Diary February and March 2014

Until 2 February 2014. Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making 1789-2013

Tate Liverpool exhibition examines how the production and reception of art has been influenced by political values such as collectivism, equality and the search for alternative economies. It includes William Morris and Jeremy Deller, along with political memorabilia such as trade union banners and Atelier Populaire posters from Paris. The exhibition also features interactive works, including David Medalla's A Stitch in Time, a large sheet which visitors are encouraged to sew items onto in order to help the artwork grow, and a jukebox by artist Ruth Ewan from which visitors are invited to select protest records to play in the gallery. More information on the exhibition and its events programme. www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-liverpool.   

February IHR Seminars

For full details see www.history.ac.uk/events/ihr/2014-01 inc:

3 -  Brian Harrison on Voluntarism and democracy in Britain since the 1790s

19- Thomas Hardy, Religion, and Public Discourse in the 1790s

19 - Popular protest and public history

25 - David Killingray on An 'industrial village' in Sevenoaks, Kent in the nineteenth century

28 - Clare Midgley on Indian Feminist Pandita Ramabai and Transnational Liberal Religious Networks

Saturday 1 February. 10.30am-4pm. Independent Working Class Education London Meeting

Brunswick Centre (Foundling Court), Community Room 10, next to Russell Square tube. Short presentations and a lively participatory approach. Lunch included. £6 - pay on the day. Contact: Keith Venables: iwceducation@yahoo.co.uk. http://iwceducation.co.uk_  

Saturday 1 February. 10.30am-4pm. Independent Working Class Education London Meeting

Brunswick Centre (Foundling Court), Community Room 10, next to Russell Square tube. Short presentations and a lively participatory approach. Lunch included. £6 - pay on the day. Contact: Keith Venables: iwceducation@yahoo.co.uk. http://iwceducation.co.uk.  

Saturday 1 February. 2pm. 'Queer Britain - the struggle for LGBT rights 1958-2014

Speaker Peter Tatchell Old Fire Station, The Crescent, Salford.

Saturday 1 February. 2.30pm. The (Unofficial) Naming of Lake Conan Doyle

Meet South Norwood Country Park Visitor Centre. http://insidecroydon.com/2014/01/24/naming-ceremony-for-lake-conan-doyle-feb-1. Organised by South Norwood Tourist Board. The Council is trying to stop it happening: http://insidecroydon.com/2014/01/22/council-killjoy-tries-intimidation-to-halt-conan-doyle-lake-event. http://southnorwoodtouristboard.com.

Saturday 1 February. 7.30pm. Cinema Ruskin – Classic Film Club

And then every first Saturday of the month. Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Rd, Croydon. www.ruskinhouse.org.uk/index.htm.

Tuesday to Thursday 4-6 February. Babylon

Folk music show produced by The Flanagan Collective, is about kings and queens and revolutions. Tickets for the show are just £10. Spread Eagle pub next to Croydon Town Hall. To book go to www.spreadeaglecroydon.co.uk/theatre. See more details at http://insidecroydon.com/2014/01/06/babylon-gets-a-staging-at-croydons-pub-theatre.  

Tuesday 4 February. 7pm. Progress with the Post North East Popular Politics Project

John Charlton will talk about the ‘Trauma of World War on the coalfield: Ashington 1914-1930’ component at Northumberland Collections. Woodhorn, and Peter Brabban will talk about the plan to build a director of North East labour movement biography. North East Labour History First Tuesday meeting. Irish Centre, Gallowgate, Newcastle. www.nelh.org. NEPPP database www.ppp2010.co.uk.

Wednesday 5 February.  Steve Knightly and the Show of Hands

Modern folk opens Stanley Halls public performance programme. Early bookings are advised. Tickets are £16 plus a booking fee. Secure online box office: www.ticketsource.co.uk/date/80943. Stanley Halls: www.stanleyhalls.org.uk.

Thursday 6 February.6.30pm. London and the Crowd

First meeting of theme group of London Studies Network. 354 Malet St, London, WC2. Convenor Max Sexton. maxlondonuk2010@yahoo.co.uk

Monday 10 February. 5.30 pm. Fertility and Maternity, Then and Now

In 1915, Margaret Lleyelwn Davies published Maternity: Letters from Working Women, a compilation of letters by members of the Women's Co-operative Guild. They made for a vivid and poignant portrait of pregnancy and pre-natal care, abortion and death, exhaustion and self-sacrifice in industrial Britain. Davies was encouraged by Virginia Woolf: "Do publish these letters.... they are so amazing." In the near hundred years since, scholars of various stripes have explored women's experiences of fertility and maternity. They have focused especially on the event of birth and on the ideology of motherhood. This roundtable brings together analysts of past and present to discuss research on fertility and maternity in the expansive sense identified by Davies and her compatriots. Institute of Historical Research Conversations and Disputations Seminar. Holden Room (room 103), Senate House, London, WC1. Speakers: Angela Davis (Warwick), Sarah Franklin (Cambridge), Sarah Knott (Indiana).  All welcome. For more info, email b.g.taylor@qmul.ac.uk.

