A one-day conference to be held at the Institute of Historical Research, London, Saturday 28 June 2003 in conjunction with the Centre for Metropolitan History.

In recent years the history of London has flourished. Yet, whilst cultural, spatial and geographical readings of the capital abound, the politics of nineteenth century London remains uncharted territory.

This conference seeks to redress this deficiency. We invite proposals (of 150 words) for papers which address the historical peculiarities of metropolitan politics, and explore the broader political culture of the capital.

The conference embraces a period during which formal changes to the political system were matched by the growth of party organisation, and the emergence of an increasingly literate and disciplined electorate. Within this context, it will examine the ways in which London acted as a site for concerns about the moral health and political stability of the nation, as a place of social ferment where physical and social threats to the established order endlessley recurred, and as a space where the co-existence of extremes of poverty and opulence provided the opportunity for new forms of politics and electioneering. This conference raises questions about the dynamics peculiar to the grass-roots politics in the capital city of the world's largest empire.

Proposals for papers on any relevant topic welcomed, including:

London electioneering
The impact of parliamentary reform
The growth of party
The City and politics
Popular radicalism
Popular Conservatism
Metropolitan Liberalism
The Metropolitan politics of empire
Labour culture
Metropolitan feminist politics
Race and politics in London
Local government (LCC)
Political Communication, the print media etc

For more information please contact Matthew Cragoe, Department of History, University of Hertfordshire, Watford Campus, Aldenham, Herts, WD2 8AT (0207 285643), m.cragoe@herts.ac.uk or Tony Taylor, School of Cultural Studies, Collegiate Crescent Campus, Sheffield Hallam University, S10 2BP (0114 225 4346) or Tony.Taylor@shu.ac.uk