A fascinating picture of Highbury & Islington station nearly 100 years ago here on Flickr.
I won’t write up the history of the station as it’s done brilliantly by various contributors in the notes on the picture. Read and enjoy.
Posts Tagged history
Tolpuddle KX festival
Next month marks the 175th anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
They were a group of farm workers in Dorset who in 1834 were sentenced to be deported to Australia for forming a trades union, an illegal act in those days. A massive demonstration in support of the men set off from Islington’s Copenhagen Fields to Parliament, and led to them being pardoned – a huge milestone in the history of trades unions and other campaigning organisations. The event is commemorated in the name of Tolpuddle Street, and by the mural at Edward Square.
And now there is to be a festival from 19-25 April, mirroring the annual event at Tolpuddle: more details of the Islington festival are here.
We have so many freedoms we take for granted (and others under attack) but we shouldn’t forget the struggles that won those freedoms for us.
Whitecross Street: from monks to markets and makeovers
I’ve blogged before about Whitecross Street’s shops and market.
The street has a fascinating history. John Strype’s 1603 History of London dates the street back to a hospital founded in the reign of Edward I, and given as a monastery house for the Brotherhood of St. Giles by Henry V. There were also almshouses founded by a former Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham.
By the 19th century the street was more residential. In David Hughson’s 1806 History and Description of London it was described as “noble, wide, and well built, inhabited by persons of property.”
One of them, a Samuel Baylis of Whitecross Street, was a founder member of the Radical Club, a fore-runner of the Liberal Party, along such famous names as Daniel O’Connell, Joseph Hume, Francis Place and Sir William Molesworth.
The Guildhall Library’s print collection shows some of the fine buildings on the street, including the Lord Mayor’s stables, Lady Holles’s School House, the Great Northern Railway Goods Depot, and the City Weights and Measures Office. For most of the 19th century the street was best known for the debtor’s prison.
Like much of the area, parts of Whitecross Street were firebombed in the December 1940 blitz. And the southern end has since been transformed by the post-war developments of the Whitbread estate and the Barbican.
In recent years, the street has had a makeover with new lighting and paving. Now the revived market and the great mix of shops, from grocers to galleries, serve a very diverse neighbourhood in Bunhill ward.
One blot on the west side of the street is a run of empty properties opposite the Peabody estate. They have shop units on the ground floor and potential for housing above; the run of shops previously included cafes, a nail salon, and a record shop, but now they are just a semi-derelict eyesore.
Now the local regeneration project EC1 NewDeal and the Council are proposing to take over the properties with a compulsory purchase order, and plan to sell them on to a housing association; and if that isn’t possible, to sell them to a private developer. The Council may actually lose money on such a deal given falling property prices and all the legal costs involved in a CPO; so the partnership with EC1 NewDeal could make all the difference.
Popham Princess
It is Kate Middleton’s birthday today, and again the press are speculating that there will shortly be a royal engagement announcement. If so, we could have a future Queen with Islington roots.
A team of genealogists, (led by William Addams Reitwiesner and Michael J. Wood) has traced Kate’s family history, and it makes fascinating reading.
Kate’s mother was Carole Goldsmith before she married Michael Middleton. Carole’s great-grandfather was John Goldsmith, a labourer, born at 3 Popham Street, on 6 July 1851. John Goldsmith’s parents, John and Esther (nee Jones) were married at St. John the Baptist, Hoxton, on 23 Sept. 1850. John senior was a labourer, Esther was a laundress, and they were both living at 2 Triangle Place, Islington when they died in the 1880s.
Triangle Place has long gone, but Popham Street still exists, running between Essex Road and Prebend Street, but the 19th century houses have long gone. In 1928, the New Survey of London Life and Labour found this area had some of the worst overcrowding, with over 1.75 persons to a room. The houses were demolished and replaced by the Popham estate (designed by Harley Sherlock) in the 1960s, but not before Cathy Come Home was filmed there.
Whether Kate will come home to Islington remains to be seen.
Ascent of money
I’ve had a rare evening in, and been enjoying ‘The Ascent of Money’ on Channel 4.
Last month, Rich & I had our regular weekend in Amsterdam (for Museumnacht) and visited the Historical Museum among many others.
We had an unexpected diversion this year when we hopped on what we thought was the Museumnacht circular canal boat only to find we had gate-crashed a Russian tour party. All part of life’s rich tapestry.
Anyway, tonight there was Niall Ferguson using one of my favourite pictures – Dirck Bas and family – to illustrate the story of the Dutch East India Company.
Then via John Laws, and the Louisiana bubble, to Enron and the ‘miraculous institution’ of the limited company. I don’t share his politics, but Niall Ferguson is a fine presenter, making complex ideas understandable, and linking past and present in an engaging way.
Talk of economic models, not to mention bull markets, inevitably reminds me of those Economic Models explained with Cows – updated for the post-Enron age.
Swimming into history
The Games are over, but the buildings remain.
The Bird’s Nest stadium will be the iconic building of the Beijing Olympics, but I thought the glow-in-the-dark water cube looked stunning too.
The London 2012 Aquatic Centre is intended to be an iconic design but has already run into budget problems, adding to the headaches for the Games planners.
Meanwhile, if the amazing performances within the cube have tempted you into the water, Islington can get you into swimming history, even if your style is more paddle than medal. Ironmonger Row Baths in Finsbury have been listed by TimeOut magazine as London’s best pool for ’swimming in history’.
You can even unwind with an authentic Turkish bath, described by the Evening Standard as “the best value-for-money stress-busting technique in town”. So expect Tessa Jowell along any day now….
Islington’s Olympic links
Amid all the Olympic coverage, I came across this fascinating reference to the first time Britain won 5 gold medals in a day.
That was 100 years ago, at the 1908 London Olympics – and the medals were for boxing. Most interesting to me, the venue was the Northampton Institute in Clerkenwell, which became City University (still based in Northampton Square).
A century on, another Islington-based university is playing an Olympic role. London Met’s Science Centre is a designated training facility for basketball and fencing.
Prints of peace
While enjoying the sport from Beijing, spare a thought for the many Chinese whose human rights are still repressed.
Like Chinese bookshop owner Shi Weihan (aged 37) who was arrested on 19 March but is yet to have a court hearing. No formal charges have been made against Shi but his arrest is believed to be for publishing Bibles and Christian literature. He suffers from diabetes and needs to receive medical attention urgently.
500 years ago, printing Bibles was illegal here.
William Tyndale was executed in 1536 for pioneering the translation and printing of Bibles in English. He wasn’t only a pioneer of religious freedom. Along with Shakespeare, Tyndale shaped our language. When we ask the ‘powers that be’ in China not to be ‘a law unto themselves’ but recognise ‘the signs of the times’, we’re talking Tyndale.
Tyndale wasn’t the first translator of the Bible into english. That was John Wycliffe, back in 1382. But it was printing that made the difference. Printing presses allowed mass communication for the first time, as subversive then as China finds the internet now.
Rebels become heroes over time. William Tyndale is now honoured in the name of the Islington school where Rich is a governor. John Wycliffe gave his name to Wyclif Street and Wyclif House off Northampton Square in Clerkenwell.
Meanwhile Shi Weihen is still in prison. You can send messages asking for his release to the Chinese ambassador in Britain, Fu Ying, here.
