Sunday 11 May 2025

We will have three exciting talks running concurrently.

All tickets can be claimed or purchased by clicking through to our ticketing website from the title of the event.
All talks £3 | Day Pass £15

Location: Sutton House, 2 and 4 Homerton High St, London E9 6JQ

Time	Speaker	Title & Description
10:00 AM - 10:50 AM	Kirsty Styles	A Tale of Two Cities: How East London's Silicon Roundabout Helped Enrich, Casualise or Automate Kirsty will talk about how big tech came to call East London home, and how this global industry has come to change all of our lives. Many bill this as inevitable progress, but she will ask us to ask more questions about how big technology companies work, transform our work, and may be dictating our future.
10:00 AM - 10:50 AM	Jill Drower	1967 - No Two Elephants are the same - Performance Art, LSD and Bent Coppers in the Sixties Counterculture A talk about the life and times of the flower child dance troupe known as the Exploding Galaxy, who lived as a commune in Dalston. In this talk, Jill Drower links London’s hippies back to their family wartime experiences - the Blitz, rationing and ‘make do and mend’, as well as to a host of other influences that made the British counterculture what it was. Starting in a night club in March 1967, and led by the now world-famous artist David Medalla, the group grew in size and notoriety until the end of 1968. During this time, they developed from semi-naked writhing on stage to becoming a living artwork, and an aesthetic experiment. The inhabitants at 99 Balls Pond Road were extremely concerning to mainstream society and the authorities. Reaction led to tabloid condemnation, bricks through the window and police plantings . Following these relentless attacks, the group started to disperse. By the end of 1968 the troupe had largely broken up. The house was sold in early 1969.
10:00 AM - 10:50 AM	Pete Carty & Travis Elborough	High Art and Low Life in 1990s Hoxton Travis Elborough interviews Peter Carty about his novel Art. Art is a dark satire about the birth of Young British Artists in early 1990s Hackney, faithfully reflecting the period and its creative obsessions. Illuminating, moving and blackly funny, it mercilessly exposes the pretensions of contemporary art, as well as the unrestrained hedonism and low life that ran alongside in the streets of Hoxton and Shoreditch. This was a period when organised crime, urban blight and fascism were prominent locally. The novel’s backdrop is the gentrification that the artists helped to kick-start, and which has dramatically transformed the area over the past three decades.
11:00 AM - 11:50 AM	Lucinda Rogers	Ridley Road market in drawings From Larry the oldest stallholder to Jacky the parrot, Ridley Road was Lucinda Rogers’s inspiration and studio for two months in 2017 as she created a portrait of its traders and stalls in a series of large documentary drawings made on the spot. She will show the drawings and talk about the resulting exhibition ‘On Gentrification’, which placed Ridley Road within the context of changes in the area and in the market itself. She will bring the market's story up to date with an account of recent happenings.
11:00 AM - 11:50 AM	Eithne Nightingale	Life Under Lockdown: On Mehetabel Road and Isabella Road in Hackney 2020 Eithne and her neighbours discuss Life Under Lockdown with Hackney resident and professor of historical geography, Alastair Owens. The book features photos taken by Eithne of her neighbours on their doorsteps holding objects that sustained them through lockdown. Join in discussions on the long-term impact of COVID-19 on our relationship to home – on children’s education, patterns of work, relationships within and beyond the household, and neighbourliness.
11:00 AM - 11:50 PM	Ken Worpole & Gareth Evans	A Fortunate Man: John Berger in Hackney John Berger (1926 – 2017) was one of Europe’s most important post-war writers and intellectuals, admired across the world. Storyteller Booker Prize -winning novelist, filmmaker, essayist, poet and artist, he also co-created one of British television’s genuine masterpieces, ‘Ways of Seeing’, In the early 1970s he met Glenn Thompson, the black American draft-resister who founded the Centerprise Bookshop project in Hackney, Stoke Newington-based writer & social historian Ken Worpole and Gareth Evans, a close friend / publisher of Berger, and organiser of an international festival on Berger’s work explore John Berger’s formative years in Hackney and London’s left-wing bohemian culture.
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM	Laurie Elks	Hackney Heroes 2 After Hackney Heroes 1, last year, Laurie Elks continues his exploration of the bloody minded heroes who stood up for what they believed in and made Hackney a better place. In this talk he will consider the achievements of Mike Gray who led the campaign to save Sutton House; Elaine and Peter Gosnell who had a key role in the preservation of the Stoke Newington Reservoirs; Roland Muldoon who created the Hackney Empire theatre we know today and Marie Murray and Brian Cumming who have created the Curve Garden as Dalston’s unique green oasis.
