Footprints of London

History of Islington youths convicted of theft and condemned to hang who were instead shipped to Australia where they are called founders. From 1821 English courts began to sentence convicted criminals to penal servitude in Australia, for a set term or for life. Most never returned to England, becoming settlers of different kinds in the…

Primrose Hill was born when navvies dug out the land by hand, bringing grime, racket, hard drinking and what some called Moral Depravity. The neighbourhood radiates brilliant industrial solutions of Victorian engineers, but who built it? This walk puts hard-living navvies at the centre of the story and tells how the area developed in the…

Bengalis have been arriving in London for centuries. In this novel a young married woman at first housebound emerges empowered. Monica Ali’s Brick Lane recounts the experiences of Nazneen, a young woman in Bangladesh who after an arranged marriage travels to live with her husband in Tower Hamlets. Over the course of the novel Nazneen…

Donald James grew up poor when the Luftwaffe was targetting nearby Lots Road Power Station. Scars of bombing stand out in the landscape. Developers call this rising area Lot’s Village and Chelsea Waterfront, but as World’s End it was ignored — a place of factories, tenements, bomb sites, coal-boats, workshops and dog races, into the…

A Friendly Invasion of US military in 1942 led to a boom for sex workers, pimps and women living in scarce times for cash, food and fun. When the United States joined World War II, hundreds of thousands of military personnel arrived in England, many to bases in East Anglia. The Red Cross set up…

A 'friendly invasion' of US military in 1942 led to a boom for sex workers, pimps and women living in scarce times for cash, food and fun. When the United States joined World War II, hundreds of thousands of military personnel arrived in England, many to bases in East Anglia. The Red Cross set up…

Thief and escape-artist Jack Sheppard sparred with thief-taker Jonathan Wild in streets thronged with gin-sellers, sex workers and beggars. The Seven Dials area of St Giles is now pretty, but in the 18th century it was notorious for poverty and crime. Jack Sheppard was from Wych Street, an apprentice carpenter who gave up the straight…