Municipal guide of the day: the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell from the late 1920s, featuring the original Town Hall (the former Vestry Hall), the Sunray Estate and Dulwich Library.
![Photo caption: DULWICH LIBRARY, LORDSHIP LANE.
Per Wikipedia: A Passmore Edwards Library designed by Charles Barry and Son in Elizabethan Revival style and erected 1896-7. The original single-storey north-west wing damaged during World War II was replaced circa 1950. The building was refurbished in 2013.
MATERIALS: red brick with sandstone dressings, wooden window frames and hipped and pitched slate roofs with brick chimneystacks.
PLAN: an irregular butterfly-shaped plan of two to three storeys and basement. The original plan consisted of a staircase-hall with reading room leading off to the east of the main entrance, book storage to the south-west spanning two storeys, offices on the first floor, a head librarian's flat on the second floor and a single-storey offset wing to the north-west of the main entrance. This north-west wing was replaced following war damage by a two-storey wing with a children's library on the ground floor and a hall above. In 2015 the original part of the ground floor comprised an open access library to both the main rooms and the first floor included staff offices, a wi-fi lounge, a quiet study area and a reference library and offices on the second floor.
EXTERIOR: the north-east elevation fronting Lordship Lane is of three bays and includes three large arched windows on the ground floor with a projected moulded stone sill supported by stone corbels, Tuscan pilaster jambs and segmental stone arches with projecting keystones. The wider panes of glass used here indicate that the lower sections of these window frames have been replaced as the panes originally would have matched the spacing of those of the upper arched section. [extract as character limit reached]
Photo credit: Ed. J. Burrow and Co. Ltd
Taken from: The Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell Official Guide
Published by: Ed. J. Burrow and Co. Ltd on behalf of the M.B. of Camberwell
Publication date: Undated but appears to be c. 1928](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rdc3t32wbru3m5gcgjsb2t2c/bafkreiax5g5kbd74jhoabntdgi56l2ynlwfmlzjbuihbh3ropltnecpbke)
Dr. Niall Allsopp
@niallallsopp.bsky.social
Early Modern English literature, English Civil Wars, Restoration, literature and political, social, local history. Book: https://tinyurl.com/NiallPSER Work: https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/allsopp/
All I can do to help in the present existential crisis of Britain's universities is reiterate my evidence to the Commons Education Committee. There isn't anything else.
Yes, education should provide pupils with life skills but it’s also about fostering curiosity and possibility, not training worker ants to do whatever job the neoliberal overlords see as being necessary for the locality. We all learn things in school that we forget but things also stick with us.
Even the Spectator weighs in against 'the bonfire of the humanities' and proposed cuts at my uni: spectator.com/article/we-s...
We sacrifice the humanities at our peril
Another month, another of our great universities making brutal cuts. At Exeter (motto: lucem sequimur, ‘we follow the light’) over 500 members of staff have been notified their jobs are at risk in a p...
spectator.com
My timeline might be pleased to know that there's now a statue of Sylvia Townsend Warner on Dorchester's high street.
Another populist measure. If a University goes bust in a big UK city because of the government’s failure to fix the broken HE funding system, the effect on those pubs and music venues catering to students/staff will be devastating. Yet more jobs and revenue lost. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd...
Burnham announces 20% cut in business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues - live updates
The cut will take effect from April, saving the average pub about £1,100 in tax next year, No 10 says.
bbc.co.uk
Answer to sub head: yes. Industrial strength with save HE, but more broadly, we need everyone to get stuck in. We can’t leave this sector to managers and wonks. They just don’t know how to consult and lead.
How to kill a university's reputation
After Exeter’s announcement that it will cut 150 academic jobs, is there any hope for higher education?
newstatesman.com
When your excellent union re-phrases the VC's fear-mongering all-staff talk:
This petition needs as many signatories as the Exeter one. Please sign and share — don’t let Hertfordshire managers get away with this just because a Russell Group one took the spotlight. #UKHE
Joanna Bourke@joannabourke.bsky.social · 3mo agoShocking news about redundancies in the Humanities at the University of Hertfordshire, despite their exceptional research activities. I have signed the petition against these actions: it would be great if you would as well: c.org/kDQynZV7J4 @bbkhistorical.bsky.social @bisa-bkk.bsky.social
Guardian on unjustified, devastating cuts at uni of Exeter 21000 sign petition and growing www.change.org/p/stop-redun... www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Fury over Exeter University plan to scrap dozens of humanities posts
Rowan Williams and Mark Kermode join campaign against proposed cuts for arts and social sciences
theguardian.com
The public historian, author and creator of the You’re Dead to Me podcast Greg Jenner warned…”The arts and humanities are fundamental to the flourishing of our society; knowledge gathering, critical thinking and creativity should be defended as sacred things.”
