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Keeping up with London's Past: Local History in the Metropolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

D. A. Reeder
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Extract

The growing popularity of local history in towns and cities raises some questions for urban historians. What contribution is being made to our knowledge of the urban past by groups of people for whom local history is a leisure-time occupation? Are they poles apart from the interests and approaches of urban history? Can guide-lines be laid down? There is no general agreement on these matters. Opinions range from the view that local history is best left to develop its own canons, to the view that it can supply a source of labour for academics under their direction and control. Another, possibly more sympathetic view, is that the two kinds of work might feed into each other, provided that local historians are willing to move more purposively into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. So they are urged to take on new subjects, to ‘flesh out’ the urban process, and to develop a more ‘vital approach’, making their ‘touchstone the real life experiences of people themselves’, But how responsive are local historians likely to be?

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 4 , May 1977 , pp. 48 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1. Rogers, Alan, ‘New horizons in local history’. The Local Historian, xii no. 2 (1976).Google Scholar

2. For new subjects see The Local Historian, especially Todd, Nigel, ‘The uses of contemporary suburban history 1918–50’, xi no. 5 (1975)Google Scholar; Duggan, Edward P., ‘Industrialisation and the development of urban business communities’, xi no. 8 (1975).Google Scholar The ‘fleshing out’ idea conies from an unpublished lecture by H. J. Dyos. For the more vital approach, see Samuel, Raphael, ‘Local history and oral history’, History Workshop A Journal of Socialist Historians, Issue 1 (Spring 1976).Google Scholar

3. See Dyos, H. J., ‘Dear, damned, distracting town. A survey of recent writings on London’, British Book News, 11 1976.Google Scholar

4. Hamish Hamilton is one of the more important publishers of these: see Holme, Thea, Chelsea (1972, £3·50)Google Scholar, Harris, Charles, Islington (1974, £4·50)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Evans, Geoffrey, Kensington (1975, £6).Google Scholar

5. Probably one of the earliest was William Bedwell, Rev., Description of the Parish and Antiquities of Tottenham High Cross (1631).Google Scholar

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10. This was achieved to an extent by East London Papers, and Guildhall Studies now claims to publish studies adding to a knowledge of London history as well as those based on the material in the Library and Record Office.

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15. For other memories of childlife in London see Heren, Louis, Growing Up Poor in London (Hamish Hamilton, 1973, £2·50)Google Scholar, Niall, Ian, A London Boyhood (Heinemann, 1974, £2·75)Google Scholar, Scannell, Dorothy, Mother Knew Best: An East End Childhood (Macmillan, 1974, £2·50).Google Scholar