Phyllis Pearsall 1906-1996

Another hero of London and its infrastructure and another all but forgotten name. Phyllis Pearsall is commemorated by a London Borough of Southwark plaque at 3 Court Lane Gardens in leafy Dulwich where she was brought up as the daughter of Alexander Gross a Hungarian Jewish immigrant and Isabella Crowley, an Irish-Italian Roman Catholic suffragette. Her parents relationship was troubled and they went their separate ways. Phyllis was educated at the private Roedean school until her fathers business went bust. She then led a restless life marrying, and later leaving Richard Pearsall, an friend of her brother and working as a tutor and as a shop assistant in France before returning to London. She worked as a portrait painter before, as the story goes she failed to find her way to a party in Belgravia so decided to make a completely new map of London. This she apparently did by getting up at 5am each morning and walking every one of London’s 23,000 streets, not going to bed until she had finished an 18 hour day. The result was the A-Z, the first street atlas of London a publication so ubiquitous that it was used in the BBC series as the one book that every Londoner has a copy of and which could be used as the key to a cypher. The truth however is rather more vexed. The head of maps at the British Museum for one believes that Pearsall's reputation was self-perpetuated myth-making. He asserts that Pearsall’s father had been a map-maker and produced map books of London that were almost identical to the A-Z. He believes that Pearsall simply updated these maps to include the newly built areas of outer London, probably by simply calling on the planning department of various local councils street maps and calling the result the ‘A-Z’. This may explain why English Heritage declined to award Pearsall a blue plaque. It should be said that while Barber's assertions may be correct English Heritage are (slowly) attempting to address the unbalance between male and female plaque recipients shining a little more light on female contributions to British society.

Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998)

On a recent trip to Chelsea a new plaque was discovered, one erected only a couple of months ago after the 20 year rule whereby English Heritage will only erect a plaque 20 years after the recipient is deceased to allow an objective appraisal of their fitness to be made. The recipient of the plaque erected at 72 Cadogan Square; designed by Richard Norman Shaw in 1878 is Martha Gellhorn, who to work backwards committed suicide in the flat that she had occupied since 1970. She was suffering from ovarian and liver cancer and was almost blind. A terrible affliction for one who had made her life through observing. The flat, which comprised the top floor and the attic of the building was by all accounts 'sparsely furnished... [and] ... a little austere. Gellhorn entertained friends and admirers from the worlds of literature and journalism there. Gellhorn's journalistic career lasted over thirty years beginning with a move to Paris before finding fame chronicling the Great Depression of 1934 for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, an experience that was the basis of a book of short stories written in a clear, simple style. The Trouble I've Seen published in 1936 expressed Gellhorn's anger at the way that the poor, the weak and the dispossessed were being treated. Gelhorn who supported the Republican cause travelled to Spain with Ernest Hemingway who she met in Key West and reported in a partisan fashion on the Spanish Civil War for The New Yorker and Collier's. They were to marry in December 1940 and divorce in 1945. Gellhorn stayed in Europe reporting from Czechoslovakia and Germany in the run-up to war. A time she recalled in A Stricken Field (1940). hen the war began she determined to 'follow... the war wherever I could reach it.' She was hindered in this however by her lack of press credentials occasioned by US policy forbidding female correspondents. She reported from the Italian front and later reported on D-Day tby hiding in a hospital ship bathroom, and later, impersonated a stretcher bearer. She later reported on the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, an experience documented in The Wine of Astonishment in 1948. A collection of Gellhorn's war articles was published as The Face of War in 1959. This was updated in 1967 and 1986 and 1993 taking in her reportage from conflicts from across the globe. This included impassioned pieces condemning US involvement in Vietnam and long critical articles about Palestinian refugees. Gellhorn is remembered in the Nartha Gellhorn award for Journalism a fitting legacy for one who was highly influential in the practice of journalism.

William Henry Pratt 1887-1969

Not a name that sparks a memory is it? Perhaps thats why the plaque found at 36 Forest Hill Road, a location now occupied by the Sea Master fish and chip shop notes two names. William Henry Pratt was born at the location in 1887. Its solid middle class area although perhaps lacked the cachet of the more prestigeous neighbouring area of Dulwich which might explain why young William claimed to come from that area. William was the youngest of nine children, and following his mother's death was brought up in Enfield. He attended Enfield Grammar School, and later the private schools of Uppingham School and Merchant Taylors' School. Following in hos elder siblings footsteps he went to King's College London with the intent of joining the Consular Service. He left before graduating and, instead emigrated to Canada in 1909. It's here that he changed his name to Boris Karloff, possibly in order to avoid embarrassing his family and began acting joining the Jeanne Russell Company in 1911, working manual jobs to make ends meet. This led to back problems which meant that he was not drafted in WWI. Instead he drifted south in various theatrical companies such as the Harry St. Clair Players, the Billie Bennett Touring Company, the Maud Amber Players and the Haggerty Repertory Company until beginning work in the embryonic Hollywood taking minor roles in silent movies. His first major role was in The Hope Diamond Mystery in 1920 and he worked solidly through the twenties before working with Howard Hawks in The Criminal Code (1930) and Scarface (1931) clocking up 80 film appearances It was his work with another Briton, James Whale that Karloff would largely be remembered. In 1931 Whale who was already well established in Hollywood cast Karloff as the Monster in the Universal Studios telling of the story of Frankenstein. The film was a huge hit both with critics and with the public. The image of the monster which Universal copyrighted is still instantly recognisable. Once the success of the film became evident Karloff became recognised in the horror genre making The Old Dark House,The Mask of Fu Manchu and The Mummy in 1932 and the Ghoul in 1933 and The Black Cat and The Gift of the Gab in 1934. Karloff reprised his breakthrough role in 1935 in The Bride of Frankenstein, The Son of Frankenstein in 1939, House of Frankenstein in 1944. He also worked with Howard Hawks on The Criminal Code (1931) and Scarface (1932). He left Universal for RKO feeling the the Frankenstein franchise had run its course. He worked at his new studio with Val Lewton appearing in The Body Snatcher and Isle of the Dead in 1945 and Bedlam in 1946. After the war horror films were out of vogue so Karloff switched to other roles notably in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).His career made the leap to television after the war appearing regularly as a panellist on NBC's "Who said that". He also worked extensively on stage playing Jonathan Brewster in the original production of Arsenic and Old Lace. He continued to work on radio. At times spoofing his horror career. His film career also took in AIP films in the 1960s working with Mario Bava and Roger Corman in Black Sabbath and The Raven respectively. Thus late resurngence also encompassed roles in The Comedy of Terrors in 1964 and Die Monster Die! in 1967. He has not one but two stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He died of Emphysema in 1969.

