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Volume 50, Issue 3 of The London Journal

November 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Dr Richard Asquith

@richardasquith.bsky.social

It’s St Andrew’s day, which is a tenuous enough excuse to share my article on the early C16th rebuilding of the church of St Andrew Undershaft in #London, published in @thelondonjournal.bsky.social 😇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... #Skystorians #medievalSky #church

Photograph of the church of St Andrew Undershaft, London - a medieval church tower with pinnacles, behind which is the Gherkin skyscraper.

November 30, 2025 at 6:43 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Dr Aidan Norrie 🦄

@aidannorrie.bsky.social

I am very excited for this workshop: please do submit an EOI or get in touch if you have any queries.

Publishing a journal article doesn’t have to be a daunting experience, and we are very proud of our support for ECRs.

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 6d

We are running a free workshop at @tandfresearch.bsky.social's office in South London on 30 January 2026 to support early career scholars in developing their work into a publishable journal article. Expressions of interest due by 16 January. See here for more details (and please share widely!)

thelondonjournal.org

December 2, 2025 at 2:47 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Taylor & Francis Research

@tandfresearch.bsky.social

We hope to see you there! 👋

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 6d

We are running a free workshop at @tandfresearch.bsky.social's office in South London on 30 January 2026 to support early career scholars in developing their work into a publishable journal article. Expressions of interest due by 16 January. See here for more details (and please share widely!)

thelondonjournal.org

November 28, 2025 at 8:47 AM

Reposted by The London Journal

Dr James Peate

@jamesepeate.bsky.social

If you would like to know more about how Romani in history in Britain, how they had their own distinct cultural spaces and their relationship with the capital - @thelondonjournal.bsky.social have published the just the article.

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 5d

Followed by 'A Romani Capital? Romanies and London in the Eighteenth Century', by @jamesepeate.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Abstract
The history of Romanies in England during the eighteenth century has been largely neglected by existing historical scholarship. Yet, the Romani experience of and in London had a notable impact on the capital's culture and the ways in which Romanies or ‘Gypsies’ would be portrayed for years to come. This article explores how, in the early part of the century, the Romani settlement at Norwood in south London enabled interaction and integration between Londoners and their Romani neighbours. During the second half of the century, Norwood was enclosed, and interactions between Romanies and south Londoners diminished. What remained was an experience of Romani culture drawn primarily not through interactions with an established Romani population, but from a stereotypical ‘Cultural Gypsy’ that was portrayed in literature and on stage.

November 28, 2025 at 6:12 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Prof Tracey Hill

@tracelarkhall.bsky.social

Such a great article!

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 5d

And last but not least, the 2024 Curriers Prize winning 'Stories from Smithfield: Markets and the Narration of London', by @jackhanlon.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Abstract
Throughout London’s history, marketplaces have not only been integral to its economy but also to how the city was imagined. Drawing on a diverse range of archives and sources—from tabloid journalism and film, through to oral history and photography—this article examines the ‘narration of London’ at one of the city’s most famous market sites, Smithfield. It focuses upon three moments when London’s meat market came to be seen as emblematic of the city’s story: as an ‘anvil’ for modernisation in the mid-nineteenth century; as an ‘insider’s’ account of the commercial empire in the early twentieth century; and as the last remnant of a ‘London lost’ on the eve of a new millennium. This article argues that the narrative power of the marketplace lies in its capacity for temporal rupture and connection—an ideal stage for dramatising the relationship between urban past and present. It shows how starkly and stereotypically gendered representations of Smithfield’s male workforce became one important means of understanding and articulating urban change.

November 28, 2025 at 6:12 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

Our third and final issue of 2025 has now been published! A 🧵 on its contents...

The London Journal

November 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

We are running a free workshop at @tandfresearch.bsky.social's office in South London on 30 January 2026 to support early career scholars in developing their work into a publishable journal article. Expressions of interest due by 16 January. See here for more details (and please share widely!)

thelondonjournal.org

November 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Prof Tracey Hill

@tracelarkhall.bsky.social

It was a complete joy to work with my friend Andy on our special issue of @thelondonjournal.bsky.social in 2022, and I am very proud of the introductory essay we co-authored: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Rest in power, dear friend

50th Anniversary Special Issue: London’s Past Today. Volume 50, Issue 1 of The London Journal

November 21, 2025 at 12:26 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

Call for papers for our new special issue on 'Nocturnal London', edited by Maurizio Cinquegrani, Yihong Zhu, and @mcmccluskey.bsky.social. Abstracts due in by 31 March 2026.

All submissions and reposts much appreciated.

