Survey of London: Whitechapel Initiative
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Bartlett Sch of Architecture
Abstract
This project is an experiment in the creation and dissemination of urban history. It establishes a publicly collaborative website of the highest calibre dedicated to the history of the London East End district of Whitechapel. This website stands as a resource in its own right and also constitutes a base for a printed volume in the Survey of London series. Begun in the 1890s, the Survey of London was founded with a commitment to the advancement of social equality and solidarity through shared understandings of a common built environment. That commitment is now renewed in this digital initiative which draws on strengths that derive from the Survey's well-established approaches to topographical and architectural history. Across decades and disparate parts of the metropolis, the Survey of London has developed an inclusive approach to urban history, with social contexts strongly presented as crucial determinants of architecture. Regularly cited for its high academic standards, the series has long presented its comprehensive synoptic accounts of urban fabric in book form, incorporating assessments of demographic, social, industrial and commercial characters based in close investigation of archives and building fabric. The Whitechapel project is the Survey of London's first initiative from within the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and draws on the pioneering technological and public engagement expertise of UCL's Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. The map-based website involves the public in research for and the drafting and compiling of the Survey's texts and illustrations. At the same time, the project maintains full commitment to the qualities and standards that have given the Survey its strong reputation for public-service scholarship. Undertaken in partnership with Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, with support from Historic England, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, the East London Mosque and Wilton's Music Hall, the Survey of London's engagement with Whitechapel includes plans for newly catalogued archives, exhibitions and events such as walking tours, as well as for the publication of scholarship in journals and, in due course, in a Survey volume. A broadly collaborative approach to understanding the architectural expressions of Whitechapel's rich histories is an appropriate way to illuminate stories of housing, commerce, religion and entertainment, wealth and poverty, dissent, reform and conflict. Immigration is a primary historical fact, embracing over centuries German, Irish, East European Jewish and Bengali settlements. Whitechapel's history and present circumstances make it an excellent testing ground for the experimental formation of a public history from below with receptivity to both difference and universality in experiences of the built environment. The material that the website hosts ranges from contemporary photographs and records back to early views, maps and architectural drawings, on to newly synthesized archive-based historical accounts of building projects to oral reminiscences. Topography will serve as a gate for the presentation of personal experiences of buildings (housing, schools, places of worship and others) whether positive or negative - articulating changes witnessed, epiphanies had, or travails borne. Alongside the forces of capitalism, social and ethnic heterogeneity, religious diversity and vernacular energy are all manifest in the area's architecture. The Survey of London is largely about agency in the built environment; the aim now is to search more deeply for evidence of ordinary agency. With support from both academic and local communities, this project will be stimulating for British architectural and social history. No urban historical series has embarked on such a venture. It aims to be exemplary, setting a new standard not only for the future development of the Survey of London but for urban histories across the world.
Planned Impact
The non-academic beneficiaries of this research will be:
1 - the London public at large
The project will give the public access to better knowledge about Whitechapel and its buildings, and an opportunity to engage with the production of history, so educating not just about the place, but also about historical methods. In the introduction of 1896 to the series' first monograph on Trinity Hospital in the Mile End Road the Survey of London's founder, C. R. Ashbee, wrote: 'We plead that the object of the work we have before us, is to make nobler and more humanly enjoyable the life of the great city whose record we seek to mark down; to preserve of it for her children and those yet to come whatever is best in her past or fairest in her present ... and to stimulate amongst her citizens that historic and social conscience which to all great communities is their most sacred possession.' Reinterpreted to address modern needs and sensibilities, the mission articulated by Ashbee is absolutely worth sustaining.
2 - local communities
Aspects of history that have remained hidden or known only to one group will be investigated and opened up, addressing subjects ranging from land tenure to religious worship within houses (from conventicles to chevda to house-mosques) to redistributions of housing (from slums to gentrification). The exchange of information is as important as, if not essentially the same as, new discovery. The history of the East London Mosque is a story of interest in its own right. It will have far greater resonance and wider societal value for being brought together with histories of earlier German churches and Jewish synagogues in its immediate neighbourhood. Events and exhibitions will build and reinforce this impact, as is described elsewhere in this proposal.
