Bethnal Green Research Articles

Specifying intent at the Museum of Childhood

In a 2009 interview, architect Peter St John of Caruso St John Architects defined a good architect as one who makes few compromises, highlighting precise instructions as imperative in achieving this. An architectural project, St John stated, 'is far more likely to work well if you put an enormous effort into defining what you want, to achieve quality’. At Caruso St John Architects' 2006 entrance addition to the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London [1], the precise specification of mortar and mastic joints throughout a cut-stone facade was employed to define expectations of quality in the constructed facade. These specifications, written in accordance with the recommendations of professional practice, set out stringent expectations of dimensional perfection. When dimensional variations during design development and construction threatened to disrupt these expectations, the precise definition of quality shifted, becoming less defined by dimensional perfection and more reliant upon the ‘architectural intentions’ underpinning the project. In referencing conceptual, ideological, historical and technological intentions which were difficult definitively to express, this critical phrase – ‘architectural intentions’ – is examined here in terms of its ambiguity in the context of the written specification [2].Ambiguity in the written specification is emphatically rejected by regulatory and advisory bodies in the architectural profession, which frequently advise that the written specification must provide, above all else, certainty. In The Architects' Journal in 1989, author Francis Hall went as far as describing the properly drafted specification as the ‘one certain opportunity’ for an architect to set down a ‘definitive and enforceable expression of standard and quality’. ‘Properly drafted’ is typically translated as a prosaic language, specifically devoid of poetic content. The ability of the unambiguous written specification to convey adequately the poetic content of architectural intentions has, however, been under critique since its inception.

Imagining the street in post-war Britain

ABSTRACT:This article discusses the changing ways in which the residential street has been imagined in post-war Britain. From the ethnographers and street photographers who emerged in Bethnal Green in the late 1940s and early 1950s, to the planning concept of ‘streets in the air’, to modern geodemographics, the street has been a way of thinking through shifting ideas about civil society and collective social life. Imagined as a space of spontaneous community when set against the rational, contractual operations of both the market and the state, the street has been a means of articulating hopes for and anxieties about social change.

SHAW'S LONDON THEN AND NOW

SHAW'S LONDON THEN AND NOW

Indexes help to identify localities in need of healthcare interventions

Inequalities in health have long been recognised, researched and documented. In 1842, Chadwick’s report on the sanitary conditions of the labouring population recorded a life expectancy of 45 years for ‘gentlemen and persons engaged in professions and their families’ in Bethnal Green, east London, compared with 16 years for ‘mechanics, labourers, servants and their families’. Conditions, such poor housing, overcrowding and sanitation were cited.

Summary of Third Introductory Address

Summary of Third Introductory Address B J Thomas B J Thomas Allen and Hanburys Ltd., Bethnal Green, E.2 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Volume 14, Issue Supplement_1, December 1962, Pages 17T–19T, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2042-7158.1962.tb10522.x Published: 12 April 2011

