London History

A star exhibit at London’s National Gallery turns out to have once belonged to Adolf Hitler’s private collections. This London painting with a Nazi past was spotted by an eagle eyed researcher, within a photograph of Hitler’s sanctum.

What is London’s dirty big secret? What does a cup of sugary tea have to do with a terrible crime against humanity. And what commodity links millions of enslaved Africans and London’s dockers? The answer (and a few more questions for every Londoner), are at the Museum in Docklands, which has launched its new permanent gallery ‘London, Sugar & Slavery’.

You realise something is going on as soon as you reach the front door of the museum on West India Quay. A shroud of black cloth conceals the statue of Robert Milligan beneath. Milligan was a wealthy merchant and ship owner who was instrumental in building the West India Docks, and so his statue stands proud on the quayside. yet nowhere on the docks (until now) is the truth acknowledged … that the wealth of Milligan and his friends was largely built on the slave trade. For generations, West Africans were forcibly taken to work and die on the sugar plantations of the West Indies.

Indeed, the very building in which the museum stands is an old sugar warehouse. It wouldn’t be here but for slaving, and curator Dr Tom Wareham candidly admits that the museum missed a trick when it opened back in 2003. ‘We believed the story was of London as a port … we didn’t focus at all on London’s role in the slave trade.’

Indeed, people tend to think of Bristol and Liverpool when it comes to Britain’s involvement in the slave trade. But London, the biggest port in the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, was also the fourth largest slaving port. The new gallery redresses the balance, joining the dots ‘between ordinary Londoners, arch capitalism, despoiled West African civilisations and the thriving multicultural city we enjoy today’.

There are superb African artefacts pre-dating Europeans’ arrival on the continent, including a bronze leopard from Benin and the beautiful bust of a Yoruba King. In brutal contrast are the punishment collars and manacles, the whips and chains of the slave ships. And there are the newly acquired papers of Thomas and John Mills, who owned plantations in Kitts and St Nevis, giving us a glimpse of the lives of both slave and slaver.

There is the Buxton table, at which the terms of the Abolition Act were hammered out. But debunking the simplified history that has slavery being abolished by William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp and a few others, the names of lesser-known names are projected onto the surface. Africans such as Ottobah Cuoano and Olaudah Equiano are reinstated in their rightful place at the table. It’s just one example of an imaginative use of ’son et lumiere’ and film in the gallery. A disembodied voice asks us to imagine being taken from our home, our family, losing our freedom, our name, our children … it’s extraordinarily effective in putting you, the visitor, in the place of those stolen Africans.

And as you enter the gallery, a stunning film by Stephen Rudder (himself a south Londoner whose family came to London from Barbados) makes the point that this is the history of all of us. A succession of Londoners, white and black, voice the words of a captured slave against images of London, west Africa and the West Indies. Artefacts abound showing ordinary black Londoners in the 19th century and before.

It dispels forever the myth that London was a white city to which Black people arrived from the 1950s onwards. Catherine Hall, Professor of History at University College London advised on the gallery, and observed ‘It has helped me think about my city, how the fruits of slavery are built into the environment in which we live, and how relationships between people, right into the present, have been shaped by that history.’

It becomes even clearer with the museum, a former sugar warehouse, standing in the shadow of the towers of Canary Wharf - which is now home to banking giants such as HSBC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays. These are the titans of global capitalism, a system built on the blood, sweat and tears of those sugar plantations in Jamaica and cotton fields in the United States. Robert Milligan and his cohorts, the wealth of America and transatlantic trade, the docks and dockers of the East End, the slaves and their descendants, and indeed every Londoner - all are inextricably and forever linked.

Getting there

Museum in Docklands
West India Quay
Canary Wharf
London E14 4AL
www.museumindocklands.org.uk

Museum entrance is two minutes walk from West India Quay. There is an NCP car park behind the Museum on Hertsmere Road. Free admission for under 16’s, NUS card holders and disabled carers;Annual adult ticket £5; Concessions £3 (over 60s and unwaged) allowing unlimited readmission for a full year.

