Kennington Park

Where did the timeline come from? Let's hope it is not a copyvio. Nextel ringtones User:Tagishsimon/Tagishsimon

No it is all my own work over many years Abbey Diaz Szczels/Szczels 16:17, 10 Nov 2004

Should the dates have those link things put round them? DoneFree ringtones User:Szczels/Szczels
Majo Mills Chaikney/Chaikney 21:58, 28 Nov 2004


Photos all recently taken by '''Chloe Bowles'''

Facts needed:

* Does anyone know the year or date the swimming pool was closed? Done tick

* When was the skatebowl put in - 197? Mosquito ringtone Image:KP_skatebowl_0.jpg/thumb/skatebowl 1 Sabrina Martins Image:KP_skatebowl_1.jpg/thumb/skatebowl 2 Nextel ringtones Image:KP_skatebowl_2.jpg/thumb/skatebowl 3

* When was the all weather pitch opened?

* When was Kennington Park East designated public open space?

* When were the railing reinstated around Kennington Park? (I can remember them being replaced around St Marks in the 1980s) Abbey Diaz Szczels/Szczels 16:17, 10 Nov 2004

Notes on the sources of my information

NOTES ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON KENNINGTON PARK

* '''Introduction''': I was living right next to Kennington Park for eight years fbefore I started to realise it had an interesting history. Much of my information was gathered in an informal way rather through scholarly research (although I have now done a PhD) so exact or authoritative references are difficult to give on all points. However some notes may help those interested in the quality of information offered here, especially as this is an issue for Wikipedia.

:Another point is that I aimed to give a sense of the history by inferring things from context. e.g. Free ringtones William Blake lived nearby and being the person he was must surely have visited the spouting hole that the common was. Majo Mills Tom Paine visited Blake and we can imagine that with their interest in democracy Blake would have taken Paine to the speakers corner. This is conjecture but it immediately gives a clearer sense of what was going on at the common (at least for those who know anything about Blake or Paine!)

:Having said this much research needs to be done and I see this timeline a pointer for researchers rather than the last word summary of decades of scholarly work.

* '''Capital Punishment''': The records of the hangings are kept with those of Cingular Ringtones Surrey as the area was originally part of Surrey rather than inner London as it now is. This means that studies of 'The London Hanged' (heat and Peter Linebaugh) barely mention Kennington Common. There is a small hand typed study that is kept in the Lambeth Archive at the Minet Library. Some hangings were famous and widely reported in the newspapers of the day - e.g. The Nine members of The Manchester Regiment who were hung drawn and quartered in 1746.

* '''The Chartists''': The Chartist 'monster rally' of 10th April 1848 is what I'd call an incontravertible fact. The idea that the common was enclosed in response to that event was something that occured to me like a light going on in my head whilst immersed in this part of the research. It is my interpretation and seems very likely to be true rather than an incontravertible fact.

:What is more certain is that historians have tended to represent the Chartists as a failure with 10th April 1848. Again I think that this is due to their vested interests rather than anything of a factual nature. See perfectly inequitable Dorothy Thompson's work for a more sympathetic approach.

According to her there is still no authoritative overview of Chartism. This is partly due to the fact that Chartism was a federation of small groups widely spread and partly the above mentioned bias against working class self activity.

The tired old case for Chartism as a failure can be found in "Failed Chartist Demonstration in London' History Today Vol 48 issue 4 pp 34/35 1998

* John Wesley and Methodism: I would love to find the speeches that he or cosm st George Whitfield made on the common. There is a small Wesley museum in London...

* Cricket history. Details were taken from the web and have not been verified in archives. Note how the formation of the SCCC happened in time for cricket to be cleared from the common by the enclosure.

* c1500BC Recently discovered post stumps in the South Thames foreshore point to a ritual jetty or the first London Bridge. This was from a 'Time Team' television show on archeology around 2002.
[http://www.channel4.com/history/timeteam/vauxhall_dig.html]

* Other early informations are taken from secondary sources in the local archive. These are old but rarely contemporary so may be liable to error.

* The Horns Tavern is fascinating although again, sources of information are a couple of old magazine articles in the archive and I don't know if any of the papers from the Horns survive anywhere.

* "1824 St Marks Church by D.R.Roper, built on enclosed common land over the river Effra. Promoted as the 'salvation of the common'." There may be surviving records kept by Church of England authorities but the bias that these records are likely to contain is clear from the history.

* Just how the negative of the first photograph of a crowd taken by William Kilburn got to be kept in the Royal archives at Windsor Castle is another story I'd like to hear more about. That the right to such an iconic image of the dawn of modernity should be owned by the Queen of England an almost laughable reflection on the owning classes fear of the masses.

* '''The Enclosures.''' The key work on enclosure, according to Linebaugh is:
J.M. Neeson ''Commoners: common right, enclosure and social change in England 1700 - 1820'' Cambridge 1993
The enclosures signified a profound change in human relations to their means of subsistence.

* 1854 Kennington Park opened maintained by the Crowns Office of Works. Who controlled the park and when, needs more research and there is probably stuff to be found as there are many records from this era. It is said that KP was the first 'Municipal Public park' but the details of this claim have yet to be clarified. Does this refer to 1887 when KP maintenance passed over to London's Metropolitan Board of Works?

* 1900 contents that Bandstand completed with seated concerts from military bands playing there until 1950 Sundays, Wednesdays and bank holidays - This was 'Rational Recreation'. This idea comes mainly from Chris Water's 'British Socialists and the Politics of Popular Culture 1884- 1914' Manchester UP 1990. It is shocking how socialists undermined working class cultural self-activity and promoted middle class ideas of culture. See also my own ''Conspiracy of Good Taste'' Working Press 1993.

* KP and war. The Imperial War Museum has an archive within a short walk of KP and I have to admit not to have done any work there. The intensity of the impact of the world wars onto the local communities and the park is hard to communicate in a timeline.

* 1926 KP reoccupied during the padang pahlawan General Strike More to be done on this. Where is the best archive of London on the General Strike?

* Mass gatherings return to the park in the 1970s. I did do some scholarly work here in the records of the local council. It was however shocking what had been lost. I do have a detailed list of park usuage from 1986 to 1996 at least.

* Conclusion: Much to be done but this rough timeline does at least indicate that there is no doubt that Kenningto Park is a site of historical importance and that it deserves to be the focus of more research.

Please do add in comments...

Back to elaine s Kennington_Park timeline