London Suburb Research Articles

Ali Smith’s There But For The: Identity, Hospitality and Transcendence in the Age of Surveillance

Abstract The aim of this essay is to prove that, throughout Ali Smith’s There But For The (2011), the “narrative” subjective identity (Alphen 83) accessed via the face-to-face relation (Levinas and Hand 42), as well as through storytelling itself, is liable to be turned into archivable information under the pressures of a surveillance state in which its citizens are complicit. I will use this archival/narrative identity dyad as articulated by theorist Ernst van Alphen in order to investigate at length the novel’s staging of hospitality as corrupted by surveillance. I will oppose the notion of identity as information against Emmanuel Levinas’s conception of the face-to-face relation (Levinas and Hand 42), whereby true hospitality depends upon the mutual respect one person has for the absolute singularity of the other, which involves personal information and the right to privacy. As it will become apparent, these identities lose or gain agency according to the engagement of the self with a newly arrived foreign alterity. Thus, the arrival of strangers throughout Smith’s novel thematizes the scenario of hospitality in tension with the stranger as surveyor or as surveyed. The doubling of language, the self-editing of one’s discourse and the risky openness towards the Other are modes of resistance that eschew the artificial categorizations upon which the archival identity is contingent. However, the bridge from interiority to exteriority is mediation. Smith therefore develops a conception of secularized Grace that works by exploring the revolutionary potential of this very mediation and can disrupt the logic of tyrannical surveillance. Part of this approach to history and language is informed by the witnessing of the traces left on the bodies of martyrized dissidents by unjust systems at their apex. There But For The is narrated by four characters in the mediatic aftermath of a bourgeois dinner party in an affluent suburb of London that witnessed the sudden and unexplainable reclusion of Miles Garth into the spare room of his stunned hosts. The event, as well as those leading up to and following it, is recounted by a grieving nature photographer in his sixties named Mark; May, a rebellious old woman suffering from dementia; an unemployed, middle-aged Anna; and Brooke, a ten-year old girl and voracious reader. The essay will approach these characters’ meditations upon the nature of identity as split between its narrative and archival forms.

‘…And how did that make you feel?’ - GP trainees’ perceptions of Balint on a local UK vocational training scheme

ABSTRACT Balint allows colleagues to explore emotions generated from doctor-patient interactions, complexities sometimes overlooked within traditional curricula. With an increasing burnout rate, evidence-based strategies to support trainee general practitioners (GPs) are needed and we investigated if Balint could be one way to improve this. There are no recent studies looking at Balint in UK GP training. Our aim was to establish GP trainees’ understanding of the purpose of Balint and perceived advantages and disadvantages. Qualitative methodology was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with trainees and alumni participating in Balint within a suburban London Vocational Training Scheme. Emergent coding was performed and a phenomenological approach taken to thematic analysis. Eleven participants took part in the study. Balint provided a supportive, confidential outlet to help normalise trainees’ feelings after challenging doctor-patient interactions. Multiple viewpoints, the chance to vent and a sense of comradery was unanimously enjoyed. Participants could see potential benefits for delivery of care, patient safety and remaining up-to-date. There was debate over inclusion of clinical management, and variation in preferred facilitation styles. Disparity in Balint contribution was attributed to differing personalities and confidence levels. With the growing demands of general practice, a flexible approach to Balint facilitation could add value in training by providing a peer platform to help address the hidden curriculum.

Fostering social capital: the case of community-owned pubs

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the relationship between community-owned enterprises and social capital in urban neighbourhoods. Focussing on community-owned pubs (COPs), the paper investigates how social capital elements have a role in generating these innovative organizations, which foster benefits for community members.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research based on data gathered through 23 semi-structured interviews, in an in-depth case study analysis of three COPs located in Carshalton, Nunhead and Tottenham (all suburbs of London).FindingsThe paper shows how COPs foster the creation and accumulation of social capital both among their members (bonding capital) and the people living in the neighbourhood (bridging capital). Because of their missions and governance models, COPs create linkages among different people and enable citizens to act together for the common good, thus strengthening the development of a local community and contributing to enhancing the urban regeneration process.Originality/valueCOPs are a recent trend, and there is a lack of scientific literature on this topic. The paper can help social scientists to understand new features of community development processes and the effects of the Localism Act (2011). Furthermore, the research can support organizations involved in assisting local communities, which aim to start up collective-owned pubs. It provides valuable scientific results, in relation to social aggregation and a positive impact on local contexts.

