By addressing a specific intersection of suburban villadom and home security, this article interrogates how the offence of burglary carried deep implications for understanding the evolving concept of London's criminal suburbanscape in the 1880s and 1890s. It argues that the popular representations of burglary in London-based periodicals not only reflect the social realities of criminality but also the history of crime and policing, weaving together the lived experience of London's suburbanites. The expansion of villa suburbs typically carries connotations of fear and anxiety to involve thinking about the creation and dissemination of 'the gentle art of burgling', the growth of the private security industry, and the shifting significance of policing and crime prevention alongside the verbal and nonverbal representations of crime and criminals. At the heart of the article, therefore, are press depictions of how suburban burglary becomes an indicator for shaping visions of real-life exploits of criminals in the context of the New Journalism.
The Worshipful Company of Leathersellers worked with educational establishments, charities, and institutions of local government at the end of the nineteenth century to provide instruction in leather manufacturing in Bermondsey. Subsequently, firms (through their trade federations) and central government came to play a greater, even a dominant, role in supporting that education, although both its form and purpose were always contested. As manufacturing in Britain began to decline, and as government policy changed in the 1960s to support an expansion of further and higher education through broader institutions-colleges of technology, polytechnics, and universities-there was little place for specialist colleges like the Leathersellers', and it eventually closed in 1978. Its history, then, affords us a valuable case study of the vicissitudes of vocational education in Britain and London.
The German occupation of 1939-1945 left a huge mark on the capital of Poland. After the end of hostilities, Warsaw-ruined and looted-came back to life. For the State Zoological Museum, one of the ways to rebuild scientific life was to send employees on foreign internships. The Archives of the Museum and Zoological Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences contain a report by the entomologist Stanis & lstrok;aw Adamczewski, who between October 1946 and October 1947 undertook an internship at the Natural History Museum in London. This several-page document is a description of the activities of the London museum that also reveals the situation in the country and the Polish reality. It is also a description of the enormous support provided by the British Council and English scientists to Polish researchers operating in extremely difficult conditions. The document, which has been translated in full here for the first time, also demonstrates the significance of international scientific contacts, especially in the aftermath of the war.
In early modern London, violence against religious dissenters took various forms: the pillory, flogging, branding, ear cropping, and executions. These punishments served as a warning not only to the victim but also to the crowds that often gathered in various spaces in London to witness them. Growing opposition to this violence, often ordered by the monarchy, was one of the factors that led to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. When parliament returned in 1640, control of London was progressively wrested away from those who supported Charles I. Such forms of violence subsequently disappeared from London. Public displays of violence remained, however, in symbolic form, as the executioner's presence became common in various public spaces. Previously under the monarch's control, parliament regularly ordered the hangman to publicise its orthodox 'brand' by publicly burning the doctrines of various religious and political sects, as part of London's 'Further Reformation'.
In late medieval London, concerns about the quality and authenticity of consumer goods converged with growing anti-immigrant sentiment. Using three craft guilds-the Goldsmiths, the Pursers, and the Glaziers-as case studies, this article illustrates how Londoners came to directly link the perceived threats posed by foreigners and false craft work by the end of the fifteenth century. Analysing the rhetoric and regulations of these three varied groups of craftsmen, it provides insight into medieval Londoners' attitudes towards strangers, as well as the construction of artisan identity, arguing that members of these guilds defined themselves both by their artisanal skill and in opposition to outsiders. They were able to unite and concretise these two facets of their identities by accusing foreigners of false work.
