Metropolitan Histories

Cities and Empire

During 2005-2006, a series of seminars, organised in collaboration with the Centre for Metropolitan History, took place on the theme of Cities and Empire. The series was designed to open up discussion on the role of metropolitan centres in the financing and administration of empires. The following seminars took place:

8 December 2005 Cities and Imperial Finance

Speakers: Simon Smith (University of York) and Andreas Fahrmeir (University of Cologne).

16 March 2006 Cities and Imperial Spaces

Speakers: David Gilbert (Royal Holloway, University of London), Jyoti Hosagrahar (Sustainable Urbanism International and Columbia University), and Steve Legg (Nottingham University).

23 June 2006 Cities and Imperial Commodities

Speakers: Michelle Craig (Harvard Business School), Jenny Anderson (New York University), Hal Cook (University College London) and discussant Roderick McDonald.

The sessions were well attended and provoked lively discussions. We have plans to publish the papers as a collection.

Working Lives of the Thames Gateway

This project it is a four year study designed to research and document the industrial and cultural heritage of the six London boroughs that make up part of the Thames Gateway as a means of preserving that important legacy, and informing debates and strategies for the regeneration of the area. It is intended to explore the common and distinctive features of the different areas by looking at industrial and demographic change, the ways in which these were shaped by links with London, Europe and empire, patterns of migration and settlement, the contemporary legacy of this history, and its relevance to the potential for regeneration.

A partnership was formed among Eastside Community Heritage, the Centre and representatives from the six London boroughs, and in February 2005 we were awarded a £50,000 project development grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund with which to hire a full-time worker to help put a bid together for major funding. During this period Peter Claus and John Marriott worked on the development of the submission with particular responsibilities for outreach work with schools, the training development plan and seminars exploring the historical agenda of the Thames Gateway. After much work and final bid was submitted in June. It is for approximately £750,000, and we expect a decision in December 2006.

We at the Centre are now pursuing an active research agenda. The HLF bid will not cover the type of research that will underpin the project as a whole, and so we expect to apply for postgraduate studentships to such bodies as the AHRC and Leverhulme. It has become clear from work on the project that the history of the region of the Thames Gateway has been largely neglected by scholars, and is likely to be ignored by developers. We are persuaded, therefore, that such research is of considerable academic and political importance, and hope that if the bid to the HLF is successful our chances of attracting research funding will be stronger. In the meantime, we wish to attract self-funded postgraduate students. If anyone is interested in joining us please contact John Marriott (j.w.marriott@uel.ac.uk).

Our Brick Lane

The Our Brick Lane project is a collaborative oral history project between Eastside Community Heritage and the Centre, and is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (£50,000) and the London East Thames Gateway (LETG) Aimhigher fund (£8,500). Eastside and the Centre made a further joint bid of £25,000 for Corporate Match Funding to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. We await the result of this bid. Concentrating on the former Jewish community and the current Bengali and Somali communities the Our Brick Lane project will record the cultural life and history of this important East London street from the 1960s to the present day.

In the last decade historical and cultural awareness of Brick Lane and Spitalfields has increased dramatically. Brick Lane has been seemingly re-discovered and themed as ‘Banglatown’ but yet we still know remarkably little about the lives, and narratives of those that now live in Brick Lane and how they both interacted with the outgoing Jewish community.

The project engages young Muslims from the local community who will record the ‘life-cycle’ of Brick Lane and create their own films and oral histories to highlight differences and similarities between the former Jewish community and the current Muslim communities within a larger historical context of immigration to the area, particularly concentrating on the moment of ‘handover’ between the two communities.

The Project Officer, Sam Lawlor, who is based at Eastside, Stratford, has done a magnificent job in seeking out and interviewing members of the Bangladeshi and Somalian communities in the Spitalfields area. Sam and Judith Garfield (Director of Eastside) have made significant interventions into a preliminary education and training programme within that community.

The aim now is to continue arrangements for the Aimhigher-funded education event or events that will bring together the local Muslim population with young people from the Jewish community who have now moved on. An education pack has been largely prepared; speakers and venues contacted.

Mid-winter 2005, the university provided the Brick Lane project (and the Working Lives project) with dedicated administrative support. This support is based in the department for Education and Community Partnerships at UEL. To facilitate better communication between Eastside and the university, Peter Claus, who has led the work from the Centre, has located himself in that department and it is through the department that his future activities on the project will be organized.