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The untold story of a remarkable neighbourhood and the battle to define modern London.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Seven Dials was one of London’s most diverse neighbourhoods, home to migrant and working-class communities, bohemian clubs and cafes. But business leaders and city planners had other ideas.
Beginning with a rancorous libel trial of 1927, in which a Sierra Leonean café owner and his wife confronted the racist newspaper that destroyed their business, Matt Houlbrook reveals the surprising history of this remarkable neighbourhood. He traces how tensions that simmered on the streets and finally exploded in court betrayed the politics of urban ‘improvement’ and the ‘colour bar’. Underlying the trial was a series of troubling questions that would define Britain in the twentieth century – about race, class and the boundaries of belonging, gentrification and the kind of city London would become.
Imaginative, powerful and deeply moving, Songs of Seven Dials is an important new history of London in the 1920s and 1930s.
‘An intimate and fascinating account of London’s Seven Dials in the period between the two world wars. Matt Houlbrook’s vivid portrait provides a multitude of stories that encapsulate the cosmopolitanism, gentrification and everyday racism of one of the city’s forgotten "black colonies" on the fringes of the West End’s theatreland.’
Hakim Adi, author of African and Caribbean People in Britain
‘Between Soho and Bloomsbury, between two world wars, between rich and poor lies Songs of Seven Dials. A poetic exploration of one of London’s most iconic neighbourhoods, this book illuminates histories both intimate and global. Through the story of one interwar libel trial, Songs of Seven Dials brilliantly explores the tensions of race, class and social inequality that shaped the modern metropolis – and still resonate in the streets of London today.’
Julia Laite, author of The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey
‘Absorbing and illuminating, Songs of Seven Dials speaks eloquently about a past that is simultaneously distant and familiar, casting a fresh light not just on a cluster of past lives and London streets, but on the evolution of modern cities all across Europe.’
Marek Kohn, author of Dope Girls and The Stories Old Towns Tell
‘Full of brilliant insights, Songs of Seven Dials offers an entirely new way of understanding the social dynamics of interwar London.’
Jerry White, author of The Battle of London 1939–45
‘Thoroughly researched and passionately written, Matt Houlbrook’s story of injustice and gentrification in Seven Dials is a powerful contribution to the history of central London.’
Phil Baker, author of City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley
‘This is an original and compelling read. Matt Houlbrook takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery through a little known aspect of London's history.’
Stephen Bourne, author of Black Poppies and Fighting Proud
'[A] loving and vivid portrayal of one small corner of London, its making and remaking after The Great War and to unpack the power of a still mysterious name to carry stories about a neighbourhood’s past.'
Richard Derecki, The London Society
'An essential insight into the voices that are often silenced by a city’s ego, and a timely spotlight on a political agenda that is ever-present today.'
The Crack magazine
'A triumph: a new benchmark for how academic urban histories can write for much larger audiences and evidence of the rich rewards when they do.'
Tom Hulme, Urban History
'A century ago, Seven Dials, just a few minutes walk from the shop, was a shabby, cosmopolitan working-class district, not quite Bloomsbury, not quite Covent Garden. It was also, as Matt Houlbrook shows in his powerful study, a microcosm for the tensions and conflicts that defined British society then, and continue to define it now.'
Matt at the London Review Bookshop
Introduction: songs of Seven Dials
1 From Sierra Leone to Seven Dials: Great White Lion Street
2 Monstrous machines: Great St Andrew Street
3 The local politics of improvement: Shorts Gardens
4 Libel, law and politics: Long Acre and the Strand
5 Slumming in bohemia: Great Earl Street
6 The ghosts of modern London: Little White Lion Street
7 Names and histories: Little St Andrew and Little Earl Streets
Denoument: full circle: Mercer Street
Index