The Report by Jessica Francis Kane

177 Book Notes The Report, by Jessica Francis Kane Graywolf Press, 2010 reviewed by Jennifer Wisner Kelly On a clear night in March 1943, 173 men, women, and children from the downtrodden London neighborhood of Bethnal Green suffocated in a packed crowd while entering a public air-raid shelter in a Tube station. It was the worst civilian disaster of World War II and the outraged local citizenry demanded an explanation . What exactly had happened? Why did tragedy strike? Could it have been avoided? Ultimately, they demanded that someone bear the mantle of culpability. The Home Secretary appointed a well-respected local magistrate, Laurence Dunne, to investigate and write a report about the disaster. In her debut novel, The Report, Jessica Francis Kane fictionalizes this monumental event and its aftermath, giving the tragedy human faces and voices while posing moral questions about the nature of official investigations and the communal need for blame. Kane deftly captures the complexity of the Bethnal Green incident through Magistrate Dunne’s quest for truth. The witnesses who sat at his amiable tea table in the Town Hall told Dunne conflicting accounts, colored by their own fears and biases . There were explosive sounds. There weren’t. The stairwell was dark. Or wasn’t. The crowd was unruly. Or, it wasn’t. There were too many Jewish refugees. Or not. Dunne untangled most of these facts with objective evidence: coroners’ findings, an examination of the scene, and witnesses’ corroborating testimony. While the “what happened” was mostly decipherable, the more important issue of “why it happened”—the blame—proved elusive. Who should be blamed when so many people’s actions were contributing causes of the crush, but none, in isolation, would have been sufficient? For instance: a supervisor installed an overly bright lightbulb at the shelter’s entrance, knowing full well that panicky people would likely smash it; a war-weary policeman arrived seven minutes late for work; the Home Guard tested a loud civilian-defense weapon without warning; and, most critically, a frustrated mother, in a moment of racist malice spurred by exhaustion, annoyance, and fear, shoved a Jewish refugee woman who then fell to her knees and, thus, started the blockade. The people of Bethnal Green wanted an enemy—be it colorado review 178 German pilots or fictional weapons of mass destruction or even their own classist, incompetent government—but the enemy, it turned out, was even closer at hand. The primary responsibility for the crush lay at the feet of the Bethnal Green residents themselves. As Dunne explained thirty years later: “The people needed a report, not a judgment. I didn’t want to deliver a scapegoat.” Kane anchors her narrative in 1972, when Dunne finds himself on the other side of the table as an interviewee of a young documentary filmmaker. This two-track timeline broadens the novel’s scope, allowing for a portrait of Dunne both during the war and three decades later. Thus, Kane captures not only Dunne’s moral dilemma during the time he wrote the report, but also his own reflections on whether his choices of what to include and what to exclude were sound. While Dunne is The Report’s quiet protagonist, he shares the stage with a half-dozen or so other citizens of Bethnal Green for whom the incident stirred the most guilt. For these secondary characters, Kane provides sketches of both their family life and their versions of the incident and its aftermath. To achieve a sense of communal experience, Kane also puts on stage a hefty cast of unnamed characters through snippets of their testimony before Mr. Dunne. This three-tiered approach—the full central story of Laurence Dunne, the guilt-ridden few of Bethnal Green in shorter sketch, and the voices of the rest of the population in clips of dialogue—creates an effective kaleidoscope of voices and experiences. The exhilarating events of the crush itself fill barely the first thirty pages of the novel, leaving the bulk of the narrative to wrestle with the tragedy’s aftermath. Through Dunne’s investigation , Kane explores claims of racism against Jewish immigrants , classism between the residents of the East End of London and those of...

Opinion: To the point - A real rags-to-riches tale

A few weeks ago I was in one of the backstreets of Bethnal Green. Half-way down a street with a garage servicing a long line of black cabs is one of the old Ragged Schools.

`Careless talk': A critique of Dench, Gavron and Young's The New East End

The task of revisiting Young and Willmott's Family and Kinship in East London was probably impossible. Dench, Gavron and Young extended the geographical coverage of their study area to include some fundamentally different zones adjacent to Bethnal Green. The study extended over a decade but the authors' The New East End fails to make clear dates, actors and locations. The theoretical framework is incoherent and especially so when referring to actors outside the area of study who the authors claim have considerable power and influence in the East End. Local people are static informants and so as a `community study' the book fails to provide a narrative or analysis rooted in local events during a very eventful period of its history. The discussion of social policy changes, which form the background to this study is partial and tendentious. Although there is an illuminating section discussing migration from Sylhet the book is simply bad sociology. One outcome of the publication of The New East End has been that more general readers (including both the BNP and the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality) have been able to draw whatever conclusions from the book suit their own agendas.