3 - heritage professionals, local authorities, architects and planners
The Whitechapel project will result in a vastly improved knowledge base relating to an area of London that is undergoing enormous change. The nature of this knowledge will range from overviews of numerous aspects of urban history to detailed building analyses that will unravel the origins of small sections of historic fabric. The Survey of London has long been recognised by planning professionals as a valuable tool. In support of the Survey's intended Whitechapel project the Greater London Authority's Heritage Advisor, Edmund Bird, has written: 'For both a strategic and a local planning authority, a comprehensive understanding of the evolution and character of the townscape of a particular area is a key component to its future planning and development. The Survey of London volumes certainly enrich and inform both our formulation of planning policy and our development management decision making.'
4 - local and family or genealogical historians
From archive-based accounts of building projects to oral histories, historic views and architectural drawings to contemporary photographs, material on the website will all be readily searchable by places or by names. Numerous short biographical histories will allow many little-known individuals to emerge from the condescension of history.
To conclude, the research undertaken for this project will by its nature perpetuate the Survey of London's long-standing public-service role as described in the 'case for support'. It fundamentally aims to broaden that base to engage with a wider and more socially diverse audience, supplying benefits of widely different kinds to diverse constituencies. Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, English Heritage, and the East London Mosque have already expressed support for the project and a willingness to be represented on the advisory panel. The Whitechapel Art Gallery and Wilton's Music Hall are also supporters and committed to other more occasional collaboration.
1 - the London public at large
The project will give the public access to better knowledge about Whitechapel and its buildings, and an opportunity to engage with the production of history, so educating not just about the place, but also about historical methods. In the introduction of 1896 to the series' first monograph on Trinity Hospital in the Mile End Road the Survey of London's founder, C. R. Ashbee, wrote: 'We plead that the object of the work we have before us, is to make nobler and more humanly enjoyable the life of the great city whose record we seek to mark down; to preserve of it for her children and those yet to come whatever is best in her past or fairest in her present ... and to stimulate amongst her citizens that historic and social conscience which to all great communities is their most sacred possession.' Reinterpreted to address modern needs and sensibilities, the mission articulated by Ashbee is absolutely worth sustaining.
2 - local communities
Aspects of history that have remained hidden or known only to one group will be investigated and opened up, addressing subjects ranging from land tenure to religious worship within houses (from conventicles to chevda to house-mosques) to redistributions of housing (from slums to gentrification). The exchange of information is as important as, if not essentially the same as, new discovery. The history of the East London Mosque is a story of interest in its own right. It will have far greater resonance and wider societal value for being brought together with histories of earlier German churches and Jewish synagogues in its immediate neighbourhood. Events and exhibitions will build and reinforce this impact, as is described elsewhere in this proposal.
3 - heritage professionals, local authorities, architects and planners
The Whitechapel project will result in a vastly improved knowledge base relating to an area of London that is undergoing enormous change. The nature of this knowledge will range from overviews of numerous aspects of urban history to detailed building analyses that will unravel the origins of small sections of historic fabric. The Survey of London has long been recognised by planning professionals as a valuable tool. In support of the Survey's intended Whitechapel project the Greater London Authority's Heritage Advisor, Edmund Bird, has written: 'For both a strategic and a local planning authority, a comprehensive understanding of the evolution and character of the townscape of a particular area is a key component to its future planning and development. The Survey of London volumes certainly enrich and inform both our formulation of planning policy and our development management decision making.'
4 - local and family or genealogical historians
From archive-based accounts of building projects to oral histories, historic views and architectural drawings to contemporary photographs, material on the website will all be readily searchable by places or by names. Numerous short biographical histories will allow many little-known individuals to emerge from the condescension of history.