Of all the strange footnotes in East End history, none is much odder than the single-handed efforts of David Anidjar Romain, one of the governors of the Bishopsgate Institute to suppress the Minute Book of the First International. In a doughty attempt to stop Red Revolution in England, Romain cast the book into the vaults of the Institute, decreeing that it would never be seen again.

The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA) was an international socialist organisation founded at a meeting in St Martin’s Hall, in London in 1864. The aim was to pull together the disparate socialist and trade union groups scattered around Europe. Congresses followed over the next few years in Geneva, Lausanne, Brussels and the Hague. The IWA’s official journal claimed a membership of 8 million. Though this is thought to be an optimistic count, the IWA certainly had at least 1.2 million members at its peak. At its heart and at its head was Karl Marx, who had based himself in Soho. Many other European socialists had, of course, taken refuge in Spitalfields, Shoreditch and Whitechapel.

The grouping was bewildering to outsiders. A loose confederation of French Mutualists and Blanquists, Italian Republicans, English Owenites, and the Collectivists of Mikhail Bakunin. The IWA became known as the First International, gained new members and expelled others, increasingly becoming polarised into two camps - one supporting Marx, the other Bakunin. A weary Mark increasingly lost patience with the IWA - he was engaged in his epic writing of ‘Das Capital’ - and he encourage the International’s move to New York City in 1872. Four years later, at the 1876 Philadelphia conference, the First International was disbanded.

The minutes of those early meetings covered the years 1866-69. By the turn of the century they had entered the collection of George Howell, who had been MP for Bethnal Green North East in the 1880s. An early trade union leader, Howell’s collection of papers on the labour movement was one of the finest in private hands. Howell had planned to write a history of the IWA. It never came about and in 1905 the papers were acquired by the Bishopsgate Institute.

In 1919, Raymond Postgate, the son in law of George Lansbury, sat with the minute book in the library at the Institute. The journalist, novelist and social historian was writing a history of the Builders Union, which would eventually appear in 1923. But once the book was returned Romain insisted that any requests for the book (the Bishopsgate Institute operated a bizarre ‘closed access’ system, so readers were unable to browse the shelves for themselves) be turned down. Perhaps he was mindful of the recent revolution in Russia, perhaps of the constant fear of anarchism, communism and revolt that had beset Establishment London in the 1890s. Whatever his reasons, so frightened was Romain of the journal’s effect on readers that he ordered the minute book be locked in the Institute’s strongroom.

Banning the book only added to the mystique of course, and to demands to see it. But Romain’s decree held firm for 14 years. Then, during his absence on holiday in 1933, the other governors decided to rid themselves of the problem by giving the book to the British Museum. Romain returned in a fury - the offer boldly contradicted his order that nobody, anywere, should ever see the seditious tome. He angrily called the book back and had it locked in the vault of a City bank.

Finally, in 1941, the book emerged. The Soviet Ambassador to London, Ivan Maisky made a plea through the News Chronicle newspaper to see the book. As ever, the request was flatly refused. He then went to the top. Britain and the Soviet Union were engaged in a common battle against Nazi Germany, and the threat of revolution in London probably seemed a slight matter by comparison. Prime minister Winston Churchill wrote a stern letter on behalf of Britain’s Russian allies, and there was a swift change of heart by the board of governors. Maisky’s wife and a secretary then spent several years transcribing the book, and it was eventually published in Moscow in 1950.

Red revolution in England had been averted, though how much of that was down to the enthusiastic censorship practised by Mr Romain was open to question. With the IWA minute book in the hands of the Russians, Soviet Communism persisted for another four decades.

* For further reading go to Karl Marx by Francis Wheen, ISBN-10: 1841151149.

What do Paul McCartney, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Elgar, the London Topographical Society and the City of London Boy Scout troop have in common? The answer is a striking building which, amid the massive changes around Liverpool Street and Bishopsgate over the last few years has presented the same face to the world (pretty much) for more than a century.

