This year at Womad festival, I was privileged to chair a panel of authors from Comma Press’s collection, The Cuckoo Cage. Courttia Newland, Bidisha and Irfan Master read from their short stories about contemporary protest drawn from historical “proto-heroes”: Captain Pouch and
The online exhibition that I’ve done showcasing my favourite Open Spaces Society lantern slides at The Museum of English Rural Life is now online: https://merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/online-exhibitions/lantern-slides-of-the-open-spaces-society/
As part of the Working Class Movement Library’s series of events commemorating the Mass Trespass of 1932, I gave the annual Frow lecture. My topic was ‘trespass before Mass Trespass’, and I outlined my definitions of enclosure and trespass. Thanks to Belinda,
The history of privacy generally falls into two approaches: 1. the intrusion of the state into controlling personal information about the individual 2. changing family/domestic arrangements in the home. Definitions of privacy generally revolve around ‘the right to be left alone’, and
Primary sources: George Scharf, sketches of laying gas mains in London streets, 1834: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1862-0614-304- Scharf, sketch of children clearing snow, 1843: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1862-0614-79 The Architect magazine, e.g. https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Architect/z92t3Fl8pGkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pavements%20streets%20pedestrians&pg=PA194&printsec=frontcover TNA: MEPO – Met Police records – obstruction and nuisance Key texts: David Rooney, ‘Keeping
I’ve reviewed Historic England’s new guide to Stevenage Town Centre buildings for Tribune magazine, winter 2022 edition: https://tribunemag.co.uk/issue/winter-2022
I’m on Dan Snow’s popular podcast HistoryHit, on the history of enclosures in England and Wales: Link to the podcast here: https://podfollow.com/1042631089/episode/13ee7d03c66a922fc552b292897a4cb33bdac080/view
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1497971970222305285.html PDF link of the entire thread: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16UXkEU9Z1aWz-cWtl4N-cUDMKa_EsnVB/view?usp=sharing Edina Digimap is available to all subscribing libraries and universities. It’s most useful if you want to download already geo-referenced OS maps. For just viewing old OS maps, maps.nls.uk is the best place to
Here are some initial findings from summary data on the landownership of the sites represented in the Open Spaces Society lantern slides: https://images.oss.org.uk/ at the Museum of English Rural Life. * For more on the project and the slides, go to: https://historyofpublicspace.uk/my-oss-fellowship-at-merl-2021/exhibition-of-open-spaces-society-lantern-slides-held-at-the-merl/
Adam Wagner does his brilliant work again summarising the new covid emergency regulations on where masks have to be worn. The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings) (England) Regulations 2021, passed 29 November 2021 It’s like deja vu again, but about