Reinvigorating Childhood

AbstractHoward Watson is uplifted by the ‘brave, graceful subtlety’ of Caruso St John's redevelopment of the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood in east London. He finds the pared‐down spaces of the interior surprisingly in accord with the original Victorian structure, drawing their inspiration from ‘the regimented order of grand Victorian museology’. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Black Presence in England and Wales after the Abolition Act, 1807-1930

The Black Presence in England and Wales after the Abolition Act, 1807-1930⋆ Caroline Bressey (bio) 1. Black Historical Geographies The black people who oversaw the 'era of abolition' were diverse and the majority probably lived their lives as ordinary members of the working class. This essay aims to give an overview of some of the people who were a part of the continuous black presence in England and Wales during the 'era of abolition', throughout the long nineteenth century and into the last century. The essay ends with the formation of the League of Coloured People in 1930. The League sought to fight increasingly overt racism in Britain, realized especially through the entrenchment of the colour bar which impacted upon the lives of black people from the Edwardian era until well beyond the Windrush era. As Kathy Chater has illustrated in her paper for this volume, the ethnic origins of black people was not regularly recorded in official documents in Britain during the era of slavery. This pattern continued into the nineteenth century, and included the national census when it was introduced, and thus it is equally difficult to determine how large the black population in Britain was during this period. However, it seems that many historians have taken this absence of statistics of the black presence to mean an absence of black people themselves. Kenneth Little acknowledged that if the evidence of late nineteenth-century commentators was to be believed then by the 1870s the black man or woman had virtually disappeared except for crossing sweepers and an occasional black bishop.1 Peter Ackroyd's London biography confirmed this as their presence was accorded only ten lines (although this amounts to a paragraph which is ten lines longer than many other publications). The final sentence of that paragraph tells us that, in the nineteenth century black people 'rarely appear in novels or narratives, except as occasional grotesques, and their general fate seems to have been one of settlement among the urban poor'.2 As Jan Marsh's recent exhibition of black figures in visual culture between 1800 and 1900 illustrated, there are other mediums which can give us alternative references [End Page 224] to the black presence. These include images such as 'Victorian "crowd scenes" which characteristically include at least one black figure, in conscious tribute to urban diversity'.3 More ordinary characters have been revealed in studies such as Ian Duffield's research taken from the archive offices of New South Wales and Australia, among which he found 195 black men and six women, including Charlotte Claydon. An unmarried single parent, Claydon stole £6 in Bethnal Green and arrived in Sydney in 1837.4 In my own research I have used institutions with photographic archives as a means of accessing the archives of black people which led me to investigate the black presence in prisons, hospitals and children's homes. Others like Duffield have found similar records fruitful as occasionally the colour of a man or woman's skin is included in a description which accompanies their details. From such archives we know that William Cross Wasdon, a 'man of colour' who was a hawker in Exeter came into contact with the law for 'playing an unlawful game with 3 Thimbles and a Ball' when he was aged 19 in August 1823.5 However, the numbers of the nineteenth century's black working classes who avoided contact with the state because of poverty, illness or crime, are difficult to estimate and very difficult to calculate. They are to be found, as Chater has pointed out, in wills, baptism and other Church records, and newspapers. From such sources the presence of John Day in St Sidwells, Devon comes to light. A 'man of colour', he was a shopkeeper and known in his local neighbourhood as a waiter at dinner and evening parties. We only know about him because the Western Times reported his death in 1837.6 We know one young man was educated at the Gloucester British School in 1845, but his presence is highlighted because he was teased and had tricks played on him. Action was taken, offering rewards to boys who would give information on...