Now the Bishopsgate Institute is to embark on the most important stage in its history. A large-scale capital programme will transform the building into a state-of-the-art Institute for the 21st century. The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has already shown its support for the project with a £1.5 million grant. The Renewal campaign launches on 5 February 2008 at 7pm, with many of the campaign patrons, including the Viscount Churchill OBE, Professor Dan Cruickshank, Baroness Hilton of Eggardon and former labour MP Stan Newens in attendance.

Today, the Institute offers short leisure courses for adults, a cultural events programme, a specialist library devoted to London’s East End and radical history, and a grants programme for local organisations. Over the years it has hosted musical concerts, old-time dancing, table tennis and more besides. That it exists at all is down to the vision of one man, who swept together the funds from dozens of moribund charities to create an institute for the working person in the City.

The Shoreditch side of Bishopsgate was a slum in the late 19th century. The railway companies had carved out Liverpool Street, Broad Street and Bishopsgate stations and the lines that served them, casually destroying hundreds of homes. Their residents had no choice but to cross into overcrowded Shoreditch. As so often in the Victorian East End, a far-sighted local vicar stepped into the breach. Rev William Rogers, Rector of St Botolph’s from 1863-96 had already founded schools for the poor, including the Bishopsgate School for Girls, in Spital Square.

But Rogers’ magnum opus was to be the Institute, and it was a triumph of will that he made it happen. Rogers was an expert at winkling out funds - he had squeezed £7500 from the railway companies for their demolition of All Saints Church in Skinner Street. Now he turned his eye to the myriad small charities that had been established over some four centuries in the City. Sometimes it seemed that every City worthy who died had left cash to fund a foundation in his or her name. By the late 1800s it was a mess, and there were mutterings in the City that funds had been misappropriated or diverted from their original purpose.

There was the sum of £2 left by Joan Ford in 1644 to establish a ‘love feast’ at which warring neighbours could meet and be reconciled. By 1878 this had expanded into a ‘charitable dinner’ costing around £60. There was an endowment to provide flannel petticoats. The Reverend Pitt had provided for 60 penny loaves to be distributed to the poor of his parish each Whitsunday from his grave in Elwin’s Garden, Broad Street Buildings (which by now was under Liverpool Street Station. In all, 52 charities, the oldest from 1481, the most recent from 1862, were folded into the Bishopsgate Foundation under the auspices of the practical Rogers, who noted ‘It is not that we scatter shillings, deal out soup tickets and write orders for flannel petticoats. We do neither these things nor the like of them.’

A board of local businessmen, traders and other worthies set aside £1014 for pensions for 39 poor of the parish, £400 for emergency medical relief for the poor and £260 for rents. The rest would go to the new institute. Land between Bishopsgate and Brushfield Street was bought for £28516, and a similar sum again on a building by architect Charles Harrison Townsend. The hybrid of Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts styles shocked many, though history has treated the design well. Townsend would go on to design the Whitechapel Gallery and the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, south London.

The foundation stone was laid on 13 May 1893 by Rev Rogers; 18 months later the Institute was opened by prime minister, Lord Rosebery. The building had a lending library with 20,000 volumes in place and a reading room, strictly segregated and with porters patrolling the centre to make sure the sexes never met. The Institute had its eccentricities - not least a ‘closed-access’ lending system, whereby the librarians fetched the volumes for readers. Autocratic librarian Charles Goss, who would run things for 44 years until retiring in 1941 at the age of 77, opined that the readers ‘can never make up their minds and merely get in each others’ way’. They also had a nasty habit of stealing the books.

The Institute offered evening lectures, with big names such as Hilaire Belloc and Ellen Terry. There were classes in book keeping, languages and shorthand. And lunchtime concerts and organ recitals became popular, with the magnificently names Reginald Goss-Custard at the keyboard. During World War II the ARP would meet at the Institute for target practice, and around the same time the City Music Society was established in the building. The Bishopsgate Club, born in 1947, brought snooker, table tennis and old-time dancing.

