Costs:
Open University students, staff and alumni: £5 (please enter your Personal Identifier when booking)
Non-Open University rate: £7.50
Summary
We're delighted to be partnering again with Curious Histories, to bring you another London show featuring three eccentric, biographically-flavoured tales at our new earlier time of 6.15pm.
Our show will be in the downstairs function room and bar of the Tokenhouse on Moorgate, and it will feature three typically idiosyncratic talks.The event will begin at 6.15pm, but doors will open at 5.45pm. If you would like to eat beforehand, the Tokenhouse offers a great menu, so arrive early and order food and drinks before we start; you do not need to reserve a table. The bar will stay open throughout the show. We will finish around 8.45pm (running order below).
There's no need to be studying history as the talks will be of general interest but if you are studying the following courses with the Open University, you may find them particularly appealing: A113, A223, A225, A327, and A883 from the history strand of course. We are delighted to have Professor Rosemary Ashton in our line up whose talk has good cross-over with A335 English Lit, and Dr Louise Ryland-Epton’s has connections with A112.
Our talks:
The Great Stink of 1858
In the 1850s London was a city of two and a half million inhabitants, more than twice as many as fifty years earlier. The sewers could not cope with these numbers; effluent gushed into the Thames. In June 1858, a crisis point was reached when temperatures hit 35ºC. What could be the solution? Professor Rosemary Ashton takes up the story of Joseph Bazalgette, who had ambitious plans to remove the nuisance from the city. However, he had to fight against widespread and ferocious objections, not least financial ones. How did he overcome them?
Science, Folklore, and the Unexplained: John Aubrey's Natural History
John Aubrey (1626-1697) is best known as a polymathic antiquarian with a deep interest in the supernatural. Yet Aubrey was a scientist too, and often combined his curiosity for folk wisdom and the unexplained with revolutionary scientific insights. Sadly, his major work on the subject, the Natural History, was not published in his lifetime, and subsequently only in truncated form. In it, Aubrey vigorously applied scientific method not only to conventional flora and fauna, but also to the phenomena of dragons, ghosts, witches, magic rings, secret tunnels, murderous clouds, and giants - a fervour that led to an African expedition to hunt for a two-legged dragon, the Wyvern. Dr Louise Ryland-Epton invites us to discover more about Aubrey’s extraordinary world ahead of the publication of his Natural History in June.
Adolf von Batocki: Food Dictator
In May 1916, Adolf von Batocki was appointed as head of the Imperial German War Food Office in the midst of World War One. A controversial character, he quickly earned the sobriquet of 'The Food Dictator' as civilians faced growing food shortages and hunger. Dr Jonathan Slater explores his role on the Kaiserreich's beleagured home front at a pivotal point in the conflict.
Our speakers:
Professor Rosemary Ashton is Emeritus Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at UCL and an Honorary Fellow of UCL. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and was awarded an OBE in 1999 for services to comparative literature. She is the author of four critical biographies and three books on Victorian culture, including One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858 (2017), the subject of her Curious Histories' talk.
Dr Louise Ryland-Epton is an award-winning freelance historian and contributing editor on Victoria County History. She is an expert on John Aubrey and is currently editing his Natural History for publication on his 400th anniversary. Her most recent book is The Kingtons: a history of the ancient parish of Kington St Michael. You can read her fascinating blog, on Aubrey and other early modern curiosities, here. This is her second talk for our programme.
Dr Jonathan Slater is a postdoc at the London School of Economics, whose research concentrates on ersatz food products in First World War Germany. He is originally from Paw Paw, Michigan in the USA. This is his second talk for Curious Histories.
Running order (all times approximate):
5.45pm - Doors
6.15pm - First talk
8.45pm - Expected end time
There will be two intervals during the evening.
Find out more here