The Admiral Duncan bombing - 20 years on

A sad coincidence but on my previous peregrination which took in the southern edge of Soho I also passed the Admiral Duncan pub in Old Compton Street just down the road from the plaque that marked the great Dangeroo Flood. Twenty years ago today 3 people, Andrea Dykes, Nick Moore and John Light were killed and 78 were wounded by the third in a series of nail bombs left by a right-wing extremist. The pub was crowded on the start of the May bank holiday and this accounts for the relatively high number injured. As this was the third in the series there was a considerable public information campaign in place. There was even a poster in the toilet warning of the possibility of an attack. The bomb exploded at 6:37 pm when the bag that contained it was being investigated by the pub manager.The previous two bombs left in Brixton Market and Brick lane targeted the black and asian communities respectively. These, fortunately resulted in no fatalities although 48 and 13 people were wounded after the bomber was noticed in Brixton, where his bomb was moved by a smallholder to a less crowded area and the police were called. In the case of the Brick Lane bomb when the bomber first set the bomb for Saturday rather than Sunday when a street market takes place and after the bomb was placed in a car boot in an attempt to deliver the bomb to a local police station. The Brixton attack is marked by a plaque was I have not yet seen. The Admiral Duncan has a small plaque placed by Queer Heritage, who place plaques marking places in the struggle for LGBTQ rights in 2017. Andrea Dykes, Nick Moore and John Light are also commemorated in the churchyard of St. Anne;s in Wardour Street.

The Great Dangeroo Flood and the Kymaerica Project

There is, above a non-descript coffee bar a square, black and gold plaque that marks the high water point of the "Great Dangeroo Flood" which it describes as "one of the worst floods of En'kymhuirian times". The plaque goes on to note that the Tehachapi people after two years at sea on their rafts of asphalt made their new home here after observing the familiar stars of their home overhead as the waters receded. The plaque was located by the Kymaerica project founded by Geographer-at-large Eames Demetrios which "is... a global project that tells the stories of this parallel world through books, performances, Internet, embroideries, guided collaborations, but perhaps most distinctively through installations—especially bronze plaques and historic sites that honor the parallel world in our linear world." The plaque then, marks a fictional event with a physical presence in the real world. There are other plaques in London, one of which off the Whitechapel Road has already been spotted. This marks "Angel Alley and Surrounds" where "the formidable Esther Tabran first saw the figure of Crown Prince Jyorge stepping out of Georges Yard. The website for the Kymaerica Project is, sadly, outdated. It notes 83 plaques being put in place , in 15 countries on 5 continents. The figures cited however refer to November 2011 and so may not be accurate. There is at least one other plaque in London which will need to be visited at some point. If there is one area of London that deserves a plaque to a non-existent event then Soho, home of the strange, moreso even than the rest of London. Old Compton Street marks the southern boundary of the area. An area that has traditionally housed incomers and outsiders - the Greeks, the Italians, the gay community and he entertainment industry although of late under a process of gentrification the area has certainly lost its edge.

The Cornish Rebellion - 1497

A big thank you at the top to Mr and Mrs Kilburn who put us up and treated us to a cracking meal at the Five Rivers Indian Restaurant. They live in Plumstead and Wayne met us at the Woolwich DLR station and we decamped to Greenwich with the intent of taking in the (rapidly changing)London skyline from Greenwich Park. Alighting as we did on Charlton Way at the southern edge of Greenwich on our way through into the park on the brick wall I found a small bi-lingual plaque marking the site of the Battle of Deptford Bridge in 1497. Not exactly a well-publicised affair this one, a century after the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 and Jack Cade's rebellion this forgotten conflict involved some 35,000 men, 10,000 or so Cornish rebels and 25,000 of the King's forces and resulted in a thorough drubbing of the Cornishmen who lacked both cavalry and artillery. The rebellion came about in protest against Henry VII's raising of war taxes which abrogated Cornwall's traditional exemption. It began in the Bodmin area and was led by Michael Joseph, a blacksmith and Thomas Flamank, a lawyer who was MP for Bodmin in 1492. These two gathered support and marched East into Devon gathering support as they went. The army declared its grievances at Wells in Somerset where the rebels were joined by James Touchet, the seventh Baron Audley and continued unopposed towards the capital through Salisbury and then Winchester. The first clash occurred outside Guildford as the king drew his forces back from an intended incursion into Scotland. The plaque marks the place where the rebels met their end. After a significant number of desertions the rebels met the kings army on 17 June 1497. The royal army was divided into three under Lords Oxford, Essex,Suffolk and Daubeney and these routed the rebel army. Estimates of the Cornish dead range from 200 to 2,000. The leaders were captured, Joseph in Greenwich and Flamank and Audley at the site of the battle. They received the king's mercy which means that Joseph and Flamank were hanged at Tyburn on 27 June 1497 rather than being hanged, drawn and quartered whereas Audley as a gentleman was beheaded at Tower Hill. The quincentennial of the battle in 1997 was marked by a Keskerdh Kernow - a march that reenacted the long march from the West and the installation of the plaque. As I was in company of the Wayne and my other half (aka Mrs Hobbldy) I thought better of detouring in search of further plaques, Greenwich with its royal connections being a bit of a centre for people of historic interest and instead we descended Greenwich Park, moving from the Eastern to the Western Hemisphere, sadly we didn't get to do the straddling the Greenwich Meridian photo op as Greenwich Observatory had nicely decided to fence off the Meridian Line and charge admittance. This disappointment was however mitigated by the free National Maritime Museum at the bottom of the hill in the magnificent Wren designed building which was previously The Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, completed in 1705 as a counterpart to the Chelsea Hospital which provided for veterans of the British Army.Sadly there was filming at the old Greenwich Naval College, now part of the University of Greenwich which meant no stroll through its amazing riverside location - a little reminder that in times gone by the Thames was London'a main thoroughfare. Sadly our little jaunt went little further ending at the very nice, and rather overpriced surroundings of Greenwich market.

