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THE OLD NICHOL SLUM:
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
with Sarah Wise
Thursday 6th July 2017
Doors open at 6:30 pm, Talk commences at 7:00 pm and ends at 8:00 pm
Police would not patrol there, even in daylight; no stranger would
chance their arm there; it was a nest of street-robbers, prostitutes
and loafers. The Old Nichol district in Shoreditch has attracted terrible
press over the past 150 years or so. But did it deserve it?
In this illustrated talk,
historian
Sarah Wise pieces together a much more complex picture of life in
the slum. And in the process, the Nichol legend dies a death. Instead
what we find is something of an open-air laboratory for exploring
ideas about how chronic poverty could be eradicated — a place to which
many politically and religiously inspired individuals came to
investigate the condition of the poor at the end of the 19th century.
Sarah Wise
A life-long Londoner, Sarah Wise is a lecturer, author and
researcher. She teaches undergraduates at the University of
California’s London Study Center, and post-graduates at City
University, London.
She has a Master's Degree in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck College,
University of London. Her debut book, The Italian Boy: Murder and
Grave Robbery in 1830s London (2004), won the Crime Writers'
Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the
Samuel Johnson Prize.
Her follow-up, The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian
Slum (2008), was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize for evocation of a
location and was a Radio 4 Book of the Year.
Her most recent book, Inconvenient People, was shortlisted for the
2014 Wellcome Prize.
Her television appearances include the BBC's 'The Slum'; Who Do You
Think You Are?; History Cold Case; and ITV’s ‘Secrets From The…’
miniseries. She has spoken on BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed, All in
the Mind, Woman's Hour and the Today programme.
You can find her online at sarahwise.co.uk
Tickets £15 including a glass of prosecco. Please click here to buy. |