The Catholic London District in the Eighteenth Century

The London of Challoner consisted only of some seven square miles, one square mile of which was, of course, the City of London. It can all be put onto some eight pages of the present A–Z map of London, which at the time of writing consists of 141 pages. John Rocques's map of London, on a scale of 200 feet to the inch, which he began in 1738 and finished in 1747, in its London Topographical Society format of 1982, perfectly illustrates the London of both Challoner and Defoe. The western extremities were at Marylebone, Knightsbridge and Chelsea, the eastern at Stepney, Limehouse and Deptford, the northern at Tottenham Court and Bethnal Green, while the southern limits were at Kennington and Walworth Common. The population of London was assessed by Wrigley in 1990 as c. 575,000 in 1700, as c. 675,000 in 1750 and as c. 959,000 in 1801. The 1767 papist returns indicated that most London Catholics lived in the parishes of St James and St Giles, within Westminster. Schwarz has pointed out the considerable social segregation in London, middle-class areas being in the west and central parts, with the poorer areas in the south and east. The St Giles area around Seven Dials going east to Bow Street and Drury Lane is reputed to have contained a third of the capital's beggars and to have been a notoriously criminal quarter. The Catholic numbers in Westminster were 7,724, the City numbers 1,492, with the Middlesex out-parishes having more than 2,000. The 1767 total for London, including the parishes to the south and east, comes to 12,320, clearly too low, as is the accumulated total for the London District of around 15,800. This gives about 3,500 for the London District outside the capital while Challoner's own figures give us a Catholic population of 5,261. If the errors in enumeration were the same in both areas (a large assumption), this enables us to guess that the 1767 figures could be corrected to about 18,500 London Catholics and about 24,000 for the whole District.

From tenements to flats: gender, class and ‘modernization’ in Bethnal Green Estate

This paper examines the relationship between domestic architecture, spatial memory and the construction of subjectivities through an in-depth study of the modernization of Bethnal Green Estate. It illustrates how the architecture of Bethnal Green Estate was the site of powerful discourses of gender, family and community, which shaped the nature of participants' relationship with its architecture. Situating architecture within the material culture that we produce, consume and interact with, this study indicates how the participants constructed the nature of difference between the architecture of kitchens, front rooms and communal areas in the Estate as illustrative of gender, ethnic and generational difference. The ‘spatial loss’ of memories of tenement living experienced by elderly participants also implied a dichotomous relationship between a ‘nostalgic’ past and a ‘modernized’ present. In designing certain spaces within the estate, some participants formed an ambiguous relationship with its architecture, perceiving this relationship to be negative or positive at different times and in different contexts. This paper concludes that in critiquing and reshaping the modernized architecture, the tenants did not just challenge the ‘conceived’ spaces of the architects but also the ‘lived’ spaces of their own making. De l'habitation collective à l'appartement: le genre, la classe et la «modernisation» au complexe résidentiel Bethnal Green Estate À partir d'une étude en profondeur sur la modernisation au Bethnal Green Estate, cet article explore la relation entre l'architecture résidentielle, la mémoire spatiale et la construction de subjectivités. Il démontre comment l'architecture du Bethnal Green Estate a été le lieu de grands discours sur le genre, la famille et la communauté qui ont façonné le type de relation qu'entretenaient les participants avec son architecture. En situant l'architecture dans le cadre de la culture matérielle que nous produisons, consommons et avec laquelle nous interagissons, cette étude révèle comment les participants ont déterminé en quoi consiste la nature de la différence entre l'architecture des cuisines, des halls d'entrée, et des espaces collectifs propres au complexe résidentiel. Ces exemples servent à illustrer les besoins liés à l'appartenance sexuelle, ethnique ou générationnelle. La «perte spatiale» de souvenirs des participants âgés sur leur expérience vécue dans une habitation collective laisse sous-entendre également un rapport dichotomique entre un passé «nostalgique» et un présent «modernisé». Ayant conçu certains espaces du complexe résidentiel, un nombre de participants ont développé un rapport ambigu avec son architecture et perçoivent que ce rapport est négatif ou positif selon l'époque et le contexte. En conclusion, la critique et la transformation de l'architecture de style moderne a permis aux locataires non seulement de remettre en cause les espaces «conçus» des architectes, mais également les espaces «vécus» dont ils sont eux-mêmes responsables. architecture domestique, souvenir, genre, subjectivités, logement social. De ‘casas de vecinos’ (tenements) a apartamentos: género, clase y ‘modernización’ en el complejo urbanístico de Bethnal Green Este papel examina las relaciones entre arquitectura doméstica, memoria espacial y la construcción de subjetividades mediante un estudio exhaustivo de la modernización del complejo urbanístico de Bethnal Green. Ilustra como la arquitectura de Bethnal Green causó fuertes discursos sobre género, familia y comunidad, los cuales moldearon la relación que tenían los participantes con la arquitectura. Ubicando la arquitectura dentro de la cultura materialista que producimos y consumimos y con la que interactuamos, este estudio indica como los participantes construyeron diferencia entre la arquitectura de cocinas, salas de estar, y áreas comunitarias en el complejo, según las necesidades de su género, grupo étnico y generación. La ‘pérdida espacial’ de memorias de la vida en ‘casa de vecinos’ que los participantes mayores experimentaron implica una relación dicótoma entre un pasado ‘nostálgico’ y un presente ‘modernizado’. Al diseñar ciertos espacios dentro del complejo, algunos participantes formaron una relación ambígua con su arquitectura, la cual veían o de modo positivo o de modo negativo según el momento y el contexto. El papel concluye por decir que, al criticar y remoldear la arquitectura modernizada, los inquilinos del complejo no sólo cuestionaron los espacios ‘concebidos’ de los arquitectos, sino también los espacios ‘vividos’ de su propia creación. arquitectura doméstica, memoria, género, subjetividades, viviendas sociales.