Wednesday 12 February. 2pm. The unknown achievements of the 15 February 2003 anti-war march

Using testimony and arguments from his book The March That Shook Blair Ian Sinclair will challenge the popular understanding of the 2003 march as a failure, by demonstrating how it constrained the British Government's actions in Iraq. In addition Ian will explore some of the long-term impacts the march and anti-war movement has had on the British political landscape. Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford.

Saturday 15 & Sunday 16 February. Workers' Internationalism before 1914 International Conference

2014 is the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the International Working Men's Association in 1864. It is also the 125th anniversary of the foundation of the Socialist International in 1889, and the centenary of the outbreak of the war which precipitated the collapse of that International. Talks inc: Robert Owen and Workers' Internationalism before Marxism; The Early German Labour Movement 1830s to 1860s; The International Working Men's Association's role in promoting Internationalism, 1864-1874; Garibaldi's Armée des Vosges"; French revolutionary thought in exile, 1871-1880"; Rosa Luxemburg "Clara Zetkin: Anti-militarism, John Burns, Tom Mann and the culture of socialist politics in England, 1884-1887; Iranian Socialist Movement (1906-1911); Internationalism and the Radical Press in Russia, 1906-19. School of History, University of East Anglia, Norwich. Full programme at www.uea.ac.uk/history/news-and-events/workers-internationalism.  

Thursday 20 February. 7.30pm. Victorian artists Henrietta Rae and Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale

Upper Norwood Library, 39-41 Westow Hill, Upper Norwood, SE19.  All are welcome. There is no charge but donations are welcome towards refreshments.

Saturday 22 February. 2pm- 5pm. Labour Heritage West London Labour History Day. The Dublin

Lockout of 1911& its impact on the future of Labour in Ireland - Ivan Gibbons (Director of Irish Studies at St. Mary’s University College, Twickenham); The Suffragette Movement & its Relations with the Labour Movement - Philippa Bilton (relative of Emily Wilding Davidson; Ramsay MacDonald & his Stand on the First World War - John Grigg (Labour Movement historian & treasurer of Labour Heritage). Labour Party Offices, Ruskin Hall, Church Road, Acton, W3 (buses – 207, 607, 266, E3. nearest tube station: Acton Town). Admission £5. Concessions £2. Tea.

Saturday 22 February. 2pm. 'Infidels, Atheists and Secularists'

Talk by Christopher Richardson.’ From Susannah Wright, Richard Carlile and the ‘Nottingham Friends of Freedom’ to Emma Martin – a journey through 30 years and more of working class activity in secular education, operatives’ libraries, the Operatives’ Hall, campaigns against compulsory church rates and the Poor Law - and the role of religion and the Church of England.’ Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Labour History Society. Doors open at 1.30 pm. The Nottingham Mechanics Institute, 3 North Sherwood Street, Nottingham, NG1.

Tuesday 25 February. 11am-4pm. Children of the Great War Open Day

Clapham Library, Mary Seacole Centre, 91 Clapham High Street, London, SW4. Age Exchange and Lambeth Libraries are recording stories, collecting photographs, letters and memorabilia about the First World War for a centenary display later in the year. If you have a relative who fought in the war and have memories

which you would like to record, book a slot in advance with Annicka Anciff, email AAncliff@lambethgov.uk or telephone 020 7926 4788.

Tuesday 25 February. 5.30-7pm. Launch of Look How Far We’ve Come

DVD/book, which documents African British histories from the context of racism and racial equality policies. House of Commons. Free. For more information or to book: www.LookHowFar.eventbrite.com.

Friday 28 February. 7.45pm. The South London Botanical Institute: Introducing People to Plants for over 100 years

Talk by Roy Vickery. The SLBI, near Tulse Hill station, was founded by Allan Octavian Hume in 1910 to interest local people in plants and fungi.  Roy will talk about Hume’s extraordinary life as an ornithologist, founder of the Indian National Congress, social reformer, and, finally, botanist, and describe the Institute’s on-going work. Lewisham Local History Society. Methodist Church Hall, Albion Way, Lewisham, SE13. Visitors welcome. Donations of minimum £1 invited.

March  IHR Seminars

For full details see www.history.ac.uk/events/ihr/2014-03, inc:

3 - Pan-Africanism and Communism. Hakim Adi.

5 - Landscapes of London: the City, the Country, and the Suburbs in the Eighteenth-Century. Elizabeth McKellar (the Open University).

6 - Exterminate all the Brutes: Modern Settler Colonialism and the Future of Endangered Races. Sadiah Quereshi (Birmingham).  

11 - Searching for Sailortown: naval towns and urban cultures, c.1820 to 1914.

12 - Making the East India Company at home in Osterley Park
Kate Smith (UCL) & Claire Reed (National Trust).

