Maureen Waller Lecture - 24th November POSTPONED
POSTPONED DUE TO UNFORSEEN CIRCUMSTANCES :
Lecture - London 1700 : Scenes from London Life
London in 1700 was a capital on the verge of a new century and at the dawn of the modern age, a place of untold potential, caught on the cusp between England's medieval past and a fabulous future.
In the last half century its citizens had witnessed the unthinkable -- the public execution of a king at Whitehall. Many had seen the city's very fabric razed to the ground in the Great Fire of 1666. But from the ashes rose a phoenix. A modern city was rebuilt, and England could look forward to the new century with boundless optimism.
Yet this great city, home to one in nine of the entire population, could not sustain itself. Life was precarious: drink, gambling and cruel sports were the people's palliatives. As London flourished, so too, did crime, undeterred by the prospect of branding, transportation or the gibbet.
In her talk, highly acclaimed historian Maureen Waller will describe London life at a unique moment in the city's - and our - history. It's a curiously familiar yet alien world, she says, like looking at ourselves in a distorted mirror.
Tickets: £5/£3 available from the School Office. School pupils: free
