Review: London: A History of 300 Years in 25 Buildings by Paul Knox. A guest post by London Historians Member Jane Parker. We often read the soundbites on a book jacket and, after buying it, we realise that we have again been duped by clever marketing. Well, not so here. Iain Sinclair’s ‘Incisive and compelling ..read more

A guest post by LH Member Lissa Chapman. This article first appeared in London Historians Members’ Newsletter of February 2017. Anne Boleyn’s coronation was an immensely significant, and highly controversial public event planned to an almost impossible deadline. Through the early spring of 1533 the Royal Court had been rife with rumours that the King ..read more

A guest post by LH Member, Richard Shearman. Part 1 of this article, published in Members Newsletter of September 2020, can be found on this blog here. Henry Rose’s buildings of 1829-1835, together with the court in front of them and the two lodges added in 1839, filled the front part of the Asylum’s site ..read more

A guest post by London Historians member and Dickens aficionado, Jane Young.  Dickensland – The Curious History of Dickens’s London by Lee Jackson Not another book about the life Dickens but rather an exploration of London through his nineteenth century narratives. Whether you like the novels of Charles Dickens or not, there can be few historians ..read more

A guest post by Mike Rendell, aka The Georgian Gent. This article first appeared in London Historians Members’ Newsletter January 2017. ____________________________________________________ February 2017 sees the 200th anniversary of what was termed The Great Re-coinage – an astonishingly complicated overhaul of the entire currency in circulation throughout Britain. It happened in virtual secret, and it ..read more

A guest post by London Historians member, David Gaylard. Review: Denmark Street, London’s Street of Sound by Peter Watts Seemingly truncated by each new development around it, Denmark Street’s 100 metres length, so short it is difficult to fit its name on a street map, carries a celebrity which far exceeds its size. It was ..read more

A guest post by London Historians Member, Jane McChrystal. Entering Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park from Hamlets Way in Mile End, two of the first headstones you see mark the graves of “Dad” and another embossed with “Peace”. Probably the work of a local mason, these rather original memorials are a sign of increased prosperity among ..read more

A guest post by David Long. This article first appeared in London Historians Members’ Newsletter of May 2019.  ___________________________________________________________________ Britain had never seen anything quite like the mass evacuations of 1939, but a surprising number of Londoners felt they were better off back home. As early as 1934, less than a year after Hitler had ..read more

Working on a South African World War One home front project (https://southafricaww1.com) led to the discovery of a number of South African artists and a couple of films with London links over the period 1902 to 1918. While some, those of English background were not too surprising, the number of Afrikaans (Dutch/Boer) artists were, especially ..read more

Guest post by London Historians member, the writer and illustrator Robin Reynolds. The guardsman is approached by a lady in the grounds of the Tower, and he thinks, we can’t have that. So he jabs at her with his bayonet. But his blade swishes through thin air, the apparition vanishes, and the guardsman is so ..read more