Reymont's The Vampire: the beginning of infernal doom

In The Vampire Reymont presents London as the imperial city falling into decline, where Polish immigrants, who lack identity, wander timelessly. It is also a place where a mercantile society is immersed in a reality dominated by technological development. Reymont's novel allows us to analyse the space of London at the end of the 19th century, and the human fate which is determined by this space. In my paper I would like to focus on the analysis of the city space,including the division into centre and suburbs of London, and losing the way in a maze (a maze of streets and a maze of subconsciousness of the main characters), the consequences of abandoning sacrum, entropy, and the crisis of family and art. The interesting vision of London created by Reymont gives us answers to a few important questions. Do the Polish immigrants find themselves in a new reality? How does the experience of a modern city affect people's lives? Why cannot contemporary man find his place in the surrounding world?

Katherine Mansfield and Periodical Culture by Chris Mourant

MLR, .,   carefully curated experience. Denisoff’s book is driven by the contention that while ‘[Machen’s] pieces circulated in the gyre of British Decadent culture’, his was an ‘innovative form of Decadence’ rooted in Machen’s fascination with pagan spirituality (dating back to his childhood in rural Wales) and unique exposure to occult literature (p. ). e plentiful annotations painstakingly guide the reader through the range of Machen’s (literary) reference, showing how the idiosyncrasies of his experience find expression in the Decadent aesthetics of his writing. is apparatus is usefully reinforced by a ‘Decadent Chronology of Machen’s Life’, selections from the non-fiction, and a critical contexts section—materials which illuminate Denisoff’s claims and make the volume a valuable teaching edition. Among the fiction, the volume contains tales (such as ‘e Lost Club’) which reveal the influence of Wilde and Stevenson, and at its core are the two novellas—e Great God Pan () and the Hill of Dreams ()—both produced, as Denisoff explains, ‘during his most Decadent period of writing’ (p. ). Interestingly, though, Denisoff accommodates both the  story ‘e Bowmen’ (a work of fabulation based around the battle of Mons) and ‘Ritual’ (a  tale about a tribal ritual enacted in a contemporary London suburb) within the remit of his volume. In doing so, Denisoff sensitively describes an engagement with Decadence which (through a series of disavowals and abiding preoccupations) survives beyond its high cultural moment in the s. It is this inclination to open up the parameters of Decadence, along with its success in adding considerable depth to our understanding of a popularly neglected fin-de-siècle writer, that locates Decadent and Occult Works squarely within Kaye’s definition of the ‘third wave’. T U J F Katherine Mansfield and Periodical Culture. By C M. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. . x+ pp. £. ISBN ––––. Katherine Mansfield spent her entire career, first and foremost, as a writer for periodicals. Book publications came second, and were, almost without exception, comprised of previously published periodical material. It is fitting, therefore, that she be considered as a ‘magazine modernist’ (p. ), and surprising that Chris Mourant’s Katherine Mansfield and Periodical Culture is the first to take up her development as a writer with a detailed focus on how she navigated the networks of production and exploited the particularities of the periodical medium. Within this context, Mourant is also concerned with issues of gender and national identity. e monograph therefore provides a complex consideration of Mansfield. We see her not simply as a magazine writer, but as a colonial woman magazine writer in a male-dominated literary field in the metropolitan heart of empire. e book is structured chronologically, with each chapter covering a specific periodical . e Introduction usefully and thoroughly situates the monograph within the relevant scholarly contexts, while also providing an overview of Mansfield’s New Zealand juvenilia. Chapter , focused on e New Age, offers productive reassessments of Mansfield’s feminist politics and aesthetics within broader national and  Reviews cultural contexts. Mourant undertakes a substantial consideration of Beatrice Hastings ’s writings for the journal as a comparative frame through which to consider what he identifies as Mansfield’s ‘renegade feminism’ (p. ), a radical individualist form that sat in opposition to the suffrage-inflected feminism. In the second chapter Mourant shows how Mansfield used the periodical space and networks of Rhythm magazine as a means to explore cultural difference through contributions that critique nationalist, colonial, and gendered perspectives. Chapter  covers Mansfield’s much-overlooked body of critical writings that defined the core of her work for the Athenaeum. Mourant argues that Mansfield used book reviewing to contribute to a broader ‘new word/new world’ discourse that was informing emerging theories of literary modernism. In a particularly rich section of this chapter, Mourant explores the affinities between Mansfield and Woolf and the dialogic nature of the development of their aesthetic ideas. A final short chapter considers her posthumous publications in the Adelphi, which served as a means for J. M. Murry to fashion an idealized image of her, one which smoothed over her...

