Category: Social History Page 1 of 24

A Hawksmoor Church and a riverside walk.

On 2nd July 2026

In Architecture, Memorials, Religion, Sculpture, Social History, Stained Glass, Wartime

A few weeks ago, a sunny day that wasn’t too hot tempted me to visit Greenwich, one of my favourite places.

First on the list to visit was a Nicholas Hawksmoor masterpiece, the church of St Alfege …

Alfege, Archbishop of Canterbury, was taken hostage by Danish invaders who took him to Greenwich, hoping to raise a large ransom. St Alfege refused to be ransomed, as it would mean starvation for many of his people. As a result he was martyred in 1012 …

During a drunken Easter feast the frustrated Vikings pelted him with the leftover meat and bones of cattle and oxen. He was eventually put out of his misery with a fatal blow from an axe, hence the animal skull and the axe in the stained glass image.

This is the third building on the site and was designed by Hawksmoor in 1711. Unfortunately, on 19 March 1941, two incendiary devices hit the church causing huge damage and little of the original interior now remains. After the war the leading British architect, Albert Richardson, restored the church in a way which combines both traditional and modern approaches. The work was completed in 1953.

There is some beautiful stained glass.

The east window, above the altar, was installed in 1953. It shows the risen Christ and beneath, St Alfege and Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII …

There is also a series of post-war stained glass windows by Francis Spear depicting famous historical figures associated with the church, including General Wolfe …

Wolfe died aged 32, leading his troops to victory at Quebec, a turning point in the struggle between Britain and France for control of Canada. Wolfe, who worshipped here, is buried in a family vault in the crypt.

Some more important people and events …

Finally, ‘the father of English church music’ …

From 1540 t0 1585, the church was lucky enough to have Thomas Tallis as church organist …

Engraving by Niccolò Haym after a portrait by Gerard van der Gucht.

Tallis is considered one of England’s greatest composers and parts of this old keyboard may date from his period with the church …

The Chandelier was installed in 1998 and has 58 electric candle lights …

The dove at the top symbolises the Holy Spirit …

Bell Ringing boast …

Some generous benefactors including, in 1577: ‘William Riplar, Fisherman gave his house called the Peter boat to the poor for ever‘ and in 1605, Joyce Whitehead gave 5 shillings to repair the church every year. All fascinating local tales of charity….

There are cherubs in the bottom corners of the benefactors’ board …

The ironwork in the galleries (and the altar rails) survived the bombing and are from the workshop of the French Huguenot Jean Tijou, who also produced work for St Paul’s Cathedral and Hampton Court …

You’ll find more cherubs outside …

Some extremely informative, and beautifully worded, memorials …

Major Dinwiddy was a very talented man …

Here he is as pictured in the Western Front Association Magazine along with a fascinating article about the rangefinder …

Conrad Dinwiddy was born in Greenwich in 1881, and was the son of London architect and surveyor, Thomas Dinwiddy who had an architectural practice based in Greenwich.

Like his father, Conrad was also a surveyor, and initially developed a rangefinder to make it easier for ground batteries to hit the Zeppelins that were attacking British cities. He joined the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1916, where he was posted to the Western Front in charge of a six inch howitzer battery. He would continue inventing improvements to how guns were aimed, firing from barges, and the methods for transporting ammunition.

He was wounded by German battery fire on the 26th of September, 1917, and died the following day. He is buried in a military cemetery in Belgium. The memorial in St. Alfege has the wrong date, as he died a day earlier on the 27th of September. You can read more about him, the church, and Greenwich in general in the excellent London Inheritance blog.

The ‘South African War’ …

Despite the destruction meted out in 1941, it remains a lovely, atmospheric church (Photos by David Iliff 2015 – Creative Commons) …

There is, of course, another Hawksmoor masterpiece in the City of London, St Mary Woolnoth, which you can read about here.