Corresponding with George A. Fox

Corresponding with George A. Fox Arthur O. Roberts* The historical setting Unlike the 17th century leader of the Quaker awakening, a modern era namesake is relatively unknown to contemporary Friends. George A. Fox was a Quaker leader in evangelistic outreach to English villages during early decades ofthe 20th century; but his ministry is minimally heralded. There is no reference to him, for example, in Elfrida Vipont's The Story of Quakerism (Friends United Press, 1977, 3rd edition), or in the recent Historical Dictionary of The Friends /ed. Margery Post Abbott et al, Scarecrow, 2003), although I proposed inclusion. George A. Fox participated in and gave significant leadership for over fifty years to renewal and outreach ministries during the evangelical era in Britain, especially through the Friends Evangelistic Band. Did the significant theological shift from evangelicalism to liberalism among British Friends, signaledbythe Manchester Conference of 1895, diminish a perceived significance of this leadership ? Or was it the case, rather, that ecumenical inclusiveness of the movement obscured its roots in Quaker concern and leadership? Perhaps both are credible hypotheses, and not mutually exclusive. As a graduate student in the 1950s researching Quaker history and thought, I had corresponded with George A. Fox. Upon reviewing that correspondence recently I decided to learn more about this Friend and his work. Responding to inquiry, Josef Keith, ofthe Quaker Library at Friends House, graciously sent data and clippings from its "Dictionary of Biography " files.1 These included a summary of Fox's ministry, as follows (slightly abridged): George Alexander Fox was born at Falmouth in the year 1 876 the son of Nathaniel and Evelyn [Elizabeth?] Cox Fox. In his late teens he felt a call to religious service in whatsoever way it might open; he studied as a chemist in London and also helped Howard and Louisa Nicholson at Harts Lane Mission in Bethnal Green. In 1902 he married their daughter Marion. He adjusted his business claims to give him time to devote to evangelistic work and eventually became secretary of the Friends Prayer League. He served the League for nine years, arranging conferences and holding special meetings in England and Ireland until the League changed its name to the * Arthur O. Roberts, professor-at-large at George Fox University, and recorded Friends' minister, is the author of numerous books and articles, some on Quaker topics, including Tomorrow is Growing Old: the story ofQuakers in Alaska, and (with Hugh Barbour) Early Quaker Writings. 2006 publication include a new edition of Messengers ofGod: the Sensuous Side ofSpirituality, and a collection of sermons, The Sacred Ordinary. Arthur and his wife, Fern, live in Newberg, Oregon. Corresponding with George A. Fox35 Friends Evangelistic Band, with headquarters in Colchester. The Band carried out interdenominational evangelistic work in the neighbouring villages and when the Friends meeting in Colchester was moved to smaller premises the Band eventually settled in Kelvedon. For all this time he was its leader. He also served for a time on Meeting for Sufferings. He died on June 14, 1965, aged 88. To flesh out this briefbiographical sketch I drew upon Fox's own book, Some ofHis Ways, letters from persons responding to my inquiry letter printed in The Friend, 24 June 2005, including Janna Kirkby who sent her book, The Two Oceans, which contains a helpful chapter, and from a published account ofFox and the movement graciouslyprovided by author Bessie Bryers, entitled To Them That Obey.2 George A. Fox was born December 18, 1876 into a devout and happy Quaker family (he was one ofeleven children) living inFalmouth atthe edge ofthe harbour. Fox recalls how his mother, Elizabeth, "understood how to make the things of God spiritual food." In his later years he recalls "as thoughitwere lastnight"how, whenhewas seven, she "ledhimto the Lord." He recalls the Christian example ofhis merchant father, Nathaniel, and how at Quaker meetings for worship in the living silence he learned "to feel the presence and promptings of the Holy Spirit."3 As the age of sixteen or seventeen he experienced an empowering, life changing baptism with the Holy Spirit, described more fully below, which launched him into life-long Christian ministry. In 1902 George married Marion Louise Nicholson, "a...