Clapham Common Deep Shelter, The Drum and the Balham Station Bombing

The Brothers Hartnall's recent show at the Hammersmith Apollo meant a night in the smoke courtesy of Airbnb in W6. This allowed a lovely wander south of the river around Clapham Common and then a perambulation south to Balham Station on the day after the night before. We're going to have to backtrack here however and begin at the end of my days walk at Balham Underground Station which sits astride Balham High Road and was built in 1926 as part of the extension of the City and South London Railway to a design by Charles Holden, Frank Pick's architect of choice who had previously worked on war cemeteries in France and who brought his simple, modernist style to London Transport infrastructure. Like many of the stations on the Tube network Balham was used by the civilian population as a bomb shelter during World War II. This was initially discouraged by the government who believed that the population would remain in the Tube network after the bombing had ended. At the start of the Blitz however on 8th September 1940 a crowd broke through the locked gates at Liverpool St Station and the day afterwards the Minister for Home Security rescinded the policy and the population sought protection in the relentless bombing thereafter. On the Booking Hall at Balham are two plaques noting the events of 14-15 October 1940, when a 1,400 kg fell on the road above the north end of the platform, leaving a crater into which a double-decker bus crashed providing an iconic image of the Blitz. The tunnel partially collapsed and was filed with earth and water from fractured water and sewage pipes. Sixty-six were killed in an event that was hushed up by the authorities for fear of dissuading the civilian population from seeking shelter in the tube network. The event was used in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, although the incorrect date is used in both the book and its film adaptation. These issues arelso noted further along the network by a very swish black and white Clapham Society plaque on the corner of Clapham High Street and Clapham Park Road which marks the entrance to Clapham Deep Shelter which was built in late 1942 after the government set up the London Passenger Transport Board who in turn came up with the idea of five deep shelters south of the river at at Clapham South, Clapham Common, Clapham North, Stockwell and Oval – and five to the north. These, it was intended would exist under the existing train tunnels but be connected to the existing Tube stations.The shelters were intended to have twin parallel tunnels 5 metres in diameter and 365 meters long divided into two decks that would accommodate 8000 people. By the time these were finished however the Blitz was all but over and the tunnels were repurposed, first as accommodation for American troops and after the invasion of Europe as a government installation and so was fitted out as offices and an extensive system of teleprinters, telephones and other telecommunications equipment were installed. After the war the Clapham Common shelter was used as an archive for government records until its decommissioning in 1952. This however was not the end of the line so to speak. In 2012 the site was re-employed as a hydroponic farm where produce can be growth for local use without racking up food miles. The Clapham South shelter situated on Balham Hill was used differently firstly as temporary accommodation for some of Britain's first postwar Caribbean immigrants who arrived on the ship MV Empire Windrush in 1948 as well as hotel accommodation for the Festival of Britain in 1951 and for visitors to the Queen’s coronation in 1953.

The memorialisation problem

It's an interesting one isn't it? Someone - lets call him ooohhhh Cecil Rhodes, puts up a statue to himself with the intent of being remembered in a particular way. As an advancer of civilisation, a visionary, a doer, an all-round good egg. He establishes a scholarship at a prestigious university like Oxford to "promote unity between English speaking nations and instil a sense of civic-minded leadership and moral fortitude in future leaders irrespective of their chosen career paths." His ultimate goal was ""the furtherance of the British Empire, for the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire." The scholarship was taken by (among others) Bill Clinton, Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull of Australia,John Turner of Canada, Dom Mintoff of Malta, Norman Manley of Jamaica and Wasim Sajjad of Pakistan. From the beginning the scholarship was contentious: both women and black Africans were excluded from the programme. Black Africans were admitted to the programme after pressure from former scholarship recipients in 1971, women only in 1977, 75 years after the scholarship was established. In 2015 Ntokozo Qwabe, a Rhodes scholar himself called for (among other things) the removal of a statue of Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford. Rhodes' memory then may not we what he originally envisioned but he IS remembered. This post, however is not about Cecil Rhodes but about John Passmore Edwards. You know? John Passmore Edwards? No? This is man who was described in an obituary in the Times of 24 April 1911 as doing "more good in his time than almost any other of his contemporaries" and rated as "Amongst the late Victorian philanthropists, whose motives [were] beyond reproach [and whose] benefactions expressed deeply held and intelligent convictions about conditions of progress in his society".. A man instrumental in the construction over the space 14 years of hospitals, drinking fountains, libraries,schools, convalescent homes and art galleries. He also contributed to the WEA (Worker's Educational Association) furthering the opportunities available to those lower down the social scale. His home in leafy Hampstead is marked by an English Heritage plaque in 1988. Three of his works in London are also marked: a drinking fountain south of the river in front of Christ Church graveyard on Blackfriars Road and two libraries one in East London on the corner of Gladstone Place and Roman Road, the other recently spotted by Shepherds Bush green erected by the Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group. The building on which is it affixed is now the Bush Theatre. The building was designed by Maurice Adams who Edwards used for several of his projects. Edwards' His largesse is even more apparent in the West Country where he established libraries in Newton Abbot in Devon and Bodmin, Camborne, Falmouth, Launceston, Liskeard, Penzance, Redruth, St Ives and Truro in Cornwall. His roots were Cornish, he was born between Redruth and Truro in 1823, the son of a carpentee. He was educated in the village school and became a journalist, later moving to London to take advantage of the nineteenth-century boom in journal publication. He became involved in many social causes: the reform of the Corn Laws, the abolition of capital punishment, the suppression of the opium trade and the abolition of flogging in the services and opposed military action in the Crimea and in South Africa publishing polemical leaflets such as'Intellectual Tollbars' (1854) protesting taxes on paper and newspapers and also 'The War: a Blunder and a Crime' (1855). After several false starts in publishing he eventually bought the Echo newspaper in 1876 which espoused social causes and a liberal philosophy (eventually selling part of his interest to Andrew Carnegie) and became Liberal MP for Salisbury in 1880. He quickly became disenchanted with political life however, doing his utmost to better the world in an extra-parliamentary capacity. It is perhaps sad that his name is not as well known as Rhodes'.