Today, the Institute offers more than 120 courses in languages, leisure, performing arts, self development and exercise. The debates and lectures are a must for anyone interested in East End history - upcoming subjects in 2008 include Sylvia Pankhurst, Fascism in London between the Wars, the East End Underworld, and the 1921 Poplar Rent Strike. There are lunchtime classical music concerts, and of course there is the library. And over the next five years, a £7m project will equip the Institute for the next century, with new learning spaces, a cafe, classrooms, studios and much more.

You can find out more at www.bishopsgate.org.uk. The Bishopsgate Institute and Foundation is at 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M4QH.

Yes London can be horrendously expensive, but use your imagination and do your research and there’s plenty of good free stuff to be had. That’s because museums and galleries are free apart from special exhibitions, though it would be kind to make a donation. Here’s a few you will know, and a load you won’t, to get you going.

1. Bank of Museum
   Bartholomew Lane, London, EC2R 8AH, 020 7601 549, Open Mon-Fri 1000-1700
   Closed Weekends and Public & Bank Holidays
   www.bankof.co.uk/museum
2. Barbican Art Gallery
   Barbican Centre, London, EC2Y 8DS, 020 7638 8891
   Open Mon, Tue, Thu-Sat 10am - 6pm; Wed 10am - 9pm; Sun & Bank holidays 12 noon - 6pm
   www.barbican.org.uk/home.asp
3. London Jewish Museum of Art
   108a Boundary Road, London, NW8 ORH, 020 7604 3991, Open Mon - Fri 10 - 5.30 Sun - 12 - 4, Closed Sat
   www.benuri.org.uk
4. Bethlem Royal Hospital Archives & Museum
   The Bethlem Royal Hospital, Monks Orchard Road, Beckenham, BR3 3BX, Kent,
   020 8776 4307
   Open Mon - Fri 0930 - 1700
   Closed : Sat Sun Public Holidays Other statutory holidays (NHS)
   www.bethlemheritage.org.uk
5. Bramah Museum of Tea and Coffee
   40 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1UN, 020 7403 5650, Open Seven days a week 10am - 6pm
   Closed : Christmas and Boxing Day
   www.bramahmuseum.co.uk
6. Britain At War Experience
   Churchill House, 64 - 66 Tooley Street, London Bridge, London, SE1 2Tf, 020 7403 3171, Open Summer Daily 1000-1730
   www.britain-at-war.co.uk
7. British Library
   British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB
   020 7412 7332, Open Mon Wed-Fri 0930-1800 Tues 0930-2000 Sat 0930-1700 Sun and English public holidays 1100-1700
   www.bl.uk
8. British Museum
   The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG, 020 7323 8299, Open Museum opening hours: Saturday - Wednesday 10.00-17.30 Thursday - Friday 10.00-20.30 Great Court Opening Hours: Sunday - Wednesday 09.00-18.00 Thursday - Saturday 09.00-23.00 Reading Room Opening Hours: Saturday - Wednesday, Friday - 10.00-17.30 Thursday 10.00-20.30
   Closed : Closed 1 January, Good Friday and 24-26 December every year.
   www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
9. Cutty Sark
   The Cutty Sark, King William Wark, Greenwich, London, SE10 9HT, +44 (0) 20 8858 3445, Open Seven days 1000-1700 (last admission 1630), Closed December 24-26
   www.cuttysark.org.uk
10. Design Museum
    Design Museum, 28 Shad Thames, London, SE1 2YD,
    0870 909 9009, Open Daily 10.00-17.45. Last admission 17.15. Closed Christmas Day
    www.designmuseum.org
11. Dr Johnson’s House
    17 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE, 020 7353 3745
    Open Oct-April Mon-Sat 1100-1700 May-Sept Mon-Sat 1100-1730 Sun and Bank Holidays Closed, and Sundays and Bank Holidays
    www.drjohnsonshouse.org
12. Golden Hinde Living History Museum
    The Golden Hinde, St Mary Overie Dock, Cathedral Street, London, SE1 9DE, 020 7403 0123, Open Daily 0930 - 17.00 Contact museum to confirm
    www.goldenhinde.co.uk
13. Guildhall Art Gallery
    Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, London, EC2P 2EJ, (020) 7332 3700, Open Mon-Sat 1000-1700 Sun 1200-1600, Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day & New Year’s Day Ceremonial events at Guildhall sometimes require the Gallery to close, for advanced notice phone the information line.
    www.guildhall-art-gallery.org.uk
14. Imperial War Museum
    Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London, SE1 6HZ, 020 7416 5320, Open Open daily, 10.00-18.00
    Closed : Closed 24-26 December
    www.iwm.org.uk
15. Jewish Museum, Camden Town
    Raymond Burton House, 129-131 Albert Street, Camden Town, London, NW1 7NB, 020 7284 1997, Open Sun 1000-1700 Mon - Thurs 1000-1600, Closed Fridays, Saturdays, public holidays & Jewish Festivals
    www.jewishmuseum.org.uk
16. Jewish Museum, Finchley