Alkaptonuria: a 60-yr follow-up

In 1901, Sir Archibald Edward Garrod made the seminal observation on the inheritance of the inborn errors of metabolism [1, 2]. He described a newborn infant whose urine darkened in its napkin on exposure to air and contained homogentisic acid [2]. The infant was born to apparently normal consanguineous (first cousins) parents and was their fifth child. An older sibling (Thomas P) had previously been shown by Garrod to have alkaptonuria. At that time the inheritance of alkaptonuria and other metabolic conditions was not understood. Garrod was aware that the mother of Thomas P was pregnant and made arrangements to carefully observe all the napkins. The infant was born on 1 March 1901 and the typical dark staining was not observed until the third day, when breast feeding and therefore protein intake had been established. Garrod deduced that the occurrence of two siblings with alkaptonuria and consanguineous parents suggested an inherited cause. He was aware of one similar family and that there were no recorded instances of alkaptonuria occurring in two generations of the same family. In 1901, Garrod was not fully aware of Mendel’s work on the genetics of peas. However, by the end of 1902 following correspondence with the botanist and geneticist William Bateson he was able to conclude that ‘ ... there seems to be little room for doubt that the peculiarities of the incidence of alkaptonuria and of conditions which appear in a similar way are best explained by supposing that, leaving aside exceptional cases in which the character usually recessive assumes dominance, a peculiarity of the gametes of both parents is necessary for its production’ [3]. The occurrence of a normally recessive disorder in successive generations would now be termed pseudodominance due to one parent being a homozygote and the other being a heterozygote and therefore clinically silent. Alkaptonuria (Mendelian Inheritance in Man number 203500) is an inherited disorder of aromatic amino acid metabolism in which homogentisic acid (2,5-dihydroxyphenalacetic acid) accumulates behind the metabolic block [deficiency of homogentisate 1,2-dioxygenase (HGO)] and is excreted in the urine. The urine is of normal colour when passed but rapidly darkens to jet black on exposure to atmospheric oxygen or other oxidative conditions. The abnormality may be noticed when a child’s napkins are noted to darken when urine gets stained, but occasionally passes unnoticed until the patient presents in middle or late life with back pain due to spinal ochronotic spondylosis and the characteristically densely calcified intervertebral discs with relatively few other symptoms of degenerative arthritis. Only a small proportion of the homogentisic acid formed endogenously is retained in the body because of its high renal clearance; that which gets retained is oxidized to benzoquinone acetic acid under the influence of polyphenol oxidase, and polymerizes to form a macromolecule that damages and blackens connective tissues including cartilage. The black inelastic cartilage is visible in the auricles (Figs 1 and 2). The pigmentation is called ochronosis because although grey-black grossly, it is ochre microscopically. Generally the pigmentation does not appear until 20–30 yrs of age [4]. The typical radiographic appearances of ochronotic spondyloarthropathy are typical wafer like calcifications in the intervertebral discs, with narrowing of disc spaces and osteoporotic rarefraction of the vertebral bodies [4] as shown in Fig. 3. The term alkapton and hence alkaptonuria contains Greek and Arabic roots and is intended to denote the substance’s rapid absorption of oxygen when exposed to either alkali or room air. In 1958, one of us saw a Mr AP with alkaptonuria and the story circulated that he was the same infant described in Garrod’s seminal paper in 1901. This is confirmed by a search of the 1901 census in which a family with the surname P and with a structure corresponding to that described by Garrod resided in Bethnal Green. Figures 1 and 2 show the characteristic pigmentation in the conjunctiva and auricular of AP taken in 1958 and 1960,