Hierarchies, scale, and privilege in the reproduction of national belonging

It is increasingly recognised both that belonging divides hierarchically and that people have different capacities to be seen as belonging. However, while the existence of hierarchies of belonging is well documented from the perspective of ethnically minoritised and migrant groups, what characterises, produces, and underpins these hierarchies is largely unaddressed, as is a geographically informed analysis of their reproduction. This paper, based on interviews with white British people in the suburbs of London, takes a novel approach, examining the reproduction of national belonging among people for whom such belonging is relatively privileged. The paper identifies three constructions of national belonging within white British narratives – “belonging in Britain,” “belonging to Britain,” and “being of Britain” – and argues that, although not always recognised as such, the three constructions are hierarchical in their differing temporalities and connections to whiteness. The elucidation of these different belongings and, crucially, the recognition of their hierarchisation and scalar reproduction, represent major contributions to research on belonging, and also help to explain the exclusion from a full sense of national belonging articulated by British people of colour.

The dis/comfort of white British nationhood: encounters, otherness and postcolonial continuities

ABSTRACT Recent work on the affective dimensions of nationhood, identity and belonging has often overlooked discomfort in favour of positive experiences of sameness and security. Contrary to this tendency, this paper, based on interview narratives produced with white British middle-class people in the suburbs of London, examines the role of discomfort in experiences of nationhood, as well as the nature and meaning of that discomfort. In the first part of the paper, I demonstrate how nationhood becomes in and through uncomfortable encounters with other people, places and objects. Then, in the second part, I show how, for some, the experience of becoming national in encounters with the ‘other’ is itself experienced uncomfortably in the context of a postcolonial Britain where people are expected to ‘love themselves as different’. On the one hand, the paper challenges the idea of privileged national belonging as wholly comfortable. Yet, the analysis also exposes the relative comfort of white British people’s nationhood. The paper offers important insight into the uneven and hierarchical nature of contemporary nationhood and highlights the value of attending to the entanglement of comfort and discomfort in work on affective nationalism.

Avian malaria-mediated population decline of a widespread iconic bird species.

Parasites have the capacity to affect animal populations by modifying host survival, and it is increasingly recognized that infectious disease can negatively impact biodiversity. Populations of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) have declined in many European towns and cities, but the causes of these declines remain unclear. We investigated associations between parasite infection and house sparrow demography across suburban London where sparrow abundance has declined by 71% since 1995. Plasmodium relictum infection was found at higher prevalences (averaging 74%) in suburban London house sparrows than previously recorded in any wild bird population in Northern Europe. Survival rates of juvenile and adult sparrows and population growth rate were negatively related to Plasmodium relictum infection intensity. Other parasites were much less prevalent and exhibited no relationship with sparrow survival and no negative relationship with population growth. Low rates of co-infection suggested sparrows were not immunocompromised. Our findings indicate that P. relictum infection may be influencing house sparrow population dynamics in suburban areas. The demographic sensitivity of the house sparrow to P. relictum infection in London might reflect a recent increase in exposure to this parasite.