    The Sternberg Centre, 80 East End Road, Finchley, London, N3 2SY, 020 8349 1143, Open Mon-Thurs 1030-1700 Sun 1030-1630, Closed Friday, Saturday and Public & Jewish holidays
    www.jewishmuseum.org.uk
17. John Wesley’s House & The Museum of Methodism
    Wesley’s Chapel, 49 City Road, London, EC1Y 1AU,
    020 7253 2262, Open Monday to Saturday 10.00a.m. - 4.00pm Sunday 12.00noon - 1.45pm, Closed every Thursday between 12:45 & 1.30pm (for service), Between Christmas & New Year, Public & Bank Holidays, except Good Friday
    www.wesleyschapel.org.uk
18. London Canal Museum
    12-13 New Wharf Road, King’s Cross, London, N1 9RT,
    020 7713 0836, Open Tues-Sun 1000-1630 Last entry 1545 Open bank holiday Mondays, Closed : 24-26 December, 31st December, Mondays (except bank holidays)
    www.canalmuseum.org.uk
19. London’s Transport Museum
    London’s Transport Museum, Covent Garden Piazza, London, WC2E 7BB, 020 7565 7299, Open Mon-Thurs Sat-Sun 10.00 - 18.00 Fri 11.00 - 18.00 Last Admission 17.15
    www.ltmuseum.co.uk
20. Museum of Garden History
    Lambeth Palace Road, London, SE1 7LB, 020 7401 8865, Open Daily 10.30am-5.00pm, Closed for a short period over Christmas and New Year
    www.museumgardenhistory.org
21. National Army Museum
    Royal Hospital Road, London, SW3 4HT, 020 7730 0717 ext. 2210 / 2235, Open Daily 1000-1730, Closed 24-26 December, 1 January, Good Friday
    www.national-army-museum.ac.uk
22. National Gallery
    The National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, WC2N 5DN, 020 7747 2885, Open daily 10.00-18.00, Wed 10.00-21.00
    www.nationalgallery.org.uk
23. National Maritime Museum
    National Maritime Museum, Park Row, Greenwich, London, SE10 9NF, 020 8858 4422, Open Daily 1000-1700 Closed 24-26 December
    www.nmm.ac.uk
24. National Portrait Gallery
    National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE, 020 7312 2463, Open Monday - Wednesday & Saturday - Sunday 10am - 6pm Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm Evening Openings Thursday & Friday 10am - 9pm Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm, ClosedGood Friday, 24-26 December, 1 January
    www.npg.org.uk
25. Natural History Museum
    The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, 020 7942 5000, Open Mon-Sat 1000-1750 Sun 1100-1750 Last admission is 1730, Closed on 24, 25 and 26 December only
    www.nhm.ac.uk
26. North Woolwich Old Station Museum
    Pier Road, London, E16 2JJ, London, 020 7474 7244
    Open April-September Fri Sun 1400-1700 Sat 1000-1700 Also school holidays-call for details
27. Old Operating Theatre Museum, London
    The Old Operating Theatre Museum, 9A St Thomas’ Street, London, SE1 9RY, 020 7955 4791, Open 10.30 - 17.00 Monday -Sunday inclusive, Closed 15 Dec - 5 Jan inclusive
    www.thegarret.org.uk
28. Royal Armouries at HM Tower of London
    HM Tower of London, London, EC3N 4AB, 020 7488 5658, Open Summer - Daily 10.00-17.00 Winter - Daily 10.00-16.00
    www.armouries.org.uk
29. Science Museum
    Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2DD, 020 7942 4000
    Open Daily 1000-1800, Closed 24-26 December
    www.sciencemuseum.org.uk
30. Sherlock Holmes Museum
    221B Baker Street, London, NW1 6XE, 0181 374 0053
    Open Daily 0930-1800 Closed 25 December
    www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk
31. Sir John Soane’s Museum
    13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, WC2A 3BP, 020 7405 2107, Open Tues-Sat 1000-1700 1st Tues in month 1800-2100 Mon Bank holidays & Christmas Period Closed
    www.soane.org
32. Tate Britain
    Tate Britain, Millbank, London, SW1P 4RG, 020 7887 8000, Open Daily 1000-1750, Closed 24, 25, 26 December
    www.tate.org.uk
33. Tate Modern
    Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1, 020 7887 8888
    Open Open Sunday-Thursday, 10.00-1800 and Fri & Sat 10.00-22.00, Closed 24-26 December
    www.tate.org.uk
34. The Charles Dickens Museum, London
    The Charles Dickens Museum, 48 Doughty Street, London, WC1N 2LX, 020 7405 2127, Open Mon-Sat 1000-1700 Last admission 16.30 Sunday 1100-1700
    www.dickensmuseum.com
35. Theatre Museum, London
    Russell Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 7PR,
    020 7943 4700, Open Tues-Sun 1000-1800, Closed Bank Holidays
    www.theatremuseum.org
36. Victoria and Albert Museum
    Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2RL, 020 7942 2000
    Open Daily 1000-1745 Wed and last Fri of month 1000-2200, Closed : 24-26 December
    www.vam.ac.uk
37. William Morris Gallery
    Lloyd Park, Forest Road, London, E17 4PP, 020 8527 3782, Open Tue-Sat & first Sunday in each month 1000-1300 & 1400-1700
    www.lbwf.gov.uk/wmg