The Same, but Different: why Scotland?

Forty years ago last autumn I became a sociologist. I went to Aberdeen in October 1965 to do English Lit, was persuaded into sociology 1 as an outside subject because history was 'full', and was immediately hooked* Though I didn't graduate for another 4 years, I saw the world through sociological eyes. I was lucky that sociology at Aberdeen was in its infancy; indeed, it was the 2 n d department in Scotland after Edinburgh which began undergraduate courses in 1964. Others came later. Sociology, however, was largely in Scotland but not of it. As an undergraduate, I learned a lot about families in Bethnal Green, and gangs in Chicago, but virtually nothing about my own country. This was of course the era of *us-too' sociology, in the sense that modernisation theory was supreme, asserting that social change was a linear process though which all 'industrial' societies travelled. (Later on, we had a phase of 'not-us' sociology which tried to convince that Scotland was some kind of colony of England, that it was systematically and deliberately 'under­ developed', in the language of the day, but that didn't wash either.) That left of course a myriad of cases that did not fit the general theory, and inordinate effort went into showing that they were 'backward', unwilling to follow future pathways, or simply charmingly deviant and exotic cases which proved the rule. Scotland was probably seen as a bit of both, insofar as it was seen at all.

Migrants to Citizens

The “East End” of London is one of the most studied parts of the United Kingdom. The research discussed here took place in the 1990s in the present borough of Tower Hamlets, which was formed from the three old boroughs of Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar, three of the “hamlets” just beyond the walls of the old City of London and near the “Tower” of London. From the nineteenth century, novelists (Morrison, 1896), social reformers (Booth, 1902) and, later, sociologists and commentators (for ex...

:The Politics of the Poor: The East End of London, 1885–1914.(Oxford Historical Monographs.)

The most influential interpretations of English working‐class history in the industrial era between 1780 and 1945 have their roots in detailed local studies. Marc Brodie's subtle and thoughtful book critically examines one of the longest‐lasting myths in this literature: that the working classes of London's East End were antipathetic to progressive and socialist politics in the three decades before World War I and were consistent Conservative Party supporters. This long‐established view, voiced by Henry Pelling and made famous in Gareth Stedman Jones's argument that the English working class was remade between 1870 and 1914 around a consumerist and politically quiescent ethic, has never before been subject to sustained Scholarly examination. Brodie is therefore to be applauded for writing an engaging and generally convincing account of political alignments in Stepney, Poplar, Bethnal Green, and Shoreditch during these crucial years. Brodie's argument has several components. He first disputes the established view that the Trafalgar Square riots of 1886 were the work of unemployed casual laborers, and he goes on to argue that the docking labor force was actually fairly regularly employed. Second, using a careful study of the similarity between the census returns and the electoral register, he shows that the laborers and unskilled were only marginally underrepresented electorally: fifty percent of household voters and forty‐five percent of lodger voters were laborers or artisans, compared to fifty‐three percent of the adult male population who fell into these categories. However, those who were enfranchised were the most securely employed, and hence electoral conservatism cannot be attributed to the votes of the marginalized and unemployed. In Brodie's third chapter, in my view his most original and insightful, he contests the view that East Londoners were politically apathetic. He subtly points to the value of personal independence evident in working‐class culture and indicates their skepticism toward aristocratic and elite values. He goes on to argue that the success of the Conservatives in this part of London was by no means unambiguous, since it was unchallenged in only four of the area's eleven seats. In the poorest constituencies, the Tories did not predominate, and Tory success rested upon the abstention, rather than keen support, of workers. There was no straightforward Tory majority among the working class. After this fine chapter, the two final chapters peter out somewhat, since they focus on rather more specialized, though undoubtedly important, issues. Chapter four examines the role of religion, which Brodie thinks is considerable, and chapter five conducts a critical debunking of the widely held view that costermongers were a bastion of political reaction.

