Sarah Wise

Really enjoying the many splendid, euphonious Victorian names in @misssarahwise.bsky.social's INCONVENIENT PEOPLE (2012): Forbes Benignus Winslow, Purnell B. Purnell, Valentine Lawless, John Hugh Smyth-Pigott. I'm reminded of the story of a surgeon with Tourette's syndrome ... 1/2
#booksky

... including Via Appia by Alan Sorrell.

Current exhibition | LSE Library Find out about our current exhibition drawing on themes within our collections.

NEW EXHIBITION NOW OPEN ✨
The Women’s Library at 100: Celebrating a Century of Collections.
Join us Thu 12 March to celebrate - meet the curators alongside colleagues from other archives including @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy @thelondonarchives.bsky.social
www.lse.ac.uk/library/twl100

Screenshot of paragraph from "Maria Edgeworth, letters from England 1813-1844" by Christina Colvin Source: Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/mariaedgeworthle0000chri/page/119/mode/1up?q=stoke+newington

B/W etching image of Maria Edgeworth seated at a table

15 October 1818: Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) writes from Hampstead to her stepmother in Ireland about her visit to the noted writer Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825).
Unfortunately Stoke Newington does not make a good impression - "What a dismal place!"
#IrishLondonHistory ☘️

Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art A free exhibition that tells the story of London during the Second World War, as seen by artists. Families can enjoy a child-friendly ‘stamper’ trail and activity sheet that encourages children to spo...

As bombs rained down in 1940s London, artists responded. See art that presents a city both familiar and strange in over 45 paintings and drawings alongside photographs, film, objects and oral histories.

IWM London
20 March to 1 November 2026

Clear your diary for February 24th and join us at Brick Lane Bookshop for a powerful Author Double Bill featuring Brian Chikwava and Derek Owusu.

Two extraordinary voices.
One inspiring night of literature, conversation, and connection.

bricklanebookshop.org/product/auth...

oh no, so gutted to hear that, lee i loved getting pics of him in ludicrous poses.

Today in London’s rebel history: Wanstonia evicted to make way for the M11, 1994. On 16th February 1994 hundreds of anti-road protesters were evicted from a row of houses in Wanstead by an army of 600 police, security guards and bailiffs. The houses were flattened to make way fo…

#OnThisDay in London's rebel history: squatted houses in Wanstead - known as ‘Wanstonia’ evicted to make way for the building of the M11 motorway extension, 1994.
wp.me/p74yfw-3H

Headline from 2013: Scremerston quiche thieves appear at court.

Someone post that John Peel pic, I can’t be bothered.

I miss when you could post Brave Norman Rockwell Townsperson and the caption could be, like, “R.E.M was wrong to leave ‘Fretless’ off of Out of Time” instead of “The secret police should stop murdering people.”

“Emma Amelia Gwatkin … was a very old lady, a widow living out the rest of her days in the manor house of the Wiltshire village of Potterne.”*

Sarah Wise, THE BLACKEST STREETS: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A VICTORIAN SLUM, 2008.

*She was also a slumlord.

#booksky #novelinasentence

Recommendation: THE BLACKEST STREETS: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A VICTORIAN SLUM, by Sarah Wise (2008). It's full of astonishing details about the lives of the poor and the attempts made to help and/or control them. Wise's sense of humor and her sense of justice are both admirable.
#booksky #history

The Science of Sleuthing: The Hidden History of Victorian and Edwardian Detectives with Angela Buckley Talk on Zoom by Angela Buckley, Expert in historical crime

My next talk is The Science of Sleuthing: The Hidden History of Victorian and Edwardian Detectives, hosted online by the Society of Genealogists on Mon 16 Feb at 7 pm. I'm really looking forward to sharing my doctoral research for the first time. All welcome! 🔗 portal.sog.org.uk/Event/view/1...

Skills Training in Archival Research (STAR) Workshop Join us for a hands-on workshop designed to help postgraduate students and researchers make the most of archival collections.

We have more Skills Training in Archival Research (STAR) workshops coming up!

Join staff at The London Archives for a hands-on workshop designed to help postgrad students and researchers make the most of archival collections.

📍 The London Archives
📅 1 April + 3 June
🕛️ 1-4:30pm

Today in London’s radical history: Wapping printers hold their final march, 1987. 9th February 1987 saw the last of the weekly demonstrations through Wapping, East London, that were held every Saturday night, through the bitter year long dispute between the print workers and the…

#OnThisDay in London's radical history: Wapping printers hold their final march after unions call off the dispute with Murdoch’s News International, 1987.
wp.me/p74yfw-3q

I mean, who would take the trouble to place it there?! Definitely not a bird that landed there and snuffed it.

Not so scary beautifully coloured bullocks who arranged themselves very nicely for the camera

Unusual purple bracket fungus spreading out on a tree trunk like an evil omelette

Some Blair Witch moments on yesterday’s 7-mile Herts ramble. A (sheep?) skull and a small mammal (mole?) corpse posed in tree branches

Our next HA talk is tomorrow, 6pm on Tuesday 10 Feb:

Mark Rothery will be talking about ‘“A Source of the Greatest Anxiety”: Visions of a Channel Tunnel between England and France in the Late Nineteenth Century’

All welcome! @histassoc.bsky.social

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/visions-of...

Gordon Childe Swan Watson, Andrew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

George Orwell By Cassowary Colorizations - George Orwell, c. 1940

Join us tomorrow to hear about political entanglements of prehistorian Vere Gordon Childe and world famous writer George Orwell, beginning with Childe's inclusion by Orwell on a secret government list of suspected crypto-Communists and Communist sympathisers. www.sal.org.uk/event/orwell...

Incredible photo. The teeth follow you around the room.

"Eighty-two years after his execution by the Gestapo on June 16, 1944, the Jewish historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch will be inducted into the Pantheon on June 23... His family requested that 'the far right, in all its forms, be excluded from any participation in the ceremony.'"

Romancing the Gothic presents An Online Workshop with Dr Sam Hirst 13th February 7-10pm OR 15th February 2-5pm Romancing Wuthering Heights: A History of Adaptation

These workshops are running this week! Don't miss out. There's still time to buy tickets.

Online so you can join from anywhere!

You can choose either the Friday or the Sunday.

Friday - buytickets.at/romancingthe...

Sunday - buytickets.at/romancingthe...

YouTube video by EruptionVEVO Eruption - I Can't Stand the Rain (Musikladen 03.12.1977)

youtu.be/W__5VVaLNOI?...

#OtD 6 Feb 1919 the Seattle general strike occurred when 100,000 downed tools in support of striking shipyard workers. They then went on to elect a general strike committee and began running the city under workers' control for five days stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1060...

Dusk. August. Plants against the indigo light.

To see you through another rainy night.

Episode 138 - Ocean peace above Folkestone beach (31 mins)

Rising thermals, from far below, carry up the ocean's murmurings. The sound of a cricket merges with the waves.

A *sleep safe* episode to take you to bed with summer in your ears > bit.ly/LenFolk2

'Coal Whippers' by William Wyllie (1877). © Royal Museums Greenwich www.rmg.co.uk/collections/...

Essex locals baffled by £7k duck sign because they have 'no ducks' Six workman were needed to install the sign in the village, despite residents saying they've never seen a duck in the area

Shocking stuff from Essex Live - an entire story about ducks and not a single person saying “it’s quackers”. Broken Britain in a nutshell.