17 - Dona Montefiore and World War One. Ted Crawford.  

20 - A Women's Work Is Never Done: Women and the British Anti-Fascist Movement. Joe Mulhall (Rhul).

25 -  'Indigenous London' - perspectives of the indigenous peoples of Empire on the Empire's capital. Colm Thrush (University of British Columbia/IHR).

War and independence in Spanish America. Anthony McFarlane (Warwick).

27 - 'The Chief City of America': The American Colony in London, Victorian Globalisation and the Transformation of US Empire, 1870-1914. Steve Tuffnell (University of Oxford). 

Saturday 1 March. Taking sides: artists and writers on the Spanish Civil War

International Brigade Memorial Trust Len Crome Memorial Lecture. Manchester Conference Centre, Sackville Street, Manchester M1. Under the heading there will be a series of presentations on themes from cinema to foreign correspondents. More details of the programme, and how to book: www.international-brigades.org.uk/content/2014-len-crome-memorial-lecture.

Saturday 1 March. Leisure History Workshop

The British Society of Sports History South.  University of East Anglia, Norwich. Inaugural event for the network's East of England Branch (comprising the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk). Themes Leisure and Politics, Rural Leisure, Representing Leisure on Screen. Further details from bssheast@gmail.com.

Saturday 8 March. 2pm. Socialist women of the Independent Labour Party - political propagandists and trade union organisers, 1890s-1914

Talk by June Hannam, Professor of History (Uni. West of England). Working Class Movement Library, Salford. June writes on Women's history, feminist history on the IHR Making History website: www.history.ac.uk/makinghistory/resources/articles/womens_history.html.

Saturday 8 March. 4-6pm. Black History, Personal Empowerment and African Cultural Studies with Robin Walker

Start of 18 week course. Croydon Supplementary Education Project, 32-34 Sydenham Road, Croydon, CRO. Free. For more information ring the Project on 020 8686 7865. www.csep.org.uk.

Thursday 13 March. Tayo Aluko’s excellent show: Call Mr Robeson

The Met, Bury.  http://cmr.tayoalukoandfriends.com/performances.

Monday 17 March. 7.30-11pm. St Patrick’s Night

Ruskin House, 23 Coombe Rd, Croydon.

Monday 17 March. 8pm. Sustaining the High Street

Jeremy Keates, Clapham and Brixton Town Centre Manager at Lambeth Council will talk about the Council’s current approach to town centres and work at present being done in Clapham, led by the local business community. Clapham Society. Omnibus, 1 Clapham Common North Side, London, SW4. Omnibus bar opens at 7pm. For full details about the new Omnibus community venue see www.omnibus-clapham.org. Full details re-Clapham Society at www.claphamsociety.com.

18 March. 6.30-8pm. After the Asylums: A public discussion of mental health care in Britain, past and present

Launch event for The Last Asylum by Barbara Taylor (Penguin, 2014). Queen Mary, University of London, Maths Lecture Theatre, Mile End Road, London, E1. (The Maths Lecture Theatre is in the Mathematical Sciences Building which is building number 4 on the www.qmul.ac.uk/docs/about/26065.pdf. This event is free of charge and open to all. To book a place, please follow the link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/after-the-asylums-tickets-10043294765.  

Friday 21 March. Tayo Aluko’s excellent show: Call Mr Robeson

Theatr Hafren, Newtown, Wales. http://cmr.tayoalukoandfriends.com/performances.

Thursday 27 March. 7pm. From Gun Running to Philantrophy: Katherine Low and her family (provisional tile)

Talk by Sean Creighton about Katherine Low, after whom the Battersea Settlement is named. Part of Battersea Society AGM. St Mary’s Church. The Society is planning a plaque on the Katherine Low Settlement building 17 May.

Saturday 29 March. 9.30am-c5pm. Law & Order in West London’s History

West London Local History Conference. Talks on West London Crime at the Old Bailey, 1674-1913 (Prof.

Bob Shoemaker, Old Bailey Online project); Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath; Football, Fairs and Fun: suppressing public nuisances; Crimes and punishments readings from historical documents; Behind Bars - a history of Wandsworth Prison (Stewart McLaughlin, Honorary Curator of the Prison's Museum); and Dear Boys and Fassy Ole' Pots: Feltham's Industrial School and its successors. Tickets £10 in advance only from J. McNamara, 31B Brook Rd South, Brentford, TW8 ONN. Cheque payable to ‘West London Local History Conference’. Conference fee includes morning coffee and afternoon tea. Participants are welcome to bring a picnic lunch and there are cafés and shops in Chiswick High Road nearby.

Monday 31 March. 5.15pm. Uncharted Waters: Researching Sounds, Ships, and Sailor Towns

Talk by Dr Catherine Tackley (Open University). The IHR Sport & Leisure seminar Senate House, Malet St/Russell Square, London, WC1. bsshlondon@gmail.com.