It's cold out there

Companion AnimalVol. 24, No. 2 EditorialFree AccessIt's cold out thereDebra BourneDebra BourneSearch for more papers by this authorDebra BournePublished Online:6 Feb 2019https://doi.org/10.12968/coan.2019.24.2.65AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail The UK has a temperate climate — moderate, without the extreme heat or extreme cold experienced in many parts of the world. Despite that, we need to adapt our behaviour, clothing and local environment for improved comfort both in summer and in winter. This winter so far has been generally mild, but I cycled home through sleet yesterday evening and have needed to break the ice for the birds in my back garden (and remove the broken ice) several times recently — and that's in the London suburbs. Further periods of freezing weather, and snow in some areas, are forecast for the coming weeks.In the summer, the ‘Dogs Die in Hot Cars’ campaign was important to reduce the number of pets (mainly dogs) left alone in cars for ‘a few minutes’ — sufficient time to result in heatstroke. At this time of the year, it is important for owners to make sure that their pets are sufficiently protected from cold and wet (or snowy) conditions.It is particularly important to ensure that pets kept outdoors — whether cats, dogs, rabbits or other species — have adequate shelter and protection from cold temperatures, wind and precipitation At the same time, ventilation must be considered — outdoor bunnies provided with good insulation inside and/or outside their hutch still need to breathe! Additionally, owners may need to be reminded that water bowls and sipper bottles can freeze: water sources should be checked carefully at least twice a day in freezing weather and defrosted as necessary — remembering that simply breaking the ice is not enough, as it can re-freeze quickly. Food needs are also increased for all species in cold weather.For cats that live partly outdoors, a cat flap is highly beneficial to make sure cats can get indoors (but should be checked in case it has become stuck or blocked). An insulated cat kennel with blankets and perhaps a pet-safe microwaveable heat pad is a good back-up for indoor-outdoor cats and highly recommended if caring for a cat that lives mainly or totally outside. For dogs, care should be taken around ice-covered lakes, rivers etc. to avoid their going out onto the ice and falling in, and after walks, snow clumps, grit and salt should be removed from fur and feet.This is also the season to remind people of the hazard to their pets caused by antifreeze (Bates, 2016) and remind them to keep their antifreeze out of the reach of pets.Why am I telling you this, when I'm sure you are all familiar with this information? Unfortunately, every winter hypothermic pets, and animals with ethylene glucol poisoning, are presented to veterinary practices, so there is still a need to educate the pet-owning public on these matters, and we all need to think how best we can do that. Excellent advice on protecting pets from winter hazards is available from organisations such as the RSPCA, PDSA, Cats Protection, Dogs Trust and The Mayhew, so consider how to direct owners to these information sources, whether using your notice board, waiting room screens, leaflet racks and/or practice website, and make sure that information is available both electronically and in print.Finally, veterinary practices can do their bit for local wild birds in this weather by providing appropriate food and particularly by making sure that they have ice-free water available daily. References Bates N. Ethylene glycol poisoning. UK-Vet Companion Animal. 2016: 21(2):95–99. doi:https://doi.org/10.12968/coan.2016.21.2.95 Link, Google Scholar FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails 2 February 2019Volume 24Issue 2ISSN (print): 2053-0889ISSN (online): 2053-0897 Metrics History Published online 6 February 2019 Published in print 2 February 2019 Information© MA Healthcare LimitedPDF download

From the Tuileries to Twickenham: The Orléans, Exile and Anglo-French Liberalism, c.1848–1880