Borough Market

My how the time flies. A full nine months later and here we are again. The latest wander courtesy of Andrew Duncan's Walking London was the Bankside and Southwark walk. A favourite area, revisited after our visit to Crossbones Graveyard last year and one of massive historical interest. Southwark, south of the river provides a counterpoint to the City of London, the city of commerce, the city of labour,the city of money-making. Southwark on the other hand is where purses were emptied. The diversions of the area are perhaps not to the tastes of the present day encompassing as they did animal cruelty; bear baiting and cock fighting, boozing, whoring and perhaps worst of all (at least as far as the Puritans were concerned) -- playhouses. The Globe was transported from Shoreditch by the Lord Chamberlains Men in 1599 led by Charles Burbage and including little known thesp. William Shakespeare. The Rose, constructed in 1587 is also commemorated by a plaque. The part played by Sam Wanamaker in the reconstructed Globe is marked as is several possible sites for the theatre although the site which sis mooted as the most likely is Anchor Terrace on Park Street where archaeological remains of Shakespeare's "wooden O" have been found. The Theatre burned to the ground in 1613 after a spark from a cannon used in a performance set fire to the thatch.Fortunately noone was harmed although one spectator did reportedly have his breeches set on fire, fortunately extinguished with bottled ale. The trip also took in Borough Market, home to Grade A Masala Dosa and pretty good (though not up to Italian standard) gelato -- a big thank you to Frigidarium for ruining me for life as far as Icy Cream goodness is concerned. Borough Market stands in the shadow of Southwark cathedral, originally an Augustinian priory built in 1106 - it retains its Gothic floorplan although its nave dates back only to the late nineteenth century. In fact the structure only became a cathedral in 1905 with the foundation of diocese of Southwark in 1905. The cathedral has links to Southwark's actors, Shakespeare's brother was buried there in 1607, Fletcher and Massinger were buried there. Theres also a local American connection, John Harvard's family ran the Queen's Head Inn on Borough High Street, the main route south and therefore starting point for the pilgrimage to Canterbury as recorded by Chaucer -- "“It happened in that season that one day /In Southwark, at The Tabard, as I lay / Ready to go on pilgrimage and start /For Canterbury, most devout at heart /At night there came into that hostelry / Some nine and twenty in a company /Of sundry folk happening then to fall /In fellowship, and they were pilgrims all /That towards Canterbury meant to ride/ The rooms and stables of the inn were wide / They made us easy, all was of the best.” Equally buried a world away from his roots in Southwark Cathedral Mahomet Weyonomon Sachem of the Mohegans of Connecticut was buried in this churchyard 1736, a rememberance of the fact that London has always been a world city. More recent events were also evidenced sadly. The sight of armed police freaks me out on holiday. To see them on the streets of London was quite a shock -- the area was also in receipt of dozens of remembrance hearts - a project launched through twitter as an answer to the appalling events of 3 June. Happily normalcy seems to have triumphed with Borough thronged with people - gay straight male female black white yellow brown - a living rebuttal of the dicks who seek to divide us.

Londons

After my last little digression I'm minded to talk less about London and more about Londons. All existing alongside each other, on top of each other, under and over each other. Constantly updating itself in order to deal with the changes taking place around itself, sometimes of course initiated within the city itself. Perhaps one of the most important of these changes is marked by a small blue rectangular plaque in a small and obscure sidestreet situated between Cornhill and Lombard Street. The plaque reads "on this street between 1680 and 1778 stood Jonathan's Coffee House, the principal meeting place of the City's stockbrokers". Here it was a little after the Great Fire of London destroyed the old city that new systems of trade and business grew up. These systems have spread across the globe and are now shown in the skylines of the world - the market, modern capitalism started here in this tiny cramped alley. The fact that this was a coffee house is not entirely insignificant. Coffee, one of the commodities that can loosely be bundled together under the title "colonial groceries). These groceries; coffee, tobacco, cotton and most significantly sugar were grown in the West Indies, an area that the powers of the world at the time jealously guarded. The profits to be made from these crops was enormous but the risks were high and the returns not always immediate. What this meant is that a whole raft of ancillary services quickly appeared around these producers; insurance, credit banking and investment houses to share the risk. Underpinning this industry were those who worked and died in enormous numbers in the West Indies, while slavery was a social institution dating back to the classical world however chattel slavery where those subject to the system are effectively treated as just another animal (a belief that was strengthened through pseudo-science), another resource to be exploited. They died throughout misuse, starvation and disease transplanted from Africa as they had no natural immunity to West Indian diseases. While some plantation owners lived in the West Indies many were absentee landlords reaping a reward from their investments. The vast sums made subsidised extravagant lifestyles, they purchased political and social positions. Positions that ensured that they could influence those in power. This also meant hat funds were available for investment in other industries, other trading ventures. Such ventures were orchestrated at places such as Jonathan's Coffee House. Sometimes these were moneymakers. Sometimes, as with the South Sea Bubble... they didn't. In 1748 Jonathan's burnt down. In 1761 a club was formed was formed to trade stocks. In 1773 the club built its on building in Sweetings Alley. This eventually became the institution of upright gentlemen that we call the Stock Exchange

