how one of the great bon viveurs of Victorian Britain reconciled his raucous personal life with his uncompromising political philosophy.

Dr Tristram Hunt is one of Britain’s best known young historians. He is a lecturer in British history at Queen Mary, University of London and a former associate fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge. A leading historical broadcaster, he has authored numerous series for BBC Radio and Television and Channel 4 and is a regular contributor to The Times, The Guardian and The Observer.

This event was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.

In this talk author and consumer social historian Lindy Woodhead explores a topic that arguably touches everyone’s lives - shopping. She looks at both the meteoric rise of the great 19th century department stores such as Selfridges and their liberating impact on women, as well as the seismic changes in fashion from the pre-war Edwardian era of lush to the suited and booted female war worker.

Speaker Lindy Woodhead set up her own Public Relations Agency in 1974, specialising in fashion and retail PR. Her latest book Shopping, Seduction & Mr Selfridge was chosen by Radio Four to be their 'Book of the Week'.

Mike Berlin, history lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London, discusses The Partisan Coffee House.

The brainchild of Raphael Samuel, a young radical historian, the Partisan Coffee House was the spiritual home of the New Left. With a menu that included Borscht, Viennese coffee and 'Whitechapel cheesecake', the Partisan Coffee House was an attempt to recreate the culture of a left wing Mitteleuropa café in the centre of trendy Soho. It was known as 'London's first anti-espresso bar'. Closely linked with the radical journal, Universities and Left Review, the intellectual life of the Partisan embraced all the burning political and cultural issues of the day: from Khrushev's secret speech, the Hungarian Uprising and the Suez Invasion to the foundation of CND. In its short existence the Partisan staged debates, film screenings, art exhibitions and music nights which drew in some of the leading intellectuals and artists of the late 1950s including John Berger, Doris Lessing, Lindsey Anderson, and Karel Reisz. This talk, based on a series of interviews with surviving participants, recounts the fascinating story of this short lived but highly influential cultural institution.

Mike Berlin teaches history at Birkbeck College, University of London. His specialism is the social history of London.

This talk took place at Bishopsgate Institute on 11 June 2009.

Steven Berkoff discusses his memories of growing up in East London with Dr Michelle Johansen. This talk took place at Bishopsgate Institute on 26 March 2009.

Sheila Rowbotham, Rachel Lichtenstein, Patrick Wright and Michael Rosen join author Iain Sinclair to discuss his latest book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire, and a London borough that has been persistently revived, reinvented and betrayed. This event took place at Bishopsgate Institute on 7 May 2009 and was organised in partnership with Newham Bookshop.