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM	Tony Rich	Stoke Newington at War: Hidden Stories of Resistance and Survival During World War II, Stoke Newington—one of London’s smallest boroughs—stood on the front lines of Britain’s home defence. Its Town Hall still bears its original wartime camouflage, a rare and lasting reminder of the borough’s efforts to stay hidden from enemy bombers. But do you know how and why it was painted that way? As the bombs fell, the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) and Civil Defence Services sprang into action. Many were volunteers—air raid wardens, fire watchers, and rescue teams—risking their lives to protect their community. From blackout drills to bomb shelters, every household played a role. But Stoke Newington didn’t just defend itself on the ground. It also had a fleet of aircraft and ships, assigned to its name, serving in battle across the globe. At home, the war brought out the best in some and the worst in others. The borough had its share of heroes, but also villains... and even Nazi sympathisers hiding in plain sight. In this unique talk for the Hackney History Festival, Independent Research Historian and Psychogeographer Tony Rich—a witness and survivor of the 7th July bombings—brings Stoke Newington’s wartime history to life. Using rare photos, first-hand accounts, and expert analysis, he uncovers the borough’s hidden stories and explores how echoes of conflict still shape our world today.
12:00 PM - 12:50 PM	Tahiara Munshi & Cllr Rathbone	Trading matters: The importance of Hackney's markets and their place in the development of the local community A history of Hackney's markets and their recent resurgence in popularity
1.00 PM - 1.50 PM	Sue Doe	Women from Hackney History Volume 2 Volume two of Women from Hackney’s History features 115 women with strong links to Hackney. Their names emerged as research carried on after the publication of volume one in 2021. Many more Hackney women remain relatively undiscovered but deserve attention and more research. Sue Doe who produced Volume two alongside a group of contributors will highlight some who made it into the book and some others who are knocking at the door of Volume Three.
1.00 PM - 1.50 PM	Andrew Harrison	The Angry Brigade – Anarchy In N16 If you’ve ever turned to walk down Amhurst Road from Stoke Newington Road, you’ll have unwittingly passed the HQ of one of Britain’s most infamous cases of political violence. Between 1970 and 1972, Britain's first urban guerrilla group the Angry Brigade – based in a flat at 359 Amhurst Road – carried out a campaign of bombing and attempted assassination which targeted government buildings, banks, and other symbols of capitalism.
1.00 PM - 1.50 PM	Steven Spencer	The Salvation Army in Hackney: the Navarino Road rescue homes 1885-1889 The Salvation Army ran three rescue homes for women at 44-48 Navarino Road in Dalston between 1885 and 1889. This talk will look at the development of these rescue homes and explore in detail the lives of a selection of the more than 300 residents. Some of these women came from Hackney but many more came from all parts of the UK and even other countries.
2.00 PM - 2.50 PM	Mark Gorman	"Down with the Fences!" – the long struggle for London’s open spaces For hundreds of years London has been growing ever larger, its boundaries spreading from the confines of the medieval city and swallowing up once rural villages such as Hackney, covering London’s countryside with housing. After 1800 growth intensified to meet the ever-increasing demands of industry and commerce, and the threatened loss of London’s green spaces aroused increasing opposition. Mark Gorman tells the story of the campaigns to save London’s open spaces, notably the landmark struggle for Epping Forest, as well as the fight to save Hackney Downs and other local open land. Highlighting the role of popular protest in these campaigns, this is the story of ordinary Londoners and their part in saving London’s green spaces.
2.00 PM - 2.50 PM	Chas Loft, Graham Smith & Duncan Campbell	Stoking up Trouble Stoke Newington police station became one of the most notorious in the country after a number of major incidents there in the 1980s and 1990s. The death of Colin Roach inside the station in 1983 provoked great anger in the community and many responses. There were also many disputed arrests with people claiming they had been falsely accused, cases which were monitored and logged by the Hackney Community Defence Association. The Metropolitan police then launched an investigation into alleged corruption at the station called Operation Jackpot. The Guardian covered the story in 1992 and was sued for libel by eight officers. This led to a trial which ended in a victory for the Guardian, the first of 95 libel cases brought by the Police Federation against newspapers that they had lost. Chas Loft and Graham Smith of the HCDA and Duncan Campbell, who covered the case for the Guardian, will talk about those times.