London - City of Change and Moorgate

A thankfully rather cooler day saw me undertake the Clerkenwall walk for Andrew Duncan's excellent Walking London. Its an immensely interesting and historic area with huge chunks of medieval London hidden in plain view. The first of these is St. John's Gate built in 1504 as the Southern entrance to the Priory of St. John - OK so it was heavily restored in the 19th century but hey beggars can't be choosers. The knights of St. John were crusaders - Knights Hospitallers charged with tending with those taken ill on the long journey to Jerusalem, after the expulsion of Christians from the Holy Land they left for Rhodes and later Malta. It was here in 1877 that the St. John's Ambulance Brigade was initiated. After a wander through Smithfield the next stop was the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great - founded in 1123 what remains is roughly half of the original building - demolished as part of the dissolution of the monasteries in 1543. The church was originally part of a priory associated with St. Bartholomew's Hospital -both institutions were initiated by Rahere a mysterious figure sometimes credited as Henry I's jester. The churchs Tudor frontage was erected as part of Richard Rich's restoration of the area, he benefited from the Dissolution by buying up land that used to belong to the church. The church itself is a star of stage and screen well screen having featured in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994),Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Shakespeare in Love, The End of the Affair, Amazing Grace, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Other Boleyn Girl, Sherlock Holmes, Snow White and the Huntsma, and worryingly Avengers: Age of Ultron. The third complex is just the other side of Cloth Fair (no guesses as what used to occur there). Charterhouse was a Carthusian priory for twenty five or so monks founded in 1371 and then dissolved in 1537. This was a traumatic event involving the hanging, drawing and quartering of the Prior and ten monks being transported to Newgate gaol where they either starved or were executed. The impressive remains are typical of "the type of large rambling 16th century mansion that once existed all round London" as Pevsner says. The buildings became an almshouse and school in 1611 endowed by Thomas Sutton, the Master of Ordnance in Northern Parts. His idea was to fund a home for eighty male pensioners ("gentlemen by descent and in poverty, soldiers that have borne arms by sea or land, merchants decayed by piracy or shipwreck, or servants in household to the King or Queens Majesty"), and to educate forty boys. The institution gained a reputation for medical knowledge the institution was one of the original seven english public schools defined by law in 1868. The school was transplanted to Godlaming in Surrey in 1872 the buildings being used first by the Merchant Taylors School and then Barts Medical School. While these remnants remain much of what surrpunded them originally has vanished - a reminder of the transitory nature of urban existance. This also means that plaques such as that to Susanna Annesley sited on Tabernacle Street that I was after is no longer there - in fact its now construction site annoyingly.

Sir Charles Vyner Brooke

As if to emphasise the cosmopolitan nature of Bayswater I've been looking through Lived in London too find rather depressingly that I missed about half the plaques (or at least half of English Heritage's listed plaques in the area). They are an interesting cross-section: an Italian ballet dancer a South African writer, an Austrian singer, a Russian political thinker, and American writer and an Italian scientist not to mention King George Tupou V of Tonga. There is also on Albion Street a plaque to Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, the third and last white Rajah of Sarawak who assumed the title on the death of his father in 1917. He was a Cambridge man. He shared power both with his brother and nephew and devolved many of his powers to his advisor and an administrative body. The country developed public service and legal systems based on the British model. He took a surprisingly modern approach to cultural matters, banning Christian missionaries and encouraging indigenous traditions. Brooke fled when the Japanese invaded, first to Australia and then to London where he spent the rest of his life ceding his power to the British Crown in 1946. This was a contentious issue the transfer being opposed both by his nephew who acted as Rajah Muda (Crown Prince) and by the majority of the Council Negri or Parliament. Sarawak became part of Malaysia shortly after his death. Albion Street is, needless to say a way from rubber plantations and tropical heat and you can't help but think of those who experienced the shrinking of Empire. How do you comprehend these seismic social changes? You're no longer the master of all you survey with an automatic right to dictate to all and sundry on pretty much any aspect of their lives.

London - City of Shadows and the Czech Government in Exile

Last weekend was a scorcher, we'd already arranged to stay over in leafy Wimbledon so that we could get us to the cricket at Lords in good time and M was working in the charity shop in the morning I bagged an early ticket into Liverpool Street. i was pre-armed with a Bayswater walk from the excellent http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/ . I was actually in search of the blue plaque for Hertha Ayrton in Norfolk Square. Bayswater is an interesting area - cosmopolitan area with large Brazilian, French and Greek communities - the latter being marked by the presence of St Sophia's Greek Orthodox cathedral and a blue plaque on Queensborough Terrace dedicated to Constantine Cafavy. The area is littered with some pretty monumental Victorian townhouses - now subdivided or converted into tourist hotels. To the North lies the Hallfield Estate designed by Denys Lasdun and Lindsay Drake necessitated by bombing around Paddington station, its a striking contrast. There are some interesting old / new old terraces marking the point marking bomb damage. Another mark of this dark period is the plaque at 3-8 Porchester Gate facing Hyde Park. It marks the site of the Czech government in exile military intellegence division. The Czech government in exile set up by Edvard Benes was recognised by the allied forces while Czechoslovakia was under German occupation. On our visits to Prague we found in the New Town on Resslova street the squat, dark Church of St. Cyril and Methodius. It's here where Operation Anthropoid, which was formulated all those miles away overlooking the park came to an end. The old crypt has been converted into a museum - in fact the last time we visited there was an armed forces day so plenty of uniforms thereabouts. Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich aka The Butcher of Prague, The Blond Beast and the Hangman (which gives a flavour of his personality) was botched, a catalogue of errors with Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš being parachuted into the wrong area of what was then the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The men managed to make their way to Prague and were sheltered by Czech resistance fighters before embarking on their assassination attempt on 27th May 1942. Despite malfunctioning weapons they wounded Heydrich and made their escape. They were eventually tracked down in the Church and knowing what would happen to them if captured fought to the death. Sadly that wasn't the end of it and the German occupiers sought reprisals most notably against the village of Lidice where the population were executed or deported to concentration camps and the village itself was levelled.