Abstract Between the 1848 Revolution and the Franco-Prussian War, the Orléans dynasty relocated to the suburbs of London. For the Orléans as for the Bourbons and the Bonapartes, exile was a fundamental aspect of nineteenth-century royalism. Deprived of the French throne, Louis-Philippe’s heirs nonetheless remained highly engaged with the political culture of Victorian Britain and the British Empire. Studying the interactions between the Orléans and their British hosts challenges existing narratives about the stagnation and decline of the Orleanist cause after 1848 as well as the divergence between French and English variants of liberalism. Taking as its focus Henri, duc d’Aumale, and his nephew Philippe, comte de Paris, this article charts the family’s evolving ambitions, divided between building a new home in Britain, and keeping the prospects open for a possible restoration in Paris. The Orléans engagement with Britain is traced through several channels. Firstly, through their participation in British elite sociability, thanks to their devoted champion and neighbour in Twickenham, Frances, Countess Waldegrave. This London hostess played a central role in facilitating the family’s interests and favourable press coverage. Secondly, through the Orléans’ engagement with global politics in the mid-nineteenth century, in which British perspectives helped to reshape their own vision of France’s imperial future. Thirdly, through their exploration of British parliamentary debates and the problems of industrial society. Far from simply prolonging the vision of the July monarchy, this article suggests that the Orléans’ engagement with questions of mass politics was more dynamic and extensive than previously believed. Although the revised and vicarious vision of liberalism formulated by the Orléans during the London exile was never applied after the family returned to France in 1870–71, it continued to inform and constrain the subsequent development of French monarchist politics.

Ethnic and Religious Diversity in the Politics of Suburban London

AbstractThe notion of ‘suburbia’ is increasingly useless as a singular, simple description of place, identity or political culture. Focusing particularly on ethnic and religious diversity highlights the intensely differentiated nature of outer London. The tropes of ‘Metroland’, and ‘leafy suburbia’ deflect from recognition of this diversity, and the broadly‐found expectations about patterns of migration, suburbanisation and cultural change loosely associated with the Chicago School of urban sociology have less and less applicability to modern London. Religious and ethnic diversity in suburbia poses significant challenges for political parties. In particular, Labour's difficulties in appealing to different constituencies, often expressed geographically in terms of the differences between inner London and the white working class areas of post‐industrial Britain, are also present in the micro‐politics of adjacent areas of outer London. New forms of religion, and especially the development of large new worship spaces, increasingly common in outer London, also have significant consequences for the local politics of suburbia.

Depleted suburban house sparrow Passer domesticus population not limited by food availability

Little is known about the environmental factors that limit the demography and abundance of wild vertebrates in highly modified urban environments. The House Sparrow Passer domesticus is a globally widespread species whose urban populations have recently undergone substantial declines particularly in Europe. The environmental drivers of these declines remain unknown. In a previous study we showed that invertebrate availability during the breeding season limited reproductive success but not population size in a suburban sparrow population. In this study we test experimentally whether year-round food availability limits demography and population size. Supplementary feeding involved the provision of invertebrate prey (during the breeding season) plus unlimited high-energy seed (year-round) at 33 sparrow colonies spread across suburban London over two successive calendar years. Thirty-three unfed colonies served as controls. Supplementary feeding increased fledgling abundance, but had no impact on overwinter survival or population size. We conclude that this depleted suburban sparrow population is not limited by food availability, and conservation efforts based primarily on food provision are unlikely to succeed. We also tested whether cross-colony variation in sparrow abundance was correlated with a set of potential environmental stressors including measures of predator abundance and pollution. Sparrows were more abundant, or showed more positive temporal changes in abundance, at localities containing large areas of seed-rich habitat and low levels of nitrogen dioxide air pollution. Further research is merited into the potential impacts of air pollution on the fitness of urban birds.