To conclude, the research undertaken for this project will by its nature perpetuate the Survey of London's long-standing public-service role as described in the 'case for support'. It fundamentally aims to broaden that base to engage with a wider and more socially diverse audience, supplying benefits of widely different kinds to diverse constituencies. Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, English Heritage, and the East London Mosque have already expressed support for the project and a willingness to be represented on the advisory panel. The Whitechapel Art Gallery and Wilton's Music Hall are also supporters and committed to other more occasional collaboration.
Publications
Smith A
(2019)
The Expansion and Remodelling of the London Hospital by Rowland Plumbe, 1884-1919
in The London Journal
Milne S
(2019)
'Accounting for the hostel for 'coloured colonial seamen' in London's East End, 1942-1949'
in National Identities
Guillery, P
(2019)
The Whitechapel History Fest: A Report of an Event Organized by the Survey of London
in The London Journal
Guillery Peter
(2022)
Survey of London: Whitechapel: Volumes 54 and 55
Guillery P
(2019)
The Whitechapel History Fest: A Report of an Event Organized by the Survey of London
in The London Journal
Title | At Home in Whitechapel |
Description | Rehan Jamil's interior photography was re-exhibited at the Aldgate Coffee House in June 2017. |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | favourable comments from the public |
Title | Changing Tastes |
Description | 'Changing Tastes: Whitechapel's south Asian restaurants' is a short film by Nurull Islam and Rehan Jamil that traces the history of Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani restaurants in Whitechapel through the decades since the 1970s through a series of interviews with proprietors and staff in their restaurants. It was commissioned to be premiered at the Whitechapel History Fest that our project hosted in October 2018. |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Impact | It is too soon to record impact as the film is only now being made available through the internet. It was well received at its premiere. |
Title | Judit Ferencz |
Description | Five illustrations of Whitechapel locations (Altab Ali Park, Whitechapel Market, Whitechapel Peabody Estate). |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Impact | The illustrations have attracted much favourable comment. |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/whitechapel-illustrated/ |
Title | London Hospital Hoardings, Whitechapel Road |
Description | A 200m long hoardings display along the busy Whitechapel Road, mounted by Tower Hamlets Council, and featuring the Survey of London's Whitechapel work, including images and guidance towards our participative website |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | Huge visibility and numerous comments on social media and otherwise |
Title | Memory Mapper |
Description | Memory Mapper (see https://memorymapper.github.io/) is a toolkit devised for mapping memory and place. It was created by Duncan Hay as part of the Whitechapel project and was always intended to be a resource for future projects. It was successful in securing a small AHRC follow-on grant to explore how we might offer the software as a service, and what business models might be used to support the software given the difficulties of grant funding. It's called 'Memory Mapper: Exploring Commercial Models for Digital Spatial Humanities Research Infrastructure'. |
Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Impact | Memory Maps City of Women London - https://cityofwomenlondon.org/ (led by Leah Lovett in collaboration with Haymarket Books) Memory Map of Jewish Manchester -https://jewishmanchestermemorymap.org/ (collaboration with Rachel/MMU and the Manchester Jewish Museum) Living Stories: A Memory Map of the Jewish Cemetery in the town of Zbarazh in Ukraine - https://livingstories.memorymapper.org/ (collaboration with Rachel/MMU and Tetiana Fedoriv, Zbarazh City Council, Ukraine) Lost and Found: A European Literary Map of London -https://www.europeanliterarylondon.org/ (collaboration with Uta Staiger and Lucy Shackleton of the European Institute, UCL). |
Title | Poetry readings |
Description | Our Whitechapel History Fest in October opened with an evening of poetry readings, opened with a talk by Rachel Lichtenstein titled 'Avram Stencl: The Yiddish Poet of Whitechapel'. This was followed by readings from Celeste, Chris Searle, Stephen Watts and Bernard Kops. |
Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Impact | The occasion was well attended and well received. |
Title | Rehan Jamil 'At Home in Whitechapel' |
Description | Interior photography - a series of portraits of local residents in Whitechapel in chosen domestic interiors |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Impact | We have been approached with a request for wider use of the images. |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/home-whitechapel/ |
Title | Whitechapel Histories map |
Description | A large printed version of our website's interactive map was mounted at Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, to attract comments and contributions through the use of post-it notes, that is in an old-tech version of our digital approach. |
Type Of Art | Image |
Year Produced | 2017 |
Impact | This was not a success. |
