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.

Updated 22 August 2024: Just to highlight this blog post is still a work-in-progress, published early in draft form for my MA history...

View of the front of the old Haymarket Theatre, taken down in 1821, by unknown artist (1820 Etching). Image source: © The Trustees of...

What connected Ireland's great dynastic Norman family, the Butlers, with the most fashionable urban development in 17th-century London?