Nocturnal London: From Torches to Neon Signs in a City After Dark
Edited by Maurizio Cinquegrani, Yihong Zhu and Michael McCluskey

The editors of this special issue, Maurizio Cinquegrani, Yihong Zhu and Michael McCluskey invite submissions on the theme of London nights. This volume of the London Journal will examine the histories of the city after dark, from its origins in Roman London to the present. Often overlooked, night has long been an essential dimension of urban life: as the city’s appearance change in the lightening of torches, oil lamps, gaslight, incendiary bombs and neon signs, nocturnal imagery, sounds, smells and professions – legal and not legal – emerge from the darkness. For Londoners, the night was never simply the absence of day; it was a time of danger, sociability, and creativity; a theatre of crime and vice, but also of performance, work, and pleasure.

The special issue will place particular emphasis on moments when the character of London’s nights was especially contested, including – but not limited to – the Elizabethan, the eighteenth century, the Victorian, the wartime and the postwar city. The Elizabethan period witnessed the emergence of the city’s playhouses, taverns, and nocturnal entertainments, alongside concerns about disorder and moral decline. Eighteenth-century coffee-houses and club meetings reflected the nocturnal city’s uneasy mix of polite sociability and transgressive undercurrents, while pleasure gardens flourished as spaces of spectacle, employment, cross-class mingling, and erotic charge

under cover of darkness. In the Victorian era, the introduction of gaslight transformed both the material and imaginative experience of the night, making the city’s streets newly navigable while also exposing poverty, vice, and vulnerability to the gaze of reformers, police, photographers, and journalists. Wartime London, by contrast, was marked by darkness and silence imposed from above: the blackout and the Blitz remade the urban night as a zone of danger, solidarity, and belonging. The postwar decades, and especially the 1960s, brought the era of Swinging London, in which nightlife became emblematic of youth, fashion, music, and cultural revolution.

Equally important are the particular districts that have defined London’s reputation after dark, including – but again not limited to – the West End and the East End. The East End has been imagined as a zone of poverty, danger, and cultural resilience, alive with street-level economies that flourished under cover of night. The West End has long been associated with theatres, clubs, and the rituals of fashionable display. Soho, especially in the twentieth century, became a microcosm of cosmopolitanism, transgression, and reinvention, providing a home for migrants, artists, musicians, and London’s gay community, who together redefined the possibilities of nocturnal sociability.

Beyond districts and periods, we also invite reflections on the people who navigated, transformed, and reimagined the nocturnal city. The editors are especially keen to foreground questions of diversity and difference. How have London’s nights been inhabited, shaped,

and contested by women, by queer citizens, by migrants and racialised communities, and by those whose working lives were tied to the hours of darkness? How was night both policed and celebrated? How did nocturnal spaces serve as arenas of negotiation between surveillance and resistance, authority and anonymity, privilege and precarity? How have representations in literature, theatre, music, art, and film contributed to the cultural meanings of the nocturnal city? We welcome submissions from across the disciplines, including history, literary and cultural studies, art history, archaeology, urban geography, sociology, performance and media studies, as well as ecology, environmental humanities, and architecture and urbanism. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged, as are contributions that combine archival research with theoretical or methodological innovation.

Abstracts of 300–400 words, accompanied by a short biographical statement, should be submitted by 31 March 2026. Full-length articles will be in the range of 6,000–8,000 words and are due by 31 March 2027. Please send proposals and queries to Maurizio Cinquegrani, Yihong Zhu, and Michael McCluskey (m.cinquegrani@kent.ac.uk, scarlett.zhu24@gmail.com, and m.mccluskey@northeastern.edu) with the subject line Nocturnal London Special Issue.

November 20, 2025 at 11:18 AM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

New research article: 'Capital Entertainment: The London Pantomimes of Nelson Lee, c.1830–1870', by Stephen Ridgwell: www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Abstract
Throughout the nineteenth century, pantomimes were a much-loved source of winter amusement in London. Capable of generating large amounts of revenue, they also played a major role in the capital’s theatrical economy. From the most fashionable West End houses to the less prestigious neighbourhood establishments, pantomimes were a colourful highlight of the festive season. Over the course of four decades, from the last years of the Regency to the mid-Victorian, no-one wrote more pantomimes for Londoners than Nelson Lee: a showman turned actor and theatre manager who defined the period’s spirit of bustling commercial enterprise. Deeply implicated in the moment of their creation, pantomimes were simultaneously critique, celebration, and reflection of their time and place. To have an appreciation of Lee’s remarkable work in this field is thus to better understand the society (and city) that produced and consumed it.

November 20, 2025 at 11:04 AM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

Compiling an ongoing thread of threads that we have produced about the Viewpoint articles the journal has published this calendar year in conjunction with its 50th anniversary celebrations, for which we also published this special issue on 'London's Past Today'. 🧵

The London Journal

The Survey of London Today: Reconciling the Granular with the Global

November 19, 2025 at 4:30 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

We've published another new Viewpoint article: 'The Survey of London Today: Reconciling the Granular with the Global' by Sarah A. Dowding, Emily Mann and Aileen Reid, which @tandfresearch.bsky.social are making freely available for all to read for a limited time period.