Crossbones Graveyard

Well the exam is done for this year which means that I get a life back for approximately three months before academes siren call means a reoccupation of my office. It also means the occasional London trip for more plaque based fun. Our last trip out was to Southwark courtesy of the excellent London Walks http://www.walks.com/ on my birthday. We'd picked Darkest Victorian London which started on the North side of the river at Monument tube surrounded by steel and glass before decamping south of the river to what was then London's dark underbelly. A river away from the city where fortunes were made and the money-god reigned supreme. Here, is another London, one as wretched and squalid as anywhere in the Empire - quite a boast looking at the spread of pink across the globe. Southwark was where all the industrys that the respectable folk didnt want on their doorstep. This was the London of Henry Mayhew and Charles Dickens. Cross Bones graveyard was full at the time that Dickens was writing - it was "completely overcharged with dead". The site became used for commercial buildings and from 1991 to 1998 was excavated by the Museum of London in preparation for the Jubilee Line extension. They found a crowded site with burials piled on top of each other. Many had died from poverty diseases - smallpox, TB, Paget's disease and Vitamin D deficiency. A high proportion of the deaths were of newborns and a further significant demographic were middle-aged women. It's been postulated, most notably by John Constable that these were local prostitutes. The famed Winchester Geese who inhabited the notorious Southwark Stews. Constable, inspired by the idea of the 'outcast dead' composed the Southwark Mysteries to keep the memory of these people, the dregs of their society, alive. The Southwark mysteries have been performed at the Globe and Southwark Cathedral and have engaged the local population who have initiated a series of non-religious rememberences. Its an interesting idea. We memorialise the 'worthy', those who have pushed themselves to the top rather than those they have clambered over, those they have exploited. The local prostitutes were nicknamed Winchester Geese after the Bishop of Winchester who had his palace in Southwark. It's still there and very atmospheric. It was those people who did most of the working, most of the living and most of the dying but theyre are not remembered, they are in fact very deliberately overlooked I mean who wants to remember THEM? It obscures the picture that those in control wan to give doesnt it?

Harry Beck (1902-1974)

Leytonstone is a long way from the target rich environment of central London. A journey east from Stratford rather than the rather more usual West - OK so we'd earlier trailed around the Spitalfields Vintage Fair - parting with the folding stuff only for a leather flower for M and a story in a box "Not all who wander are lost" for me from - https://www.facebook.com/littleiudea . Worship Road is a thoroughly unremarkable terraced street and in many ways the blue plaque that marks number 14 may seem out of place. It marks the birthplace of Harry Beck, an engineering draftsman with London Underground. Just another working Londoner who adapted his knowledge, of electrical circuits to create what was voted in 2006 as the second favourite British design of the 20th century - the Tube map. Used thousands, tens of thousands of time a day by Londoners and others to navigate the capital - and many many times more when you see the influence that it has had on various other Metro maps from around the world (Beck also worked on designs for the Paris Metro map). This influence is traced in Mark Ovenden's excellent "Metro Maps of the world" and has also been cited in comparison with the work of Piet Mondrian as a nexus of art and commerce. And its freaking everywhere - we ourselves have a London Underground bedset not to mention a copy of the London Game (strongly recommended in assisting the small people in London navigation). The map came about as a sparetime project that Beck embarked upon in the early 30s. He submitted the idea to Frank Pick, the then head of London Underground and responsible for the creation of the iconic LU designs that persist to this day - a fact acknowledged in Beck's blue plaque utilisation of LUs house font - New Johnston. It was revolutionary in that unlike pretty much any other map it doesn't represent geographical accuracy. Beck reckoned, quite rightly that for your average commuter what was important was how to get around the city: how to get from one station to another, and the changes needed to manage that feat. A side effect of this that I've found is that many Londoners are blissfully unaware of how close some Tube stations are to each other. His idea was initialled trialled in 1931 and given its first release in 1933. It has of course been continually updated and that is where the trouble started. In 1960 the Victoria Line was added to the map without his knowledge by a publicity officer, Harold Hutchinson, this and numerous other tweaks angered Beck. He embarked upon legal proceedings, trying to regain control of his creation. This stress adversely affected his wifes health. He gave up the fight in 1965 and the responsibility for the map passed to another designer Paul Garbutt. In his redesigning of the Underground map Garbutt returned to Becks earlier ideas while taking account of the increasingly complicated reality of subterranean London. Beck however continued to work on designs for the Underground map until his death in 1974. Sadly his work was only recognised posthumously - every LU map now bears the legend "This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck". He has a locomotive named after him, and has been featured on stamps and a substantial presence in the London Tansport museum in Covent Garden - but surely his most meaningful memorial are the millions of safe journeys made on the tube.