Andrew McRae@mcraeandrew.bsky.social · last mo.Please sign & share @exeterucu.bsky.social petition on wholly unjustified, hugely damaging cuts to humanities staff at uni of Exeter (including, potentially, mine). Help us defend the humanities! And stick up for higher ed in the South West! c.org/RFqMvrKb6z
"The idea that people will be able to hold it together and deliver a term of teaching before they vanish off into the horizon, is bizarre, spiteful and naive as well.” The Times HE's punchy account of Exeter University's #BonfireOfTheHumanities & what one academic describes as "existential terror".
‘I thought we were safe’: shock at Exeter’s humanities ‘gamble’
Leading department being in the firing line shows how changing student preferences are fundamentally reshaping universities
timeshighereducation.com
Please sign & share @exeterucu.bsky.social petition on wholly unjustified, hugely damaging cuts to humanities staff at uni of Exeter (including, potentially, mine). Help us defend the humanities! And stick up for higher ed in the South West! c.org/RFqMvrKb6z
@profaliceroberts.bsky.social big fan of Digging for Britain for years, first time bothering you here: glad you enjoyed visiting Cornwall, would you possibly sign & re-post our petition to save 150+ humanities jobs across Devon & Cornwall campuses of Exeter Uni? thanks www.change.org/p/stop-redun...
Sign the Petition
Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter
change.org
The crisis in UK higher education is worsening week by week — Exeter University is one of the best in the UK, with superb lecturers (and several You’re Dead To Me guests), but it’s planning massive job cuts in History, Archaeology, Classics — see the petition below to lend your voice in support
Dr Susan Greaney@suegreaney.bsky.social · last mo.Petition against the job losses here: c.org/ddjtYXzdQQ
Petition against redundancies at Exeter. Humanities and Social Sciences staff are hardest hit, with 25% of posts in subjects including History, English, Modern Languages and Politics slated to be cut.
Sign the Petition
Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter
c.org
🚨 PLEASE SHARE WIDELY 🚨 If you are an Exeter alumnus, and wish to express your horror at the proposed cuts to the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, please sign the Google Doc petition below. Not an alumnus? You can still help by signing the Exeter UCU petition at c.org/msXfsb2g5b 🗃️
Alumni petition against the cuts to the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Any Exeter alumni who wish for their names to be added to the petition below should please complete the form at this link: https://forms.gle/SpdYvmmsCaJbmZft6. If you are not an alumnus, but still wis...
docs.google.com
My review of Deborah Payne's new book, 'The Business of the English Restoration Theatre' (2024) is out now in the latest issue of @restorationjournal.bsky.social! muse.jhu.edu/pub/298/arti...
* it absolutely is 3cm though, not 3mm. Go and look for yourself on the website with the absolutely mindblowing zoom function: closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/ghentaltarpi...
Closer to Van Eyck
The Ghent Altarpiece
closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be
So pleased to be starting this new project on royalist exiles in Paris attached to Queen Henrietta Maria's court, 1644-60. Thank you @britishacademy.bsky.social for funding this research! @openuniversity.bsky.social
The Open University
Historian Sara Wolfson has been awarded a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant to explore royalist exiles in France, 1644-60.
fass.open.ac.uk
Exciting Thursday… my book manuscript is complete and SENT 🥂⚒️
'new hires who were seen as “AI natives” are turning out to have alarmingly shallow ideas. So much so, the anonymous finance worker admitted, that his firm now actively avoids seeking out AI-literate STEM graduates, and opts to comb through humanities students instead.' futurism.com/future-socie...
Bosses Horrified as "AI Native" College Graduates Hit the Workplace
"AI native" college graduates are hitting the workplace -- and, as experts warned, bosses are finding their performance disappointing.
futurism.com
OK but how many have you read of this Best Novels list compiled in 1898? (27 in my case) www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-...
The 100 Best Novels: A Literary Critic Creates a List in 1898
In 1898, Clement K. Shorter, a writer, tried his hand at compiling a list of the 100 Best Novels for a journal called The Bookman. The ground rules were simple: the list could feature only one novel p...
openculture.com
Next month (20 June), #Colchester Choral Society performs G&S's Iolanthe. I'm singing Strephon, a fairy from the waste up and mortal from the waste down. He's in love with a shepherdess, ward to a Lord. Parliament gets involved. It's a riot. Come along! colchesterchoralsociety.co.uk/etn/gilbert-...
This marking period has been the most depressing I’ve known in 10 years in the job. A thousand curses on the people who invented this tech, and on the enablers and normalisers who push it.
Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social · 3mo agoIf you’re an academic and you use generative AI in your writing I have zero respect for you. If u tell me this I am not nodding or being sanctimonious I am throwing up
