This series will attempt the impossible: to compress almost 2000 years into ten Wednesday afternoons. Beginning on 3 October we will trace the movement of London from the edge of the world map to its centre, its development from a provincial backwater to [briefly] the larg-est, richest city in history and the capital of the largest empire the world has ever seen.
We will begin at the Avenue Club with a series of five informal lectures: a pair of 45-minute sessions each Wednesday, with tea, questions and conversation sandwiched between them. The focus will be on social and cultural rather than political history; with luck, Henry VIII will barely be mentioned. The approach will be illustrative and anecdotal: the big continuities and changes revealed in stories.
After a break, we will then make a series of guided visits to London museums. There we can look at objects which illustrate and exemplify the trends and events we have surveyed.
Wednesdays
2.00—3.30
Starting 3rd October
Free
- 3 October: Basic geography and chronology/Roman London
- 10 October: Anglo-Saxon and Viking London/the Normans
- 24 October: Tudor London/Shakespeare the Entrepreneur
- 31 October: The terrible 17c/Mercantile London
- 7 November: The heart of the Empire/The first Modern City
- 14 November: The terrible 20c/The Post-war, Post-Imperial City
- 21 November: no session
- 28 November: A visit to the British Gallery of the Victoria and Albert Museum
- 5 December: A visit to the Making of the Modern World Gallery of the Science Museum
- 12 December: The terrible 20c: A visit to the Museum of London in Docklands
- 19 December: A visit to the Museum of London