Description | This project began in January 2016 and remained active up to June 2019. The project website 'Survey of London - Histories of Whitechapel' (surveyoflondon.org) launched in September 2016. It met award objectives in combining map-based interactivity with an aesthetically attractive appearance. Difficulties with mapping copyright led to an innovative use of Lidar data combined with 'ground-truthing' to generate an accurate new map. This has implications for others wishing to undertake similar mapping projects. The process is described more fully in an early blog post on our website. By November 2017 our website had been used by 110 contributors who had submitted 191 documents and 205 images. A year later there had been 203 contributors responsible for submitting 262 documents and 344 images. In early 2020, by when contributions had slowed to a halt, 294 contributors had submitted 304 documents and 396 images. Collaborations were built through public events and social media. Outputs have been diverse: publications aimed at general readerships and at scholarly audiences, building-site hoardings, a film, exhibitions, schools workshops, and contributions to planning debates. The project has led to numerous small discoveries about aspects of Whitechapel's histories, sometimes through members of the public working together with members of the research team. It has contributed to historical agency and awareness across social groups, stimulating conversations and debate and challenging assumptions about aspects of housing, worship, racism, gentrification and other subjects. New connections have been made and the voices and sources represented in constructing the histories of Whitechapel have been expanded. |
Exploitation Route | Our interactive website has closely informed the establishment of a new project, the making of a Jewish East End memory map (reported on elsewhere), in connection with which a software toolkit based on the code used for the Whitechapel map is being made available on an open basis. We know that our work has been used in many other ways, New London Architecture sees it as 'an invaluable model', Tower Hamlet's Conservation Officer finds it 'fantastically helpful' and is using it for updating Conservation Area guidance. We have also noticed sections of our texts cut and pasted into promotional literature, as for the Empire House hotel on New Road in Whitechapel. It is hoped that the Whitechapel website will serve as a stepping stone towards general map-based digitisation of the Survey of London, both future work and past publications. |
Sectors | Construction Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Education Environment Leisure Activities including Sports Recreation and Tourism Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/ |
Description | Since its website launched in September 2016, a main and early focus was on public engagement, as is recorded elsewhere. Research by the project staff has tended to follow on. The impact that should otherwise be recorded for 2017 includes a significant display about local history, mounted by Tower Hamlets Council and featuring our project on hoardings along the 200m+ frontage of the former Royal London Hospital on Whitechapel Road. Separate funding through the Bartlett School of Architecture's Architecture Research Fund has allowed us to draw on the expertise of Dr Sharman Kadish regarding Whitechapel's Jewish architectural history. An example of the project's diverse and wide reach, not otherwise reported here, is use by the Urban Equity Lab (USA), with the comment 'Your project does a wonderful job of engaging the public in the city's history and digitising historic information.' In 2018 further public engagement, again recorded elsewhere, was capped by a three-day event in October, the Whitechapel History Fest, which attracted more than 200 attendees to talks, discussions, poetry readings and a specially commissioned film about Whitechapel's south Asian restaurants. A souvenir book was published for the event. The Bartlett School of Architecture's materialisation grant for 2018 was awarded to a project that has spun directly out of our Whitechapel website. This led to the creation of an interactive Jewish East End memory map through modification of the 'Histories of Whitechapel' codebase, see https://jewisheastendmemorymap.org. An open source toolkit was made to permit others to form other comparable map-based websites. Discussions commenced in 2019 towards the making of a comparable historical website for Jerusalem, collaborating with academics at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and in Istanbul; after a pandemic-related hiatus, this was revived in January 2022. Our findings have been used by public bodies (Tower Hamlets Council), architects, developers, planners and numerous others, through our website. We have produced a free booklet about the history of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry incorporating transcripts of interviews with the Master Founder and Foundry Manager in connection with proposals for a change of use that went to a Public Inquiry in 2020. The future of the Bell Foundry remains an open question in early 2023. Conference papers and publications are reinforcing awareness and the spread of information. To November 2018 the website had 43,012 users and 63,059 sessions of use. London accounted for 45% of the use. By January 2022, when it was closed to further contributions, the site had seen 142,000 unique visitors, the busiest months being September 2016 (2,030 new visitors at the time of the launch), August 2018 (3,819), and April 2021 (3,639), with an average of 2,100 visitors per month. In total there have been 895 community contributions, approximately 330 of which are documents and 450 images, with the remainder media - so sound or video. In June 2022 Yale University Press published the Survey of London's 54th and 55th area volumes, both devoted to Whitechapel and the major publication associated with this project, synthesising material from the website along with many more third-party illustrations. These had already by early 2023 received several very positive reviews ('Telegraph', 'The London Journal', 'The Oldie', London Topographical Society and Victorian Society) and a commendation for the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain's Colvin Prize for an outstanding work of reference of use and value to architectural historians 'in recognition of its excellent and exhaustive contribution to knowledge'. The crowd-sourced website is said to 'work superbly when set against the rigorous archival research for which the Survey of London has become so rightly admired'. By 2024 Memory Mapper, a toolkit for mapping memory and place devised as part of the project and always intended for use by others, had generated several other memory maps, as detailed elsewhere. |
