We’re delighted to share with you some wonderful photographs taken by our heritage project rapporteur, Marcus Duran.

One name has dominated the headlines this month, and we couldn’t be happier that that name is Mary Wollstonecraft! Thanks for the decade-long efforts of the Mary on the Green campaign there is a sculpture to Mary’s legacy on Newington Green. There have been many views shared, criticisms and debates on the sculpture – and it has been fascinating reading people’s responses.

John William Polidori was born in 1795, the son of an Italian asylum seeker. He went onto graduate in medicine from Edinburgh University. Lord Byron employed him as his personal physician who some now say that this was a polite euphemism for a person who deals drugs as Byron was an enthusiastic user of laudanum.

From fighting for equal access to education to the right to vote, Hackney’s women battled to ensure the future female generations of East London had access to the opportunities they were not granted. This blog will provide a broad outline of the stories and movements of Hackney’s feminists from the 1600s to the beginning of the 1900s and how their revolutionary ideas and actions have shaped the society we live in today.

This month is Black History Month – although we are committed at the Meeting House to sharing, learning and celebrating Black History every month. We have a line-up of events this month in collaboration with creative partners The Black Exchange and Alternative Fictions that we have been busy putting together to ensure a high quality, engaging and relevant events programme that highlights and tackles important conversations we should all be having about issues like Black experience, representation in the Arts and inclusion and allyship.

During World War Two many Jews began to migrate from the cramped ghettos of the East End and Dockland areas along the Thames, a frequent target zone during the Blitz, to North and North East London. Settling in areas such as Stamford Hill, Dalston and Stoke Newington and as such the Jewish community in Hackney grew, making these communities prime targets during the fascist resurgence after World War Two.

Take a tour of the Meeting House by checking out the video below!

I know about Matilda Sharpe because she was the woman who, along with her sister Emily, founded Channing School in Highgate where I taught for 16 happy years.

The school was originally intended for the daughters of Unitarian ministers but is now open to girls from every religion or none. There were still echoes of Matilda Sharpe around the school when I worked there. For instance, her aspirational motto (also the title of a book of homilies she authored) was engraved over the door to the sixth form Centre: “Never forget life is expecting much of you and me”.

Hosted by Emily, our local story teller, Tales from the Green are free, online storytelling recordings that celebrates the rich and diverse cultures in Newington Green. You can watch and be part of the amazing stories on Youtube.

On the 7th June, those protesting as part of the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol pulled down and dumped the statue Edward Colston, a prolific slave trader, into their harbor . A moment which sparked a conversation on the legacy of British colonialism and how slavery is remembered, both in our education system and via the statues that many of us uncritically pass on a daily basis.

Sophia is little known today. Thanks to the efforts of feminist historians we now know quite a lot about prominent women activists from the past, including of course Mary Wollstonecraft, who is so closely associated with this Meeting House. However, we know much less about other fascinating women who worked mainly ‘behind the scenes’, including Sophia, who also lived in this area of London.

Are you thinking about ways to address recent events with your learners?

After the injustice of George Floyd’s death and the Black Lives Matter protests across the globe and the wave of interest in how we engage with our history – we are offering free school assemblies as a way to engage primary and secondary school learners with this important topic and time in our national history.

After a slow start and getting our heads round new working practices and the furloughing of many colleagues at New Unity – we are now getting stuck in with this new online world of engagement.

The Meeting House and New Unity’s wider programmes are committed to our radical history and heritage and finding ways in which this can connect with the world today – to make the world a more equal place.

Recently, the project has been lucky enough to work with poet Dr. Simon Jenner developing poetry resources for schools. Through the process of developing resources for primary and secondary school students on ‘protest poetry’ with Dr. Simon Jenner, it was impossible to ignore the elephant in the room. Barbauld’s infamous ‘Eighteen Hundred and Eleven’ – an epic poem written in historical verse decrying the state of the British nation and empire. After a lifetime of writing, it was to be her last published work after suffering abuse from press, politicians, poets and social commentators – Barbauld couldn’t cope with the amount of criticism and belittling, and retired from her writing.

It was very disappointing not be able to re-open the Meeting House in April and enjoy the celebrations and programme planned and developed for such a long time. The team have still been working hard in the face of adversity on the project, here is an update on progress and amended plans for the Newington Green and New Unity communities, and our partners and supporters.

This fantastic Mary Wollstonecraft and Newington Green: An Anthology exploring Mary’s time and letters written from Newington Green, curated by E.J. Clery, is a wealth of information about the local area in the late 1700’s. With contributions from activists, academics and scholars on Mary – we are very grateful to be able to present a definitive document to illustrate the Dissenters’s tradition and influence on Mary.