13 minutes and 37 overs

There are those who will say that todays posts is a blatant attempt to draw attention away from a dismal England performance at Lords, and they may very well be right. 37 overs with Stuart Broad batting at number 8 top scoring with 25 runs is simply not good enough. Not against a mediocre side, and Australia while not in the pantheon of earlier Ashes teams are not that. After a couple of days away from work we had a quiet day at home today - well M did. It was open day at the Abbey and I wandered into town and took a stroll around the theatre of screams. I decided to pick up this seasons away strip. Theres something something vaguely transgressive about black football shirts even in the modern eras of technicolour refs. I didn't however linger as I had a date at the Arts Picturehouse. For once it wasn't one Casablanca to look forward to but sadly will be missing Sunset Boulevard in a couple of weeks time - don't think well be giving A Clockwork Orange a go. It was Oliver Hirschbiegel's 13 minutes. Hirschbiegel's Downfall is a terrifying insight into the last days of the Reich. 13 minutes an account of its establishment and the bravery of anyone swimming against the stream in those kinds of circumstance. It has the dreaded words "based on a true story" attached to it - words that send a chill down anyone with two braincells to rub togethers spine. It equates to an admission of "OK, so we sexed it up a little" on behalf of the filmmaker. The real Georg Elser, the focus of the film, seems a rather more nuanced figure. Elser attempted to assassinate Hitler on 8 November 1939 in the early stages of the second world war. His motives seem unclear - the film seems to cast him as a conflicted Christian who was trying to avoid greater bloodshed by disposing of Der Fuhrer. The truth seems somewhat more confused. Elser was a member of the Federation of Woodworkers Union and the Rotfrontkämpferbund, the Communist paramilitaries that opposed the Nazis in the politically polarised 1930s but Elser attested that he never attended any more than a couple of times. While he voted Communist it was only because he felt that they defended the rights of German Workers. His Christian credentials seem less than convincing as well. He was raised as a Protestant but dodnt regularly attend church until his plans were in motion. In short he seems what I guess we would now call a lone wolf killer. Someone who saw the Nazis and Hitler in particular as sure to lead Germany into darkness. After seeing Bonhoeffers plaque a while back I couldn't help but see parallels - although of course the two men tried to oppose Nazi tyranny in very different ways. I guess that 13 minutes asks that hypothetical - if killing one man could save millions would you do it? Of course Hitler didn't die - 8 people did. however. Elser shared Bonhoeffer's fate - on 9th April 1945, in the death throes of the Reich he was eliminated perhaps at the personal behest of Hitler at Dachau where he had been transferred after spending the war years at Sachsenhausen.

First synagogue since the reformation

It isn't just the Christian faith that's commemorated around Spitalfields and Brick Lane of course. For centuries the area has been a haven or incomers and their faiths. First the Huguenots fleeing persecution in France made it their home, then came the Jews. By the time that Jack was plying his trade in the area the majority of Jews thereabouts were Ashkenazi, from Central Europe their impact can be seen in language - they gave us schmutter and schmooze, schtick and spiel. Earlier, in 1657, in the middle of Cromwell's protectorate Jews were allowed to resettle in England after their expulsion from the country in 1290. They, of course brought their faith with them and the plaque at the corner of Creechurch Lane and Bury Street commemorates the first synagogue, these were Sephardic Jews from the newly Protestant Netherlands. The vast majority of plaques in the city are devoted either to churchs or the guilds and this dissent makes a nice change. Their are still synagogues in the area, Bevis Marks (complete with guard :( )and others now gone such as the Great Synagogue in Dukes Place although the general population of the area has changed markedly over the last half-century as indeed have their surroundings - a process that is still ongoing the entire area is under reconstruction at the moment. Wayne and I managed to negotiate the construction areas and found our way to Mitre Square, which up until reacently housed another plaque, one to the Priory of the Holy Trinity, founded by the Black Canons in 1108 until it was dissolved by Henry VIII. It is however perhaps better known, at least in the modern consciousness of the place where Catherine Eddowes, the canonical fourth victim of Jack the Ripper was found inn the early hours of 30th September 1888. She was the second victim attributed to the killer that night an indictment of the conditions in the area at the time. It was on this night night that the contentious "Goulston Street Graffiti" was found and although it was never properly recorded, pre-dating police forensic procedure. It was feared that the graffiti which reportedly ran along the lines of "The Juwes [sic] are the men that will not be blamed for nothing." would inflame anti-Semitic feeling in the area and so it was erased by the police. Again this speaks to the kind of conditions and tensions extant in the area at the time, indeed it was felt that no Englishman would be capable of these kind of acts and therefore must be in some way a "foreigner". Anti-Jewish demonstrations were staged and there was a real danger of social unrest. As outsiders Jews were used as hate figures as we can see from Dickens depiction of Fagin and some of the oft bandied suspects for the Ripper murders are Jewish - reflecting of course the demography of the area.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)

Another Christian (and I use the word advisedly) gentleman is memorialised just round the corner from Brick Lane - Dietrich Bonhoeffer was pastor at St. Paul's German Evangelical Reformed Church from 1933-1935. The dates are as always significant. He left Germany in late 1933 after opposing the Deutsche Christen who wished to appoint the Fuhrer as head of the German Church and assisted in setting up the rival Confessing Church. St. Paul's Church was bombed in 1941 and the site is now part of London Metropolitan University. Trying to find an exact date I found the rather scary http://bombsight.org/ which maps the sites of bombs falling on London during the Blitz and gives and impression of what the population of London underwent at this time. Dietrich Bonhoeffer however had returned to Germany despite being aware of the Nazi party and the possible, even probable consequences for him of returning. The Confessing Church which also had as a member Pastor Niemoller , he of the poem - First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. highlighted the gap between Chrtistian behaviour and the tendency of the church to be bound up with the state - particularly the Nazi state. Cue the oft quoted belt buckle of the SS - "Gott mit uns" - God is with us which they wore while committing their atrocities. One thing that I think the US have got spot on is the requirement to separate church and state - the House of Lords - particularly those members of the Lords Spiritual have to my mind a way too much influence on this end of the pond. In 1935 Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, heading a seminary in Findenwande, in modern Poland. After the Gestapo closed the seminary in 1937 Bonhoeffer travelled, creating a seminary on the run. The Confessing Church opposed the persecution of Jews and the Nazi euthanasia programme - a silent Holocaust which prefigured the Nazis final solution to the "Jewish Question". The Church assisted the concealment of Jews - promoting non-violent resistance to the vile regime and Bonhoeffer became involved in the organised anti-Nazi resistance through the Abwehr, German military intelligence which had a significant anti-Nazi element. As he was required to enlist he left for the US in 1939 but, haunted by regret returned to Germany before the war started thinking that he could only assist from within. He joined the Abwehr, aiding the resistance by acting as a courier. He travelled to Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland as the resistance attempted to engage in dialogue with the Allied powers. He was arrested and imprisoned in Tegel prison by the Gestapo on 5th April 1943 where he continued to his religious work. In September 1944 after the Stauffenberg plot against Hitler's life the Abwehr's anti-Nazi activities became known to the authorities and Bonhoeffer was transferred to the SS Reich Main Security Office in Prinz Albrecht Strasse, a road that we visited a couple of years back when we visited Berlin. In February 1945 he was transferred to Buchenwald and later to Flossenburg concentration camp where on 8th April 1945 two weeks before the Americans liberated the camps he was condemned to death. He was hanged the day afterwards although accounts of his death are now questioned as the witnesses, all Nazis, sought to minimise their culpability. His legacy however can be noted in religious opposition to unjust government - particularly that of the Civil Rights movement in the US.

