Tag Archives: history

The United Suffragists’ Women’s Club in Borough Road, 1915.

For International Women’s Day, my second post on the radical history of Southwark is on the United Suffragists’ Women’s Club during the First World War. The United Suffragists were formed in early 1914 by those disenchanted with the direction of … Continue reading

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Wikimania for Historians

Coming to the Barbican in London this weekend (August 8 to 10) is Wikimania 2014, a great gathering of people involved in Wikipedia and its many related projects. There are hundreds of panels and talks, and as an attendee and … Continue reading

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Records and Music

A piece of urban history recently uncovered by the remorseless redevelopment of Dalston is this old shop hoarding, ‘Records and Music.’ A search on Google Books for 52 Stoke Newington Road reveals it was the headquarters of Sci Fi promoter … Continue reading

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Stella and Fanny

Following the unveiling of the plaque to Herzen (see it on open plaques) in Judd Street last month, the Marchmont Association have just installed another round the corner in Wakefield Street, commemorating the Victorian cross-dressers Boulton and Park, a.k.a. Stella … Continue reading

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Locating London’s Pasts

Last week I attended a seminar on the latest venture from Sheffield and Hertfordshire Universities’ family of digital history projects, Locating London’s Past. The aim is to create a sort of geographical front end to a number of London-centred datasets, … Continue reading

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Making the TCP-ECCO texts accessible

In April, the Text Creation Partnership released into the public domain over 2,000 eighteenth century works,  in plain text. You can read more about this project and the texts on their blog: TCP Releases Over 4,000 New EEBO-TCP Texts What the … Continue reading

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The Clerkenwell House of Detention

The recent Clerkenwell Design Week offered a rare chance to visit the vaults of the Clerkenwell House Of Detention, opened up to host an exhibition. These cellars are all that remain of the 1847 prison, demolished at the end of … Continue reading

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What I Learned From ‘Luddites without condescension’

A couple of Fridays ago (6th May 2011) I attended the Luddites Without Condescension event at Birkbeck. What I took away: 1: The Luddites are politically charged. The word is commonly used today as a slur to anyone questioning modern … Continue reading

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Luddite Bicentenary and Luddite Song

Alerted today that this year – and the next two – is the bicentenary of the great Luddite movement. Still much maligned as backwards-looking, anti-progressive, and if I may be permitted an anarchronism, ‘technophobic’, it is important to remember these … Continue reading

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Victorian Books: The Frequency of Revolution

Opened to the public late last year was the long awaited Victorian Books, ‘a Distant Reading of Victorian Publications.’ Working with data from Google Books,  Dan Cohen and Fred Gibbs are text mining every book published in Britain in the … Continue reading

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