A very short blog post today, just to share a preview of my upcoming talk for the Hackney History Festival. I'll be speaking on Sunday 10 May 2026 at 3 pm in Sutton House (2-4 Homerton High Street, London E9 6JQ), one of the few Tudor mansions still existing in London today. Tickets are selling fast but as of today, you can still book tickets (£3) for my talk.

This plaque on the side of Newington Green Primary School records the presence of one of Stoke Newington’s leading intellectual dissenters – that pioneering champion of women’s rights, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). For two years, she tried to earn a living by running a girls’ school on this site. When the school failed, she worked in Ireland as a governess – an experience which influenced her groundbreaking work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

The day before the General Election of 1886, somewhere between six and ten thousand people gathered in London Fields to support the cause of Home Rule for Ireland.

Fleetwood Street, Stoke Newington, London N16 (Photographed June 2024 © Breda Corish) In 2023, I was asked to give a local history talk...