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Archive and local history event audio recordings

On this page you can find audio recordings from previous events at Camden's Local Studies and Archives Centre.

Black Teacher – The Story of Beryl Gilroy

Darla Jane Gilroy, tells the story of her mother, Beryl Gilroy, pioneering teacher, writer, psychotherapist and Camden’s first black headteacher, drawing on her unique memoir, “Black Teacher”.

Darla Jane Gilroy is Associate Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Reader in Fashion Enterprise at Central Saint Martins UAL. This is a recording of a talk given for Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre on 19 April 2022.

  • Listen to Black Teacher (© Darla Gilroy)  - running time 38 minutes

Venerable Mother Magdalen, A Pioneering Nurse and Religious Sister in Camden

Part 1

Paul Shaw, SMG Central Congregational Archivist, talks about Mother Magdalen, the culture of Tractarianism, and the growth of Anglican Religious Sisterhoods in Victorian Camden.

Part 2

Paul Shaw, SMG Central Congregational Archivist, talks about Mother Magdalen, the founding of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, and the work of the SMG Sisters in Camden.

Rabindranath Tagore – A Poet of the World in Camden

The Tagore Centre UK celebrate the Bengali literary giant Rabindranath Tagore with readings from his works, recitals of his songs, and talks about his life, including his time living in the Vale of Health, Camden.

Poet, novelist,composer, singer, philosopher and educationalist, he became in 1913 the first non-European writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

From St Pancras to Melbourne

Kevin Brown, author of Passage to the World: the Emigrant Experience 1807-1940, talks about  St Pancras teenager Joseph Sam’s 1874 voyage to Melbourne on the Northumberland and his diary of his travels, revealing a microcosm of snobbery and class distinction as perceived by this clerk.

The Foundling Hospital and Camden High School for Girls

Jane King, Guide/Lecturer for the Foundling Museum talks about the connections between the Foundling Hospital and the Camden High School for Girls

Commonwealth Naval Hospitals – Ely House and the Savoy Hospital

Kevin Brown, medical and naval historian, talks about the use of Ely House in Holborn as a naval hospital from 1653 to 1660 as well as the similar use of the Savoy Hospital in Westminster.

Endell Street Hospital

Kevin Brown, author of Fighting Fit: Health, Medicine  and  War in the Twentieth Century, talks about the Endell Street Hospital, the military hospital in Holborn run by women in World War One.

Health in the Blitz

Kevin Brown, author of Fighting Fit: Health, Medicine  and  War in the Twentieth Century, talks about how the people of Camden stayed healthy during the London Blitz that started 80 years ago in September 1940.

Holborn Warships Week

Kevin Brown, author of Fittest of the Fit: Health and Morale in the Royal Navy 1939-1945, is a very familiar speaker at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre. The Centre’s collections include newspaper articles and photos from the Holborn Warships Week in 1942.. 

The Hampstead Workhouse

Tudor Allen, Archivist at Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre, talks about the Hampstead Workhouse Account Book 1734-39, one of the items in the collections of Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre.

Great Ormond Street – Its Early History

Alec Forshaw, author of “An Address in Bloomsbury”, tells the early history of Great Ormond Street. 

Great Ormond Street – Radical Reform in the 19th Century

Alec Forshaw, author of “An Address in Bloomsbury”, tells the history of Great Ormond Street in the 19th century 

Great Ormond Street – 1900-1939

Alec Forshaw, author of “An Address in Bloomsbury”, tells the history of Great Ormond Street from 1900 to 1939

Interview with Tudor Allen about Camden's literary connections

Interviewed by Nick Hennegan on Resonance Radio in 2015, Tudor talks about Camden’s literary connections.

Dickens and Camden

Archivist Tudor Allen talks about the many connections between the novelist Charles Dickens and the area today known as the London Borough of Camden. 

The Arandora Star Tragedy

In the 80th anniversary year of the tragic event, Kevin Brown, author of Passage to the World: The Emigrant Experience 1807-1940, explores the history of the sinking of the Arandora Star, a ship taking Italian and German internees to Canada, sunk by a German U-boat in July 1940 with huge loss of life, an incident which greatly impacted on Holborn’s Italian community (©Kevin Brown) - running time 19 minutes.