First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal |
Description | City of Women interactive website |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | public awareness of important women in London's history |
Description | Memory Mapper is a web application spin-out from the Histories of Whitechapel project that enables users to design and host interactive maps for cultural heritage. |
Geographic Reach | Europe |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
Impact | The popularity of Memory Mapper in its current form is because it fills a need in this space: it allows users to publish interactive maps of their research using a familiar blogging paradigm and without the need for GIS or programming skills. Examples of memory maps can be seen at https://www.cityofwomenlondon.org/, https://jewisheastendmemorymap.org/, and https://london.memorymapper.org/. Memory Mapper enables academic researchers and students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to create interactive maps of their research as easily as they might start a blog. By doing so, it enables these users to expand their research methodologies into the digital domain and to find new audiences for their research without requiring them to become specialists in digital methods. It is an inexpensive, sustainable way for researchers to engage in digital scholarship without the risk and overheads of a grant-funded digital research project, and will increase the public prominence of their humanities research. |
URL | https://memorymapper.github.io/ |
Description | Oral history training |
Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Description | UCL Bartlett School of Architecture Architecture Research Fund |
Amount | £2,961 (GBP) |
Organisation | University College London |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2017 |
End | 05/2018 |
Title | Survey of London - Histories of Whitechapel |
Description | The project website is essentially an interactive map. Each of 1395 building polygons has basic data (minimum of a date and an image). This will be built on in the project's ensuing years. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | It launched in September 2016. It is too soon to report impacts. |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/ |
Description | Cataloguing Whitechapel archives |
Organisation | London Borough of Tower Hamlets |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | Mark Ballard was employed for six months through the project funding to catalogue archives relating to Whitechapel, principally deeds. |
Collaborator Contribution | The library provided premises and supervision. In addition, they have supplemented Mark's work by granting us privileged access to uncatalogued Building Control files. |
Impact | We now have extensive lists of deeds in searchable form. Less tangible findings are described in a blog post, a link to which is supplied in the previous field. |
Start Year | 2016 |
Description | Times Digital Archive - Whitechapel |
Organisation | University College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | We supplied a brief. |
Collaborator Contribution | Data mining the Times Digital Archive through UCL Information Services Division supercomputer capacity to isolate all references to Whitechapel and cognate terms. This was made possible by UCL's Digital Humanities department (Professor Melissa Terras). |
Impact | The outcome was a database for internal UCL use only, by agreement with Gale CENGAGE Learning, the copyright holders. |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | '3D Schelling approach to examine vertical segregation in Whitechapel' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | This talk by Dr Shlomit Flint Ashery was given to the 20th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science at Wageningen, Netherlands, in May 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | 'Boundary Blurring in Whitechapel: Whose history is it anyway?' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | This lecture by Dr Sarah Milne and Dr Aileen Reid at the Institute of Historical Research raised issues and initiated discussion around our project's approach to histyory. It was organized with the IHR as part of the London Festival of Architecture. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | 'Documenting Historical Change in the Built Environment Using Volunteered Geographic Information' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Dr Duncan Hay spoke about the Whitechapel project at the 'Smart Cities and Planning' conference hosted by UCL's Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis on 30 November 2017. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | 'Migrant Constructions of Identity and Belonging: Whitechapel's German and Muslim Religious Buildings' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | This talk by Dr Sarah Milne and Shahed Saleem was given at a conference titled 'UNSETTLED: Urban routines, temporalities and contestations', at TU Vienna on 29-31 March 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | 'Planning Inaction: Between Collective Behaviour and Group Action' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | This talk by Dr Shlomit Flint Ashery was given at the AESOP conference in Lisbon in July 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | 'Writing East London's Histories Online' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Dr Duncan Hay gave a lecture about our project as part of the Institute of Historical Research's Day School in London History on 20 July 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | AHTV conference - 5 February 2020 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | Sarah Milne attended this conference by invitation through the AHRC. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | An East End story - the Survey of London, its late-Victorian origins, public history and digitisation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | This talk was a contribution to the HARI/ Centre for Victorian Studies Workshop titled Digital Histories of Nineteenth-Century Radicalism and Reform at Royal Holloway University. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Australasian Salvation Army |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Publicity for our project in 'The Australasian Journal of Salvation Army History' (vol. 2/issue 2, 2017, p. 164) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Jerusalem - workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Shahed Saleem, Sarah Milne and Duncan Hay visited Jerusalem for a workshop to plan the making of a website about Jerusalem's history based on our Whitechapel website. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | C20 Society Whitechapel walk - 9 July 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The C20 Society organised a walk round Whitechapel, led by Peter Guillery, to coincide with publication of the two Survey of London volumes that were a major outcome of this project. Around 40 people attended for about two hours, looking at numerous 20th-century buildings of interest, including the interior of the Roman Catholic German Church of St Boniface. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Connecting Histories exhibition - St George's German Lutheran Church, Alie Street, London E1 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | This was a panel exhibition in St George's Church, maintained by the Historic Chapels Trust and open to the public. It was mounted in September 2019 and addressed the history of the immediately local area, historically known as Goodman's Fields. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | East London Mosque foyer exhibition |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Our mobile exhibition has been on display in the foyer of the East London Mosque since January 2017. It was moved for a day on Sunday 5 February to be incorporated in a larger exhibition for Open Mosque Day. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/whitechapel-project-exhibition-wiltons-and-east-lo/ |
Description | Exhibition at Wilton's Music Hall (Gateway to the World festival) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The project's mobile exhibition was part of a weekend public-engagement festival at Wilton's Music Hall. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/local-exhibitions/ |
Description | Exhibition at the Write Idea Festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Our mobile exhibition was on display with a member of the project team in attendance through the whole weekend of the Write Idea Festival at the Idea Store in Whitechapel. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/local-exhibitions/ |
Description | Going Digital: Mapping Family History in Whitechapel |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Study participants or study members |
Results and Impact | This workshop brought invited participants together to discuss artefacts and photographs. It was promoted as part of the London Festival of Architecture. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | HTA Architects |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Dr Sarah Milne spoke about our Whitechapel project to the staff of HTA Architects, with an introduction from Ben Derbyshire, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, on 5 December 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Heritage and the Urban Historian: the challenge of producing multi-vocal histories of place |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Sarah Milne presented a paper with this title at the European Association of Urban Historians conference in Rome. Publication is intended. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Histories of Whitechapel exhibition at Whitechapel Idea Store |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Whitechapel Idea Store hosted a month-long exhibition of images from the 'Histories of Whitechapel' project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | History of the London Street (Urban Design London seminar) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A talk at a seminar considering the history of London's streets that allowed me to highlight our project in Whitechapel. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Institute of Historical Research Metropolitan History Seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | An evening seminar in the IHR's Metropolitan History series was devoted to our project and the similar Layers of London project (HLF funded). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Jewish Chronicle |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | An article about our project in the 'Jewish Chronicle' on 22 May 2017 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Jewish News |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | 'Jewish News' included a feature article about the Histories of Whitechapel project in its October edition. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Local Historians Seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | The seminar comprised a series of short presentations followed by questions and discussion, all about recent research from local historians broadly outside academia. For more information see our blogpost (URL below). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/local-historians-seminar-whitechapel-idea-store/ |
