On 2nd July 1798, officers of the West India Merchants and Planters Marine Police Institute, the UK’s earliest organised police force proper, launched their first patrols of the crowded water…

“After over 5 years and many eviction scares it has finally happened… 3 people and a dog were inside when police attempted to chainsaw the door. They also had climbers going up to the roof conjurin…

Boris Johnson tells investors London is open for business, but organisers of Mipim conference are forced to close the gates

A3 double-sided poster Remembering 18 th Century London’s most famous prison escapologist…

The long campaign for reform of the British political system went through many phases, especially in the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1832 a powerful agitation for political change revived, follo…

John Goodwyn Barmby was a utopian communist, influenced by the ideas of Robert Owen and the early 19th century French Utopian socialist theorists, who launched propaganda organisations to spread th…

1907-8 saw a sharp stepping up of the campaign by UK women to win the vote. Successive rejections of lobbying of MPs, attempts to get political parties onside and other conventional measures had pu…

On 15th April 1870, a Land and Labour League unemployed demonstration took place in London. The winter of 1869-70 had seen a large rise in unemployment, and on Good Friday the League organised a de…

The long campaign for reform of the British political system went through many phases, especially in the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1832 a powerful agitation for political change revived, follo…

A detailed biography of Emily Wilding Davison that includes includes images, quotations and the main facts of her life. Key Stage 3. GCSE. A-level. Women's History. Last updated: 14th June, 2022

For 100s of years Newgate Prison was the most potent symbol and reality of state repression in London, the ultimate representation of terror for the poor. From those driven to crime by the economic…

The long campaign for reform of the British political system went through many phases, especially in the 19th century. Between 1830 and 1832 a powerful agitation for political change revived, follo…

Possibly the first play about AIDS, Anti Body was staged at London's Cockpit Theatre from 10th-22nd October 1983. Documenting the experience of William Davis - a gay man with AIDS - it preceded Larry ...

Exclusive: Badenoch’s flagship conference policy document cites £957bn estimate, twice the total in climate advisers’ data

Wanderings in the past, present and future of radical pamphleetering. Since the beginning of printing, political pamphlets have been one of the most popular ways to spread radical ideas. Short, sharp,...

DIY Radical history publications from London's turbulent past... Self-published pamphlets, posters, pamphlets and the London Rebel History Calendar

Revolt of the Ravers is a key article about the Movement against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-1995.

Winston Trew was one of the “Oval Four” – four black men arrested by police at Oval Station on the

Regicides

“Abiezer Coppe… did away with sin…” (Leon Rosselson) On 14th January 1650, Abiezer Coppe delivered a blasphemous sermon in St Helen’s Church , Bishopsgate. He seems to have used the tactic of…

The Savoy Hotel Strikes, 1946-7 “When the hotel workers in London, starting with the Savoy Hotel, came out on strike in 1947 I think there was still a good bit of the war-time spirit among them, th…

The Savoy Hotel Strikes, 1946-7 “When the hotel workers in London, starting with the Savoy Hotel, came out on strike in 1947 I think there was still a good bit of the war-time spirit among them, the esprit de corps developed among people during the Blitz. A lot of them had been in the forces and this had given them confidence. They needed it, for there had never been such a strike in the catering industry, nor has there since.” (Arthur Lewis) During 1946-47, the ultra-posh Savoy Hotel in London’s West End was hit by a series of strikes by its workers; the ramifications of these disputes went beyond day to day working relations to affect royal occasions and involved suspicions of communist conspiracy.

Born Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall, the writer who would go on to be known simply as Radclyffe Hall often, in her private life, went by the name John.

This walk is based on research originally done for a radical history walk which took place in Bloomsbury on 22nd April 2006, which started at ‘The Square’ squatted Social Centre, in Russell Square.…

Jessie Craigen (c.1835-99) was a working-class activist and public speaker in the earlier phases of the movement for women’s suffrage in Britain. Craigen’s background was relatively unusual, in a m…