Course description
This course focuses on London since 1800 both as site of formal politics and as an inherently politicised space. Students will learn how civic symbols, traditions and architecture helped regulate relationships between the public and the state. As well as being the seat of government, London has frequently seen mass popular protests. It has always been an inherently multicultural city, even prior to the mass immigration of the post-World War II era. But it has also been a city of inequalities, divided between a prosperous West End and an impoverished East End, with the financial heartland of the City of London inhabiting a legally anomalous and inherently ambiguous position in between. Students will learn how the geography of the city has impacted political movements, from the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820 (a foiled attempt to murder the Prime Minister and the Cabinet) to Extinction Rebellion protests today. They will be encouraged to draw comparisons with other cities on the basis of their existing knowledge.

Westminster and Whitehall are key to understanding the political geography of London. The Palace of Westminster itself, as well as housing Parliament, is an instantly recognisable symbolic landmark. Parliament Square, and the statues that are dotted around it, serves an important site of political memory, as well as being an obvious location for lobbying and protest. Note, for example, the media outrage that was caused when the statue of Winston Churchill was defaced (and crowned with a turf Mohican) during the anti-globalization riots in 2000. But it is important also to look beyond Westminster, for example to Cable Street in the East End, the site of a famous “battle” in 1936, in which anti-fascist protesters successfully fought to prevent Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts marching through the area.

Students will learn about a range of case studies from different time periods in order to trace the evolution of London as a zone of both authoritarian and democratic pressures. Examples will include:
•The debates over the rebuilding of Parliament after the great fire of 1834.
•The failed Chartist demonstration of 1848, which proved the effective death-knell of this working-class movement in favour of democratic reform.
•“Bloody Sunday” of 1887, when protests against unemployment and coercion in Ireland led to violent clashes with police.
•Charles Booth’s notebooks and “poverty map” of London.
•The legacy and memorialisation of the British Empire.
•Edwardian Suffragette demonstrations.
•The 1936 “Battle of Cable Street” between the British Union of Fascists and anti-fascist protestors.
•Anti-government protests during the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the anti-Vietnam war protests in Grosvenor Square of 1968.
•The left-wing campaign against the abolition of the Greater London Council by the Thatcher government.
•1980s mass lobbies of Parliament by Oxfam and other NGOs in support of development goals.
•The Poll Tax riots of 1990.
•Political controversies over London statues.

Learning outcomes
This module will give students insight into the physical dimensions of political power in one of the world’s leading cities. Students will use historic maps and virtual tours of political institutions to familiarise themselves with key locations. They will learn about concepts such as “governmentality” and assess their usefulness in respect of different historical periods. They will become aware of the class, race, and gender dimensions of London’s political geography. They will become familiar with the use of visual sources for the purposes of scholarly analysis.

Teaching methods
The course will be taught through a combination of lectures, group discussion of weekly readings, and small-group exercises. Here are some examples of exercises that maybe used during the course:

Exercise 1. Each student will be asked to locate a visual source that casts light on London as a political space, and to present it to the class, highlighting the opportunities and difficulties of analysis that it presents.

Exercise 2. The class will be divided into groups, each of which will devise a London-based protest, choosing its own issue, method, and location with a view to securing maximum impact.

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