Description | London Hospital estate walk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Amy Smith, Shahed Saleem and Peter Guillery led two groups of about thirty people in an oversubscribed event, a guided walk around the London Hospital estate in Whitechapel. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | London Society lecture |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The London Society hosted a lecture by Peter Guillery about the Survey of London that concentrated on the Whitechapel project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | London Society lecture |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Peter Guillery presented the project in the context of the history of the Survey of London in an evening lecture for the London Society on 6 February 2018 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | London Topographical Society newsletter |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | An article about our Whitechapel project appeared in the London Topographical Society's November newsletter. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Maritime Whitechapel talk - Greenwich Industrial History Society, 10 January 2023 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | This was a Zoom talk with an international audience of about 60 people, describing the history of the parts of Whitechapel nearest the Thames and their maritime links. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
Description | Mark Ballard, 'Copyhold tenure and the nature of development in the manor of Stepney' |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Mark Ballard published an article in the London Topographical Society's newsletter (No. 85, Nov. 2017, pp. 9-11), addressing findings made during his time working on our project about copyhold tenure in East London in the early-modern period. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Project blog |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Our website includes a blog where we highlight events and recent findings. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Radio interview |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | An interview for BBC Radio 3's 'Free Thinking' programme |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b082kwts |
Description | Spatializing Historical Data with Digital Humanities - conference in Istanbul, 11 November 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Shahed Saleem presented a paper at this conference at Istanbul Kadir Has University about the Histories of Whitechapel project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | St Andrew's University walk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Sarah Milne and Peter Guillery led a guided walk through Whitechapel for a group of MA students from St Andrew's University. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | St George's German Lutheran Church lecture |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Peter Guillery gave a lecture about the Survey of London's work in Whitechapel to a public audience at St George's German Lutheran Church, Alie Street, London E1. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Storytelling evening |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Hope and Fear in Whitechapel was a storytelling evening that was part of the Being Human Festival. Please see our blog post (URL below) for a fuller account of the event. The costs of employing facilitators (£500) will be reimbursed by the Being Human Festival organisers. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/whitechapel-stories/ |
Description | Swanlea ASchool 'Patchwork Whitechapel' workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | Shahed Saleem collaborated with 'make:good' to host a workshop at Swanlea Secondary School in Whitechapel for GCSE level pupils. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2018/patchwork-whitechapel-workshop-swanlea-school/ |
Description | Talk - 'Merchants' houses of Goodman's Fields Whitechapel', Dr Sarah A Dowding, Georgian London Revisited, The Georgian Group, 22 May 2021 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | talk about 17th and 18th century houses and their occupants in Goodman's Fields for a conference about Georgian London |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Talk - 'Method: Mapping Place, Mapping Memory', Dr Duncan Hay, ETH Zurich, April 2021 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | talk about mapping methods used in the Whitechapel project |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Talk - 'Reflections on 'Histories of Whitechapel', Dr Sarah A. Dowding, Dr Duncan Hay, Shahed Saleem, Digitizing Jerusalem's Archives: Urban Heritage in the Age of Digital Culture, Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design, 4 January 2022 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | talk about how the Whitechapel project might inform similar work in Jerusalem |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
Description | Talk - 'The Survey of London in Whitechapel: Researching the built environment in the archives of the Royal London Hospital', Dr Amy Spencer, Barts Health Archives, 16 September 2021 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | talk organised through Barts Health Archives about the history of the Royal London Hospital |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | The Bartlett Review 2016 - History is Written by Everyone |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | An article titled 'History is Written by Everyone' by journalist Dominic Lutyens about the Survey of London's Whitechapel project, in 'The Bartlett Review 2016', p. 40-45 |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | The Royal London Hospital Estate - guided walk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | This guided walk round the Royal London Hospital and its estate was part of a programme of architectural walks organised by the Bartlett School of Architecture for UCL students. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | The Survey of London's approaches to the history of East London |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Peter Guillery presented a paper with this title at the European Association of Urban Historians conference in Rome. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10057740/ |
