Author: Doing History in Public

  • 20. A Statue of Pacific on Dacres Estate

    20. A Statue of Pacific on Dacres Estate

    By Zac Lewis On Dacres Estate in South-East London, you can find a statue of the ancient god Pacific sitting lounged back, draped in a greying toga on a red brick plinth above the pavement. The statue is chipped and rainswept, set in from the street beside a set of garages, and its eyes are…

  • 21. “Holy Dolls”: The Christ Child

    21. “Holy Dolls”: The Christ Child

    by Ellie Johnson (@elliejohns0n1) In 2017, the Madonnas and Miracles exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge featured a wooden doll of the Christ child. This near life-size statuette was the first object visitors encountered in the gallery. 

  • 22. The Centenary British Commemorative Medallion Representing Britain’s Capture of Trinidad from the Spanish

    22. The Centenary British Commemorative Medallion Representing Britain’s Capture of Trinidad from the Spanish

    By Aileen Alexis The year 1797 signalled a watershed moment in the colonial history of Trinidad. Before that year, Trinidad was under the rule of the Spanish Crown, England’s newest enemy. Trinidad became a pawn in European rivalries that brought General Abercromby to the shores of Trinidad that year. This would mark the beginning of…

  • 23: A Ship’s Light

    23: A Ship’s Light

    By Rebecca Goldsmith Earlier this summer, a freighter from Australia pulled into Southampton in the UK. Its load included a container filled with the contents of my grandparent’s home in the seaside village of Port Fairy (its traditional owners are the Eastern Maar people) in Southern Australia. This shipment brought with it an old brass…

  • 24: A Banned Book from Colonial India

    24: A Banned Book from Colonial India

    By Tarika Khattar In 1932, Sajjad Zaheer, a law student briefly back in India from his studies at Oxford, met Ahmed Ali, an English lecturer at Lucknow University. Zaheer, who was heavily influenced by developing radical trends in Europe, decided to publish a collection of ten Urdu short stories entitled Angarey (Embers). The stories, five…