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Susannah Dalbiac’s Almanack, 1776
Margaret Nairne brought her great-great-great-great-aunt’s diary to show me recently and I publish these excerpts for the first time today. It is an Almanack of 1776 belonging to fourteen-year-old...
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The Huguenots Of Soho
The two major destination for Huguenots in London were Spitalfields and Soho. As part of the current Huguenot Summer festival, Paul Baker took me on a walk around Soho and beyond to show me some of...
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Andrew Scott’s East End, Then & Now
Yesterday, under a suitably occluded sky, I set out to visit Andrew Scott’s East End that he photographed in the early seventies and these pictures show the same locations as I found them now...
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The Huguenot Map Of Spitalfields Unveiled
Last week, the Huguenots came from far and wide to converge at Townhouse, 5 Fournier St, to see the completed Huguenot Map of Spitalfields drawn by Adam Dant. Brainchild of Fiona Atkins, proprietor of...
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Human Remains At Christ Church
Dr Margaret Clegg Keeper of Human Remains at the Natural History Museum will be giving a lecture at Christ Church Spitalfields on Thursday July 2nd at 7pm, talking about exhumations from the crypt...
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So Long, Edward Greenfield
Today I publish my profile of Edward Greenfield as a tribute to a great music critic and popular long-term Spitalfields resident who died yesterday afternoon aged eighty-six Edward Greenfield by...
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Mike Henbrey’s Vinegar Valentines
Inveterate collector, Mike Henbrey has been acquiring harshly-comic nineteenth century Valentines for more than twenty years. Mischievously exploiting the anticipation of recipients on St Valentine’s...
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Vinegar Valentines For Bad Tradesmen
This second selection from Mike Henbrey‘s extraordinary personal collection of mocking Valentines illustrates the range of tradespeople singled out for hate mail in the Victorian era. Nowadays we...
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Dicky Lumskull’s Ramble Through London
Courtesy of Mike Henbrey, it is my pleasure to publish this three-hundred-year-old ballad of the London streets and the trades you might expect to find in each of them, as printed and published by J....
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The Cockney Novelists
It is that time of year when you may be seeking some summer reading material and so today Contributing Writer Jonathan Green introduces the forgotten works of the Cockney Novelists The ‘Cockney’ - that...
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The Last Days Of London
At twelve years old, he photographed the end of the trams in 1952 and, since then, Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Colin O’Brien has become fascinated by recording the ‘last days’ of...
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The Spitalfields Roman Woman
As part of HUGUENOT SUMMER, Caroline McDonald, Senior Curator of Prehistoric & Roman Collections, at the Museum of London will be giving a tour of the gallery with special attention to the...
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Remembering East End Jewish Bookshops
When I published photographs of the Antiquarian Bookshops of Old London recently, Paul Shaviv from New York sent me this poignant personal memoir of two celebrated Jewish bookshops Jacob Nirenstein...
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Roy Wild, Van Boy & Driver
Roy looking sharp in the fifties - “I class myself as an Hoxtonite” The great goods yard in Bishopsgate is an empty place these days, home to a pop-up shopping mall of sea containers and temporary...
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So Long, Lennie Saunders
I publish my profile of Lennie Saunders today as a tribute to a celebrated East Ender, native of Padbury Court and lifelong member of the Cambridge & Bethnal Green Boys’ Club who died last week on...
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Roy Wild, Hop Picker
Yesterday, I returned to visit my pal Roy Wild from Hoxton who formerly worked in the Bishopsgate Good Yard and he told me about his days hopping in Kent, more than half a century ago There is Roy on...
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Hop Picking Photographs
Follwing my profile of Roy Wild, Hop Picker, it is my pleasure to publish this selection of favourite Hop Picking photographs from the archive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing. Traditionally, this...
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Old London Trade Cards
Is your purse or wallet like mine, bulging with old trade cards? Do you always take a card from people handing them out in the street, just to be friendly? Do you pick up interesting cards in idle...
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London’s Ancient Topography
(Celebrating the sixth anniversary of Spitalfields Life with a week of favourite posts from the last twelve months, before recommencing with new stories on 31st August) Bethelem Hospital with London...
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One Last Drink At The Gun
(Celebrating the sixth anniversary of Spitalfields Life with a week of favourite posts from the last twelve months, before recommencing with new stories on 31st August) In 1946, a demobbed soldier...
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