Description | The Telegraph - newspaper article 4 September 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Peter Guillery was interviewed by Peter Watts for this feature in The Telegraph titled 'Meet the historians bringing London's past to life with maps' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/uk/meet-historians-bringing-londons-past-life-maps/ |
Description | The Whitechapel Bell Foundry booklet |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | This is a printed booklet, distributed by ourselves through east London in June 2019, to help inform discussions about the future of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It presents a scholarly history of the site along with transcripts of two interviews by Shahed Saleem with the former Master Founder and Foundry Manager - the foundry closed in 2017. A planning application for a change of use, widely opposed, was narrowly approved in late 2019, then called in by the Secretary of State in early 2020. A public inquiry is pending. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | The places that make us: sites of significance for British Asians |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Shahed Saleem talked about the Whitechapel project at this event organised by the National Trust as part of a series of 'Home Away from Home' events connected with the India Club. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | University College London Digital Humanities seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A session of UCL's Digital Humanities seminar was devoted to a presentation about our project and the formation of its website. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Urban Belonging: History and the Power of Place conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | A paper titled '"Born and bred in Whitechapel": diasporic narratives of belonging' at an Institute of Historical Research/University of Leicester/'Urban History' conference |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
URL | http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/15093 |
Description | Urban history and identity in Whitechapel |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Sarah Milne presented a paper with this title at a Heritage and Identity symposium at the University of Westminster, a part of the London Festival of Architecture. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org/2018site/event/heritage-and-identity/ |
Description | Victorian Society Whitechapel walk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | As part of the Victorian Society's Annual General Meeting weekend, Aileen Reid and Peter Guillery led a large group of Victorian Society members on a walk round Whitechapel. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Whitechapel Bell Foundry consultations |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Pre-application discussions about proposals for the conversion of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry to a hotel. Peter Guillery invited to be part of a group of consultees. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | Whitechapel Gallery Art Night Walk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | This guided walk was part of the Whitechapel Gallery's Art Night on 1 July 2017. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Whitechapel Gallery workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | This workshop on the history of Whitechapel was organized collaboratively with the Whitechapel Gallery's Education Curator, Kirsty Lowry. The participants comprised a group of Y7 to Y9 students from the London Enterprise Academy. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Whitechapel Guided Walk with IHR for LFA |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | This guided walk round Whitechapel on 17 June 2017 was organized collaboratively with the Institute of Historical Research as part of the London Festival of Architecture. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Whitechapel History Fest |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The Whitechapel History Fest was a three-day event based at Whitechapel Idea Store, hosted by the 'Histories of Whitechapel', and the major public-engagement event of our project. Outcomes included a souvenir publication and a specially commissioned film (reported on elsewhere). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/page/fest/ |
Description | Whitechapel Walking Tour |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | In association with the Whitechapel Gallery and on London Open House day, this walking tour included visits to the East London Mosque and St Boniface German Roman Catholic church. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
URL | https://surveyoflondon.org/blog/2016/walking-whitechapel/ |
Description | Whitechapel on Film |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Screening of documentary films in collaboration with Tower Hamlets Archives, part of the London Festival of Architecture |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
Description | Whitechapel tour for the 'A World of Architectural History' conference |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Sarah Milne and Shahed Saleem led a guided walk round Whitechapel to emphasise its long-standing links to numerous other parts of the world to fit in with the theme of this conference. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
Description | public lecture by Sarah Dowding, 'At Home in Whitechapel's Deutsche Kolonie, Anglo-German History Society, 13 February 2021 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | lecture about German settlement in Whitechapel |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |