Irish… After Carribee Island: the Great War 12 Apr 2018 This post follows on from these two about the afterlife of Carribee Island, for forty years the assumed - and stigmatised - home of Wolverhampton's Irish population in the nineteenth…
Wolverhampton After Carribee Island: 1891 22 Mar 2018 This post follows the period of my research into Carribee Island, and an earlier post looking at the space in 1881. By 1891, The Space Formerly Known As Carribee Island…
Black Country… After Carribee Island: the persistent Irish quarter? 14 Jan 201821 Mar 2018 My PhD research on the Stafford Street area of Wolverhampton finishes, pretty much, in 1877: the date that Parliament approved the Wolverhampton Improvement Scheme which led to the demolition of…
History… Maps for the National Plan 28 Dec 2017 Over December I was the very fortunate recipient of a book advent calendar from my lovely wife. I could rhapsodise about some of the books but to avoid losing the…
Birmingham… “Decent housing for decent people” 13 Nov 2017 The Icknield Port Loop of the Birmingham Canal Navigations is one of those swathes of dereliction, just outside of Birmingham city centre, that shouldn't really exist anymore. It's a long,…
Black Country… Slavery and the Black Country: coming home 24 Sep 201724 Sep 2017 We've recently looked at how deeply the trade in human lives was embedded in the financial and industrial creation of the Black Country, with roots running through almost every facet…
Birmingham… Slavery and the Black Country: collars and chains 3 Sep 2017 Last week I looked at money: finance that filtered from Africa to Jamaica to Britain through the holdings of wealthy landlords such as the Earls of Dudley. This week I…
Black Country Slavery and the Black Country: lords and ladies 22 Aug 2017 This post, and possibly the next couple, is about the Black Country and the slave trade. Historians have had a busy few weeks lately, with the flag controversy, debates about…
Black Country… The Black Country flag and the uses of history (again) 16 Jul 201717 Jul 2017 In 1897, Robert Sherard published a collection of his Pearson's Magazine articles documenting the exploitation and suffering of the working men and women of Britain in some of the 'sweated' trades -…
History Pragmatism not idealism 16 Jun 201716 Jun 2017 keeping in contact with old friends It was twenty years ago today, went one of the contenders for greatest album ever. It was twenty years ago today since I and…