Still in Greenwich, a few yards away and dated 1814 …

The inclusion of Education and Industry in its title reflects the standard early 19th-century curriculum for lower-class girls. Alongside reading, writing, and religious catechism, the students were taught practical industrial/domestic skills (such as needlework, spinning, and straw-plaiting) to prepare them for future employment as domestic servants or textile workers.

I headed for the river as the day got warmer and then encountered this monster …

You can just see the masts of the Cutty Sark in the distance on the right …

Two vessels, 150 years of history between them.

Looking towards the City …

The Scalpel, The Cheesegrater, 22 Bishopsgate and The Gherkin all lined up …

Looking towards Canary Wharf …

This extraordinary monument to Peter the Great (unveiled in 2001) is a short walk along the river path from the centre of Greenwich, overlooking Deptford Creek. According to the Russian/English dedication it is ‘a gift of the Russian people and commemorates the visit of Peter the Great to this country in search of knowledge and experience’. For a few months in 1698, as part of his ‘Grand Embassy’, Peter stayed in the area to study shipbuilding in the famous Deptford dockyards, which had been built in 1513 by Henry VIII. Visitors to the statue often remark on its odd setting, in a modern housing development, and on the smallness of Peter’s head …

A tall, rangy Peter holds a pipe and a telescope and looks out over the Thames, his expression unreadable. He is flanked by a dwarf (he brought one with him to England), a throne, and parapets featuring Russian and English inscriptions, cannon, sea-monster heads, a mysterious triangle filled with balls, and depictions of food and drink. The singular look is the work of two Russians, architect Viacheslav Bikhaev and sculptor Mihail Chemiakin. Some of the unusual style of the work can be put down to Chemiakin’s interests in the playful and the grotesque …

Greenwich never disappoints.

I didn’t get to the Fan Museum as planned …

… maybe next time.

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Queen Elizabeth the First at the Philip Mould Gallery, including the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots.

By The City Gent

On 18th June 2026

In Art, Social History, Special Exhibitions

Once again I have enthusiastically ventured west, this time to visit a stunning exhibition at the Philip Mould Gallery on Pall Mall …

Running from 14 May to 10 July 2026, this display highlights the way court painting became a true instrument of political power, propaganda and the construction of the image of the ‘Virgin Queen’.

The Catalogue states: Elizabeth I: Queen and Court explores how portraiture shaped one of Britain’s most iconic reigns. Featuring outstanding Tudor works drawn from private collections, the exhibition includes the earliest surviving life-size, full-length portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, alongside portraits of some of the key figures from her close circle of courtiers and confidantes. These rarely seen paintings reveal how portraiture functioned as a tool of power and was used to project authority, secure allegiance, and, in rare cases, register dissent.

I was delighted to see that the exhibition also included a picture of Mary Queen of Scots, whose death warrant was signed by Elizabeth herself. Later in the blog I shall write about their relationship.

Firstly, however, I am going to include some images of pictures in the exhibition along with the descriptive labelling.

And now the tragic story of Mary Queen of Scots, starting with a rare portrait painted in France shortly after her execution …

‘Tonight, after dinner, I have been advised of my sentence: I am to be executed like a criminal at eight in the morning’.

So wrote Mary Queen of Scots to Henry III, King of France, at two in the morning on 8^th February 1587 from her place of imprisonment, Fotheringhay Castle. You can find an image of the letter and a translation here.

Mary was determined to die a Catholic martyr’s death and conducted herself accordingly. She entered the hall dressed in black with a white veil carrying her ivory crucifix and Latin prayer book. Her ladies then disrobed her to reveal her satin petticoat and bodice of deep crimson – the liturgical colour of Catholic martyrdom. It took three strokes of the axe to sever her head and, according to some accounts, her last words were those of her motto ‘In my end is my beginning’.

None of the three further images of Mary are part of the Mould Gallery exhibition, but I am using them to help tell her story.

A Victorian painter’s view of her being led to her execution …

An illustration of the event itself (National Gallery of Scotland) …

Her life shouldn’t have ended like this.

Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots were cousins, both descended from Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth of York. Born in 1533, Elizabeth was their grandchild, the daughter of Henry VIII by his second marriage to Anne Boleyn. Nine years younger, Mary was Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s great grandchild, the granddaughter of their elder daughter Margaret by her first marriage to James IV of Scotland. Mary was the only surviving child of James V and Mary of Guise.

After a tortuous time, militarily, politically and personally, Mary had fled to England from Scotland in 1568, asking for her cousin Elizabeth’s protection. Initially their relationship was cordial with Elizabeth writing to her as follows: “Madam, I treat you as my daughter, and assure you that if I had one, I could wish for her nothing better than I desire for you… the one for whom one wishes the greatest good that may be possible in this world.”

However, as a focus for Catholic rebellion in England, with a claim to the English throne, she was to spend the next nineteen years effectively under house arrest and would never see Scotland again. Subsequent plotting and deceptions would lead her to the executioner’s block. Although found guilty of complicity in plots to assassinate Elizabeth, Mary saw herself as dying for her faith rather than politics.

Mary in captivity by Nicholas Hilliard circa 1578 …

Imprisonment took its toll on Mary and ultimately, and fatally, she became associated with ‘The Babington Plot’, a plan to free her and murder Elizabeth, which meant she was guilty of treason. The plot was discovered by Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, whose portrait is on display in the Gallery …

Even before then, Elizabeth wanted her dead in such a way that she was not personally implicated and so was reluctant to issue a death warrant. Her hesitation in executing Mary was partly informed by a horror of taking direct responsibility for killing a fellow queen and a close relative but there were also potentially disastrous political implications. Despite eventually signing the death warrant she decided not to issue it until she had first put pressure on Mary’s gaoler to take Mary’s life.

The next development involved another member of Elizabeth’s court, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, her chief adviser for most of her reign. She saw him as a kindred spirit and consequently gave him the nickname ‘Sir Spirit’. His portrait in the exhibition emanates authority …

Burghley and his fellow councillors issued the warrant without the Queen’s knowledge and Mary was duly executed on 8 February. Elizabeth was livid, because Mary’s death would now, inevitably, be laid at her door. Burghley was temporarily banished from the royal presence, and William Davison, another councillor, was deprived of office, tried, imprisoned and fined. However, for Elizabeth the matter had worked out rather well. By acting independently, Burghley and his colleagues had given the Queen what she wanted. Not only had they succeeded in ridding her of the threat posed by Mary, but they had also ensured that she could deny direct responsibility for Mary’s death.

The expected massive Catholic military retaliation from Europe failed to materialise. The court slowly returned to normal, and Elizabeth recognised that Burghley and the Council had acted logically to secure the realm. She allowed him to return to his duties at court and the Privy Council and he went on to remain Elizabeth’s closest and most influential minister for another decade, shaping English policy right up until his death in 1598

Burghley’s son Robert‘s portrait is also part of the exhibition. He had obviously inherited his father’s wiliness and political acumen …

I have only written about a small part of this fantastic free exhibition. You can read more here in the beautifully illustrated and informative exhibition catalogue.

You can also do what I did and mooch around the rest of the gallery. I liked this endearing 1832 portrait of a young boy by Margaret Sarah Carpenter …

In other news, I took this picture of the King’s Birthday flypast from my balcony …

And here’s an image taken from one of the planes when they were almost directly over my head. My flat is in the block at the bottom left hand corner of the picture and the building with the green roof is the church of St Giles’ without Cripplegate …

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‘Broadsides’ at the Guildhall Library, and other news.

By The City Gent

On 11th June 2026

In Social History, Special Exhibitions

In the Early Modern period, broadsides were the most common form of printed material. These single sheets of text could be produced quickly and cheaply, and were thus the ideal media for many purposes, including advertisement, entertainment, propaganda, and the dissemination of local and national news. At a penny apiece, even the poorest could afford them. They were passed around among neighbours, pinned up in public meeting places such as clubs and coffee houses and even pasted on walls as economical decoration.