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet

Nearly 2 years, how did that happen; actually I know exactly how that happened. Last years study of 2 small courses taking over the summer is how it happened. This year however I get a summer, hard to believe looking out the window on the longest day but yes it is the summer. Time to chillax with my housies, take a breath before starting it all over again in October. And so a visit to the big smoke was embarked upon, M elected to indulge in retail therapy in Westfield while I tubed it to Liverpool Street to meet up with Wayne who was up for a wander around an area of London that he didn't really know. We settled on Whitechapel - an area that I know fairly well. M and I had done one of the excellent London Walks - http://www.walks.com/ a year or two ago focusing on the few remaining relics of Jack the Ripper's London and I'd taken mum on another one focusing on the East End and its Jewish heritage - a heritage that has left its mark on the area. Given this I decided to print off a DIY walk that I found on the web - probably a mistake but hey...a focus for our meanderings. Looking at the gentrification of the area now it is a world away rom the warren of tiny alleys that contained a million or so Londoners in the nineteenth century - many of them immigrants - particularly those fleeing pogroms in the East. But it is there - they may have a new coat of paint but the soot-stained high terraces are still there - lurking. And in this squalor there was found a philanthropism that seems entirely lacking for modern political life - a fact brought home by those outnumbered by the police there to shepherd them gathered to protest against the latest round of austerity cuts handed down by the rich and brainless. This was slightly to my discomfiture aligned along a religious axis. I point you towards Sir Fowell Buxton commemorated at Truman's Brewery on Brick Lane, home of some of the best curry houses in the capital - a legacy of later immigrants - those from Bangladesh. Sir Fowell Buxton's mother was a Quaker a religious sect that I have a great deal of time for having met a few on various demos in the past and who seem rather more focused on improving the situation down here rather than saying to those who have not "never mind, you'll get your reward in heaven". He was however not involved in the temperance movement - being a director of what was then Truman, Hanbury and Company who were the largest brewer in the world in the mid-19th century. He financially supported the local weavers who had been effected by mechanization and cont4ributed to Elizabeth Fry's campaign for penal reform. He was elected to Parliament in 1818 and continued to work for penal reform, fighting to abolish the death penalty - although this wasn't achieved in his lifetime the number of capital punishment offences were decreased to 8 from over 200. He was also a founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1824, an event also commemorated in plaqular form. His do-gooding (and when was it that "do-gooder" became a slur to be levelled at someone?) however did not stop there. In 1823 he founded the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, taking over the stewardship of the issue from William Wilberforce who retired from public life in 1825. Buxton introduced a bill to Parliament calling for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire calling it - "repugnant to the principles of the British constitution and of the Christian religion". Further to this he lobbied for treaties to be made with African leaders to outlaw the trade feeling that slavery should be replaced with legitimate trade - a precursor of the modern call for fair-trade. For his efforts he was made a Baronet in 1840. He died in 1845 disappointed though having failed to effect this change in policy.

Sri Aurobindo and the coming of winter

Yes I'm afraid that it won't be long before the clocks go back and the weather closes in - this is accompanied by the start of my Open University course so I've got a week of John Donne and then the composer John Adams - so a mixed week. Our last visit to the capital was to witness the wonder of the Duckworth-Lewis Method at what will forever be (at least as I'm concerned) the Shepherds Bush Empire. We actually managed to time it for the annual Open House Day which we combined with a visit to the British Museum. Being just down the road we moseyed down Southampton Row and visited the temple to Art Deco that is the United Grand Lodge of Freemasons and then a trip across the road to Lincoln's Inn Fields to the Royal Society of Surgeons and the Hunterian museum with its collection of anatomical unpleasantnesses - the skulls of the syphilis sufferers in particular causing a fist in mouth moment. We tubed it out to Goldhawk Road and did a quick reconnoitre and found the plaque to Sri Aurobindo - Indian nationalist,philosopher, poet and Cambridge graduate. St Stephens Road is not perhaps where you would expect to find an Indian revolutionary but there his plaque was. It marks his residence from 1884-1887. He had been sent to England to get his Indian Civil Service examination which in turn required an English university education - Sri Aurobindo Ghosh went to King's College Cambridge but deliberated sabotaged his Indian Civil Service exam however he found employment through contacts with the Maharajah of Baroda. It was at this point that he became involved in politics and was imprisoned by the british authorities for his writings which endorsed a Gandhist campaign of non-violence. During his imprisonment he experienced a mystical relevation and developed a new method of spiritual practice of Internal Yoga. He founded an ashram near Pondicherry at Auroville which is still in existence - he died in 1950.