London’s Science Museum hosts an exhibition charting the history of plastic … how did we ever live without this ubiquitous material in its myriad forms. More to the point, how can we get rid of the stuff that fills a thousand overflowing landfill sites?

The bones of 13 Australian Aborigines held for more than 100 years at a British museum will be sent home within days, ending a two-decade fight for their return, Australia’s government said on Friday. The bones were taken without permission in the 1880s in a case which has been called “Australia’s Elgin marbles”, a reference to the row between Britain and Greece over Parthenon sculptures held in the British Museum in London.

This new exhibition really packs a punch! Boxing has always been a very English sport yet it has often been popular with ethnic minority groups at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. Boxers of Jewish, African-Caribbean, West African, Romany, Traveller, Irish and Asian origins have all, at one time or another entered the British ring. Boxing has not only been a way out of the ghetto but also a means of gaining acceptance, respect and even, in some cases, riches and fame. The exhibition will highlight how boxing has served as a means of social integration by enabling boxers to be proud of their ethnic identity while also feeling part of British society.

Ghetto Warriors: Minority boxers in Britain, 8 May to 2 September 2007, The Jewish Museum, Camden Town

Bethnal Green’s Rational Rec is a monthly inter-art social occasion, incorporating sound, music, text, performance, film and psychological experiments. Come along and be artistically, intellectually and alcoholically stimulated.

Events at the Whitechapel Gallery

The Whitechapel Gallery is entering the most exciting phase of its 100-year history; an ambitious expansion into the former library next door. Whilst transformations take place the Gallery becomes the Whitechapel Laboratory with exciting exhibitions, live music, poetry, talks and film. www.eastlondonhistory.com has some background and stories on the Whitechapel.