During the 1660s, when broadside production was at its peak, print shops in London and the other large cities of Britain churned out over 400,000 copies a year. Such documents were not designed to last. Despite their immense popularity, therefore, relatively few survive today so the exhibition at the Guildhall Library is a remarkable collection …

Here are some examples.

Not surprisingly, many appeared during the terrible times of the plague as fear spread throughout the population and people sought any remedy that might protect them. This publication is entitled LORD have mercy upon vs. A special remedy for the plague …

Printed in London in 1636, it is part record and part preventative advice. It also seeks to provide comfort in a terrifying time, with a reflection on the beauty of the brevity of life and the promise of resurrection to come …

Note the column on the right, where the numbers buried in previous plagues are presented, with space for the purchaser to continue this record for themselves …

Next, printed in 1665, a summary of burials from previous plagues that raged in London entitled: General bills of mortality for seventy three years last past, shewing all the times when the plague raged in and about London: viz., 1592, 1603, 1625 1636 …

You will see near the right hand corner that the purchaser has filled out more sections from the 1665 plague.

There is also an advertisement for two books reported to have plague cures within them – this wasn’t an official publication, but instead an advert in disguise …

This was printed in London, possibly in 1665: Remedies against the infection of the plague, and the curing thereof, and rules which are to be observed therein …

It’s unusual in that it gives directions on where to directly purchase the remedies, a list of sellers and prices. As you can see, this was before premises in London streets were numbered, so directions made reference, for example, to the proximity of other buildings such as taverns …

To give a sense of affordability, skilled artisans and craftsmen would expect to earn between £25 and £40 per year (or about 1s. to 2s. a day).

Then, as now, reports of catastrophe and destruction sold well …

By the late Georgian period, the buildings of the Palace of Westminster had become an accident waiting to happen. The rambling complex of medieval and early modern apartments making up the Houses of Parliament was by then largely unfit for purpose. Complaints from MPs about the state of their accommodation had been rumbling on since the 1790s but they were unable to agree on a solution for new accommodation (sounds familiar!).

In the end the decision was made for them and the long-overdue catastrophe finally occurred on 16 October 1834. Throughout the day, a chimney fire had smouldered under the floor of the House of Lords chamber, caused by the unsupervised and ill-advised burning of two large cartloads of wooden tally sticks (a form of medieval tax receipt created by the Exchequer, a government office based at Westminster) in the heating furnaces below. Warning signs were persistently ignored by the senile Housekeeper and careless Clerk of Works, leading the Prime Minister later to declare the disaster, ‘one of the greatest instances of stupidity upon record’.

Funnily enough, I have a contemporary print of the event hanging on my wall …

You can read a fuller account here on the History of Parliament website. It refers to the famous Superintendent James Braidwood, the grandfather of modern firefighting theory, who I have written about in this earlier blog.

There followed in 1841 a serious fire at the Tower of London (although the Crown Jewels were safely evacuated) …

This announcement (printed in 1721) illustrates how new ideas could be shared with the public to get approval, or maybe also finding a financial backer …

Note the objective of ‘Relief for the Labouring Poor’.

Richard Newsham of Cloth Fair boasts of his fire engines and their superiority to the existing ‘Cumbersome Squirting Engines’ …

His machines were slim enough to fit through normal doors and so widely liked he sold them across the country and internationally.

Ballads were incredibly popular, this one is entitled The Gelding of the Devil …

As his private parts are hacked away he declares ‘Oh, it smarts!’ Maybe a bit of an understatement.

An early version of the current day Guy Fawkes bonfires: The effigies of the Pope, the Devil, and others, that are now to be seen at the Roe-buck in Bow Lane, and are to be burnt on 5th November, 1718 …

Oliver Cromwell is in power and this proclamation printed in London in 1649 directs a day of celebration for recent Parliamentary victories in Ireland. According to this narrative, God played a major role …