Category Archives: London

Gobbets of the Week #32

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It is now a month since The Boss of Bethnal Green was published, and for the first time there seems some space to reflect. The weeks have flown by. The book seems to be selling – there have been exciting sightings in far-flung bookshops and some lovely emails from people who have read it.

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There have been two hugely enjoyable launch parties, I’ve made a small publicity video, been interviewed on the radio by Robert Elms (link here, from 38.00) and given talks to diverse audiences at Waterstones Piccadilly, the East End History Society and the Society Club. On top of that I have written pieces for Spitalfields Life and London Historians. And importantly, I found time to dust off the blog and make it shipshape for all the activity I’m intending to deliver over the coming months.

So it’s been a very busy year. I’m now going to unwind a bit and let it all sink in. I have one more big event to do – the lunchtime lecture at the National Portrait Gallery on 15th December (do please sign up!) and then I’m going to drop down a few gears until the New Year.

With that, here are my favourite 10 gobbets of London history this week:

  1. The big news in the last couple of days has been the shock announcement of the closure of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, Britain’s oldest manufacturing company. See link to the Guardian. It has brought forth the republication of some eulogistic pieces:
  2. …from Spitalfields Life…
  3. …from Peter Watts, on The Great Wen…
  4. …and from the Foundry’s own website, an account of its history.

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    Image courtesy Spitalfields Life

  5. Another nice pair of gobbets: from the London Historians blog, a post on specialist London book dealer Hawk Norton…
  6. …and a marvellous piece by Hawk himself on Victorian Childrens’ Books.
  7. With the definite arrival of winter weather, The Gentle Author was as usual spot on with his George Cruikshank’s London in Winter.
  8. From ‘Exploring London’: Where’s London’s oldest…public clock (with a minute hand)? I particularly liked this, because my photo of said clock (see below) was used in Dominic Reid’s lovely book on the Lord Mayor’s Show last year).giants-at-st-dunstan-in-the-west
  9. Charles Booth’s Poverty Maps are now online in a new interactive version. See also this explanatory article from Londonist.
  10. How did Finchley’s Tally Ho Corner get its name?

The Boss of Bethnal Green: Joseph Merceron, the Godfather of Regency London is published by Spitalfields Books and available to buy here.

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Gobbets of the week #31

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It’s been a year since I did a ‘gobbets of the week’ post. I’ve been busy working on my book The Boss of Bethnal Green, which was published on 3 November by Spitalfields Life Books. Now that’s done, I’ll be posting more regularly here on a range of topics and definitely including some ‘gobbets’ posts.

So, here are links to the top 10 gobbets of London history I liked this week:

1. At Syd’s Coffee Stall. The Gentle Author visits an East End institution: “Ev’rybody knows Syd’s. Git a bus dahn Shoreditch Church and you can’t miss it. Sticks aht like a sixpence in a sweep’s ear,”

2. The Prospect of Whitby and Shadwell Basin. Another great post by A London Inheritance.

3. Remembering the Spa Fields Riots, from London Historians.

4. Leaving Victorian London, by Peter Watts.

5. Donald Trump: the View from London’s Streets. By Londonist.

6. 13 Secrets of Waterloo Bridge

7. London Tube Map Quiz, from Diamond Geezer.

8. 12 Maps of Alternative Londons

9. The best places to drink tea in London.

10. And finally: a plug for The Boss. The story of James Hadfield’s Pistol: a gun that almost killed a King, and started an English Revolution.

Gobbets of the week #30

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Here are links to the top 10 gobbets of London history we liked this week:

1. Cries of London! The Gentle Author announces the launch of the latest Spitalfields Life book with a programme of events to celebrate centuries of London’s street trading culture. 

  
2. Punk London – the 40th anniversary of punk to be marked with a year-long celebration in London. 

3. What inspired the Red Telephone Box? 

  
4. Her Majesty’s Rowlandsons. 

5. Unbuilt London: IanVisits explores A Giant Pyramid for Hyde Park. 

6. From Paper to Copper: fascinating clip explaining how a copper etching was made.

7. Vanished London: The Ticket Porter in Arthur Street. 

8. The secret history of the London Plane Tree. 

  
9. All change at Maggs Brothers: one of London’s best antiquarian booksellers moves house. 

10. Nightwalking: a nocturnal history of London.

Further Reading

If you like our weekly gobbets, you may enjoy the following posts where we explore each of the City of London’s wards:

Poppies and Pepys and Ghastly Grim (Tower Ward)

Fishwives and Firestarters (Billingsgate Ward)

Magnus, the Monument and Mice eating Cheese (Bridge Ward).