From Herbert Morrison to Command and Control: the Decline of Local Democracy and its Effect on Public Services

In a dark corridor on the first floor of Hackney Town Hall you can see photographic portraits of the Borough's Mayors in dignified procession round the walls. The new Borough Council's first Mayor was elected by councillors in 1900 and for the next two decades the robed figures are recognizably Victorian in appearance: grey-headed, heavy-jowled, compla cent, stolid. Then, with a shock, you come upon an entirely different character. He's young. He leans eagerly towards the camera, his blind eye turned slightly to one side. He has a self-confident smile about his mouth and a startling quiff of jet-black hair shooting up from his forehead announces energy and action for all to see. This was Herbert Morrison, Labour Mayor of Hackney in 1920: his party, swept to power in a landslide victory the year before that, began a new age in London's local politics. His fellow Labour Mayors in London included Major Clement Attlee in Stepney and George Lansbury in Poplar. Over the next few years Morrison would personify Labour local politics in London, and from 1934 London local government itself. In the press he was 'Mr London'. His was a distinctively 'new' Labour, consciously distanced from the adversarial politics of Lansbury in Poplar and communist-influenced parties in Bethnal Green and elsewhere. Morrison was sensibleness personified -~ pragmatic and diplomatic in his dealings with government, but of huge ambition for his party and his people, the Londoners. As Leader of the London County Council (LCC) from 1934, Morrison was at his desk in County Hall when the bombs began to fall. Churchill brought him into the war cabinet as Home Secretary because of the trust Londoners placed in him at a time when the morale of the capital's bombed population seemed close to mutinous breaking point. As Morrison visited the bomb sites he was greeted by shouts of 'Good Old 'Erb'. It might be useful to remind ourselves, sixty or seventy years on, just what sort of local government Morrison and his fellow council leaders represented and reigned over in the thirties and forties - in that brief

A mad house transformed: the lives and work of Charles James Beverly FRS (1788–1868) and John Warburton MD FRS (1795–1847)

Bethnal Green Asylum was the most notorious of the scandalous early nineteenth-century private madhouses exposed in two parliamentary Select Committees of 1815/16 and 1827. From being vilified as the worst asylum in the country, this huge and important institution was transformed over 15 years into one of the best by two determined men, both Fellows of The Royal Society, John Warburton MD, the proprietor, and Charles James Beverly, the medical superintendent, former naval surgeon, naturalist and Arctic explorer. This paper describes their hitherto unrecorded biographies.

Botulinum toxin and its applications in the lower urinary tract.

BJU InternationalVolume 93, Issue 6 p. 702-706 Botulinum toxin and its applications in the lower urinary tract M. Harper, M. Harper Department of Uro-Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, andSearch for more papers by this authorC.J. Fowler, C.J. Fowler Department of Uro-Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, andSearch for more papers by this authorP. Dasgupta, P. Dasgupta Guy's and St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UKSearch for more papers by this author M. Harper, M. Harper Department of Uro-Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, andSearch for more papers by this authorC.J. Fowler, C.J. Fowler Department of Uro-Neurology, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, andSearch for more papers by this authorP. Dasgupta, P. Dasgupta Guy's and St Thomas’ Hospital, London, UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 March 2004 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2003.04714.xCitations: 41 M. Harper, Flat 411 City View House, 463 Bethnal Green Road, London E2 9QY, UK. e-mail: [email protected] Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume93, Issue6April 2004Pages 702-706 RelatedInformation