2.00 PM - 2.50 PM	Cat Arnold	The Invisible Enemy – the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic in Hackney In the last year of WWI, the world was devasted by a pandemic of Spanish flu. Killing up to 100m people worldwide, Spanish flu was the deadliest outbreak since the Black Death. Spanish flu killed troops on both sides of the conflict, but what was the impact for those left behind on Civvy Street? In this talk, Catharine Arnold discusses the effects of Spanish flu on Hackney. Already vulnerable due to poverty, deprivation, and four long years of war, how did Hackney respond to the invisible enemy, killer flu? Catharine Arnold is the author of Pandemic 1918, the story of the deadliest influenza in history. Catharine’s books include Necropolis, London and its Dead and Bedlam, London, and its Mads.
3.00 PM - 3.50 PM	Rosie Llewellyn-Jones	Hackney and the East India Company There were a number of links between the Company, founded in 1600 and Hackney, then a small country village. An early owner of Sutton House, Captain John Milward was a silk-merchant and governor of the Company who found Hackney conveniently situated – east of the city of London where the Company had its headquarters and north of the East India Docks where imported goods arrived. There were other connections too, some rather strange and sad like the Pembroke House Asylum for Britons, mainly soldiers, who experienced mental illness while serving in India and were shipped to Hackney to recover. The borough also provided a home for ayahs, Indian nursemaids who had accompanied British families home and then looked for a return passage to India. Dr Llewellyn-Jones is an historian of colonial India and particularly interested in the impact that the East India Company had both abroad and at home.
3.00 PM - 3.50 PM	Andy Beckett	Invasion of the middle-class lefties Invasion of the middle-class lefties: what does the relationship between gentrification and politics in Hackney since the 1970s tell us about the borough, and about the broader, generally leftward shift since then in London and other British cities?"
3.00 PM - 3.50 PM	Kate Murray-Browne	One Girl Began - a fictional feminst history of Hackney Kate Murray-Browne was born in London and worked in publishing for ten years before becoming a writer. Her critically acclaimed first novel, The Upstairs Room, was published in 2017 and selected as a Book of the Year in The Times. Her second novel, One Girl Began, is set over 111 years in Hackney and tells the story of three women separated by history but connected by the same building: a box factory in the Edwardian era, a derelict squat in the 1980s and luxury flats by 2020. It was described by the Hackney Citizen as 'a feminist history of the borough in fictional form'. Kate lives in Hackney with her family.
4.00 PM - 4.50 PM	Neil Martinson	Hackney: Echoes Through Time - A photographic journey over fifty years Drawing on his unique archive of photographs taken fifty years ago, Neil reveals more unseen images in parallel with those he has taken over the past two years. His images are powerful narratives that delve deep into the human experience, offering a raw, unfiltered look at the struggles, joys, and resilience of the people of Hackney. He reveals, in often surprising ways, the profound changes that have taken place over half a century, and what remains.
4.00 PM - 4.50 PM	Deborah Cohen	Healthcare in Hackney As Hackney became more populated in the nineteenth century there were more opportunities for infectious diseases to spread. There were outbreaks of smallpox, TB and influenza, in addition to the steady incidence of diphtheria, measles, dysentery, scarlet fever and other infections that were often killers amongst the poor. In this talk I’ll discuss how the local Medical Officers of Health, doctors and social reformers in Hackney responded to these diseases before the NHS and what changed after it was founded in 1948.
4.00 PM - 4.50 PM	Sue Eliott Nicholls & contributors from Immediate Theatre	Same Streets, Different Lives The Hackney & Newham History Social Club: Different people, walking the same streets all with their own unique stories to tell. Funded by The Heritage Lottery Fund, we have been capturing the oral histories of the diverse communities arriving in East London between 1939-1990. Our podcast series uncovers the life stories of some of these people: people who have rejuvenated the shops, delivered the babies, made clothes, worshipped, partied, and watched over the London Borough Of Hackney over fifty years. Presenter Sue Elliott-Nicholls will be joined by members of our Production Club who have together been researching and interviewing across the borough, aiming to preserve those accounts before they are lost forever, and introducing the people behind these amazing stories. You can listen to the podcast at: The Hackney and Newham History Social Club \| Immediate Theatre
5.00 PM - 6.50 PM	Lucy Madison	Hackney History "Pub" Quiz Join us for a fun pub-style quiz about all things 'Hackney History'! Written by professional quiz writers and Hackney history enthusiasts, you can expect Hackney-history-based general knowledge, picture, music, literary and connection rounds, with a variety of questions tailor-made for all knowledge levels. 2 hours with comfort and refreshment break half-way.