Whiteness, class and place in two London suburbs

ABSTRACTThis article addresses a specific intersection of class, place and whiteness by focusing on distinctions between middle-class owner-occupiers in suburban London. Where whiteness is constructed through association with an imaginary of the unchanging nature of rural England and, in particular, the village, some suburban places provide a more ready village metaphor in support of whiteness than others. In a securely middle-class suburb residents are able to misrecognize their neighbourhood as a village, and beyond the metaphor, report feeling at home in rural England. In a marginal middle-class suburb whiteness is founded on weaker claims to the English village metaphor and, moreover, residents feel less at home in rural England. This article demonstrates the need to go beyond the often made distinction between the tactics of middle class (owner-occupiers) and working class (tenants) by identifying distinctions within the former group.

The impact of delayed paper communication to primary care from secondary care and out of hours services.

The safe and effective treatment of patients accessing multiple NHS services relies upon efficient communication between primary care, secondary care, and out of hours providers. There is a theoretical risk to patient safety from delays in these processes, to which paper communications are particularly vulnerable. When letters are received they must be reviewed and prioritised in order of clinical importance, a process that requires both time and clinical resources. This is relevant to the challenge of resource allocation to maximise patient benefit. This retrospective study investigated the impact on patient safety of 249 clinical letters reporting routine clinical encounters in secondary care and out of hours services that were delayed by an average of 18–24 months to a suburban London general practice. No clinical harm could be attributed to the delay. This small study did not suggest delays in routine communications pose a significant risk to patient safety. Conversely, it questions the efficiency and benefit to patients of prioritising clinical time to reviewing routine letters. The adoption of fully integrated, shared electronic patient records with the function to highlight clinically urgent or important communications might ease clinician workload, to the ultimate benefit of patient care.

The ‘other’ London effect: the diversification of London's suburban grammar schools and the rise of hyper‐selective elite state schools

This paper examines the rise of a new elite of 'super-state' schools in London, revealing a growing divide within the state sector which problematizes claims that the capital is a 'hotspot' for social mobility (Social Mobility Commission ). Although recent research has revealed a 'London effect' in which students in the capital on Free School Meals outperform their peers in other regions (Greaves, Macmillan and Sibieta ), inequalities between London's schools in access to elite universities have been overlooked. Drawing on a case study of a suburban London grammar school, 'King Henry's School', I show how ethnic-minority suburbanization has combined with an institutional strategy to compete with elite private schools. Strategies of selection have been mobilized alongside elements of elite 'gentlemanly' educational culture in order to reposition the school within the hierarchy of London's schools. The result is a hyper-selective school which provides a conduit to elite universities for upwardly mobile British-Asian students. I show that this strategy has strong parallels with the school's attempts in the early twentieth century to compete with London's fee-paying 'public' schools. The continuing symbolic value of 'traditional' forms of elite educational culture to a school seeking to reposition itself within the field reflects deep structural patterns of inequality in English education. To understand how apparent improvements in social mobility can sit alongside deepening inequalities between state schools, there is a need for a historical sociological approach that takes account of long-term processes of institutional change (Savage ; Inglis ).

Lohrli Revisited: Newly Identified Contributors to Household Words

Lohrli Revisited:Newly Identified Contributors to Household Words Jeremy Parrott (bio) For the past two years I have been engaged in researching and writing up the results of a major find I made in 2015 – a complete marked set of All the Year Round (1859–68), permitting the identification of hundreds of previously anonymous contributors for the very first time. The book that I have been working on renders Ella Ann Oppenlander's partial 1984 guide to the magazine obsolete and will serve as a companion to Anne Lohrli's 1973 guide to Household Words and its contributors, a work which provided both inspiration and a model. The bulk of my labor has involved trying to piece together lost lives from the archives, often solely on the basis of a defective name token. As an example of the type of challenge I have been facing, I can cite a Mr Rolfe (so designated in the marginal annotation), author of a single article entitled "Engraved on steel." As over 1,700 Rolfes are recorded in the 1861 UK census data, that line of inquiry seemed doomed to fail. Several Rolfes are noted in the British Library catalogue as authors in the time-frame 1850–1900, but none with any obvious connection to fine-art engraving – the subject of the article. I believed I was looking for an engraver called Rolfe, but no such individual was forthcoming. It was only when I questioned the accuracy of the annotation and looked for similar names that I eventually found my quarry. The author of the piece was none other than Edwin Roffe (1825–91), who produced engravings of Dickens's parents and his wife, Catherine. Only after I had established that Roffe was almost certainly the author was I able to turn to the Pilgrim Letters and discover, as confirmation of my attribution, that there was a correspondence between Dickens and Roffe about that very article. The point of the preceding anecdote is to indicate that much of my research has taken the form of literary detective work, following up leads and clues, with plenty of red herrings strewn by the way. I have unearthed over 100 contributors who, until now, have been totally unknown as authors, but many of whose lives, nonetheless, have provided fascinating insights [End Page 110] into Victorian social history. How, for example, did a 24-year old former Royal Navy officer become commander of the Tai-Ping fleet in battle against the Chinese imperial navy, or an actuary from the London suburbs become the inventor of a powerful explosive and gain a reputation in the United States as the last great alchemist? And, almost equally interesting, how did they come to be writing anonymously for Charles Dickens's popular weekly magazine? A large number of the published contributions in both Household Words and All the Year Round were selected by Dickens and Wills from the countless offerings speculatively sent to the magazine offices each week by aspiring authors. In the case of All the Year Round, roughly one third of the magazine's contents over a 10-year run was produced by just eight authors, another third by 30 or so regular writers, with the remaining third being the work of some 280 occasional contributors, roughly 160 of whom had just one item published. Tracking down these less eminent Victorians has been a time-consuming but generally very pleasurable challenge, gradually whittling down the number of unknowns from well over 100 at the outset to just 40 at the last count. Those that remain unidentifiable include miscellaneous Browns, Blacks, Lees and Wilsons – names too common to permit any firm attribution – as well as some perplexing anomalies such as a Julian de Burgh who served in the French army and a Raphal das Haldan, an Indian who wrote about India in English. Thus far, despite wide-ranging searches, no individual bearing either of these (or similar) names in the relevant time-frame has come to light. Amongst the contributors I successfully ran to ground were several who had also had material published in Household Words, but whom Anne Lohrli had been unable to positively identify. From these I can cite...

The tombstone of an Ecumenical Patriarch in Muswell Hill, London: Meletios II (1700-80, r. 1768–9)

This article examines the tombstone of Meletios II, a native of Tenedos, who was briefly Ecumenical Patriarch in 1768–9. It also offers an account of his troubled patriarchate and sketches events in the rest of his ecclesiastical career. This hitherto unknown tombstone has rested for an indeterminate number of years in the garden of North Bank, a large Victorian mansion in Pages Lane in the North London suburb of Muswell Hill. It appears to have been in the grounds of North Bank before the house became an annexe of Muswell Hill Methodist Church. It is not known where in the Ottoman Empire Meletios' grave was originally situated, nor has it been possible to establish the circumstances in which the tombstone came to North Bank. On the basis of the inscription on the tombstone it is possible to establish Meletios' previously unknown date of death, 5 January 1780. It appears to be one of the earliest known tombstones of an Ecumenical Patriarch during the period of the Tourkokratia.

Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of mauveine from the historical London suburb of Sudbury (W.H. Perkin's home and factory) and Bradford

Mauveine samples stored in museums in Sudbury, Bradford and Manchester are similar and are shown to be rich in mauveine A and mauveine B by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. By varying the aromatic amine composition of W.H. Perkin's 1856 patented method of mauveine synthesis, it is shown that they were not made by this method as W.H. Perkin disclosed it. An explanation for this is described.

“Lady, Shall I Lie in Your Lap?”: Gender, Status, and Touch on the English Stage

“Lady, Shall I Lie in Your Lap?”: Gender, Status, and Touch on the English Stage

Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis of mauveine from the historical London suburb of Sudbury (WH Perkin’s home and factory) and Bradford_esi

Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis of mauveine from the historical London suburb of Sudbury (WH Perkin’s home and factory) and Bradford_esi