A short 🧵on its contents...

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

November 19, 2025 at 3:48 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Prof Tracey Hill

@tracelarkhall.bsky.social

Now open to PhD students and ECR folk outside the UK too ⬇️

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 21d

Applications are now open for the Curriers Prize, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Curriers in association with ourselves and the @ihr.bsky.social for the best entered essay on any aspect of London's history from Roman times to the present.

The Worshipful Company of Curriers, has established an essay prize on the history of London, in association with The London Journal Trust and the IHR.

November 12, 2025 at 1:39 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾

@drdiongeorgiou.bsky.social

If you're a PG student or an ECR working on any aspect of London's history, do consider submitting! And if you're not but you know of, or maybe even supervise, someone who does, encourage them to submit!

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 21d

Applications are now open for the Curriers Prize, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Curriers in association with ourselves and the @ihr.bsky.social for the best entered essay on any aspect of London's history from Roman times to the present.

The Worshipful Company of Curriers, has established an essay prize on the history of London, in association with The London Journal Trust and the IHR.

November 12, 2025 at 1:40 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Gary Sheffield

@profgsheffield.bsky.social

My livery company! Please do apply

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · 21d

Applications are now open for the Curriers Prize, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Curriers in association with ourselves and the @ihr.bsky.social for the best entered essay on any aspect of London's history from Roman times to the present.

The Worshipful Company of Curriers, has established an essay prize on the history of London, in association with The London Journal Trust and the IHR.

The City of Dreadful Night?

November 13, 2025 at 7:52 AM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

A new viewpoint article, by the journal board's very own @mcmccluskey.bsky.social, entitled 'The City of Dreadful Night?' has been published online (and will soon be freely available to read for the next three months).

A short 🧵on what it covers...

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

November 12, 2025 at 5:26 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

Applications are now open for the Curriers Prize, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Curriers in association with ourselves and the @ihr.bsky.social for the best entered essay on any aspect of London's history from Roman times to the present.

The Worshipful Company of Curriers, has established an essay prize on the history of London, in association with The London Journal Trust and the IHR.

Teaching London’s Past Today: An Experiential Approach to a Global City*

November 12, 2025 at 1:37 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

The second in our series of threads on the wonderful articles comprising our 50th anniversary special issue, 'London's Past Today', is on Sam Waterman and Charlotte Grant's 'Teaching London’s Past Today: An Experiential Approach to a Global City' (available open access).
🧵

This article provides an account of teaching London’s cultural history on a semester-long, first-year undergraduate study-abroad course at Northeastern University London (NUL) using a multi-authore...

Global London on Screen: Visitors, Cosmopolitans and Migratory Cinematic Visions of a Superdiverse City

November 10, 2025 at 11:37 AM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

New book review: Global London on Screen: Visitors, Cosmopolitans and Migratory Cinematic Visions of a Superdiverse City, edited by Keith B. Wagner and the late Roland-François Lack, as reviewed by Melissa Oliver-Powell.

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

November 6, 2025 at 5:31 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Dr Richard Asquith

@richardasquith.bsky.social

As a previous prize winner, I can hardly recommend this enough: it’s a force for good in the study of #London history, and publishing with @thelondonjournal.bsky.social (with the gentle support/encouragement of @aidannorrie.bsky.social!) was a delight. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

November 5, 2025 at 8:54 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Institute of Historical Research

@ihr.bsky.social

The Curriers' Prize is now open! Submit your best unpublished essay on any aspect of London's history, and you could get a £1,000 award!

Full details: 👇 w ww.history.ac.uk/funding/awards-bursaries-prizes/curriers-prize

The Worshipful Company of Curriers, has established an essay prize on the history of London, in association with The London Journal Trust and the IHR.

Queer Premises: LGBTQ+ Venues in London Since the 1980s

November 5, 2025 at 12:12 PM

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

New book review: Queer Premises: LGBTQ+ Venues in London Since the 1980s by @bencampkin.bsky.social, reviewed by Marisa Müsing.

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons

October 30, 2025 at 3:00 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

The London Journal

@thelondonjournal.bsky.social

Our latest Viewpoint article is out: 'Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons' by @mpdavies.bsky.social.

A 🧵 on the insights provided by this article into the history and historiography of these key metropolitan institutions in the medieval and early modern periods.

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons

October 28, 2025 at 4:44 PM

Reposted by The London Journal

Matthew Davies

@mpdavies.bsky.social

Pleased to see my ‘viewpoint’ looking at the historiography of London’s crafts and guilds now available @thelondonjournal.bsky.social as part of the journal’s 50th birthday celebrations!

The London Journal @thelondonjournal.bsky.social · Oct 28

Our latest Viewpoint article is out: 'Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons' by @mpdavies.bsky.social.

A 🧵 on the insights provided by this article into the history and historiography of these key metropolitan institutions in the medieval and early modern periods.

Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)