Episode 86. Bessie Quinn: Survivor Spirit
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Ursula Howard about her 2022 biography of her grandmother, Bessie Quinn: Survivor Spirit.
Episode 85. Radicals: The Working Classes and the Making of Modern Britain
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Geoff Andrews about his 2026 book, Radicals: The Working Classes and the Making of Modern Britain.
Episode 84. The Vital Message: Continuing Education in Cambridge
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Mark Freeman about his 2023 book, The Vital Message, which explores the growth of extra-mural education at Cambridge University in the post-war years.
Episode 83. The Fry Art Gallery
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Philip Neale, the Public Relations Manager of the Fry Art Gallery about its establishment in 1987 and its impressive collection of works by artists, such as Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious and John Aldridge who settled in the picturesque Essex village of Great Bardfield.
Episode 82. Letchworth: Industrial and Garden City
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Philippa Parker, leader of the Letchworth Local History Group, about their book, Industrial Letchworth: The First Garden City, 1903-1920, which was published by Hertfordshire Publications in 2021.
Episode 81. The Shoemakers Museum
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Tim Crumplin, the Business Archivist of the Shoemakers Museum in Street, Somerset, near Glastonbury, about the Quaker Clark dynasty, their shoe-making business and the new museum building housing four permanent galleries that was commissioned by the Alfred Gillett Trust, opening in September 2025.
Episode 80. Christ’s Hospital Museum
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Laura Kidner, the Curator of Christ’s Hospital Museum in the former infirmary building at the school’s 120-acre site outside Horsham in West Sussex. Moving here from central London in 1902 to a purpose-built school that was expressly designed by the architects Sir Aston Webb and Ingress Bell, Christ’s Hospital retains links to the City’s establishment, being uniquely established by Royal Charter in the 1550s to provide board and education to the orphan children of poor Londoners.
Episode 79. Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Sarah Flew about her 2025 book Charitable Giving in Victorian Britain : The Legacy of Samuel Loyd Jones which provides an unusually deep insight into mid-Victorian philanthropic giving through the donations books of this wealthy banker who was ennobled as 1st Baron Overstone.
Episode 78. Pageant Fever
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Mark Freeman about Restaging the Past, an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project that was set up to recover the fascinating and varied history of the English Pageant since its founding with the Sherborne Pageant of 1905.
Episode 77. Sidney and Beatrice Webb
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Michael Ward about his 2024 biographical reassessment of the social reformers Sidney and Beatrice Webb, the founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Episode 73. York and the Rowntrees
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the former Secretary of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Stephen Pittam about the Quaker Rowntree family in York and their philanthropic influence as employers and poverty investigators.
Episode 72. The Ladybird Books
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the acknowledged expert on the Ladybird Books, Helen Day, whose website, ladybirdflyawayhome.com is a major repository of information about the post-war children’s publisher of storybooks, Wills and Hepworth.
Episode 71. The Stockton and Darlington Railway: “The Quaker Line”
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with two Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, Caroline Hardie and Professor Alan Townsend about the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27th September 1825, its Quaker origins and the planned Bicentenary celebrations.
Episode 70. The Yellow Book and Decadent Women
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the TV producer and biographer, Jad Adams, about his long-standing interest in decadence in the 1890s and the “New Woman” generation of writers and illustrators who contributed to the notorious Yellow Book.
Episode 69. D H Lawrence Birthplace Museum
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Carolyn Melbourne, Curator and Collections Manager at the D H Lawrence Birthplace Museum and Dr Andrew Harrison, Director of the D. H. Lawrence Research Centre at the University of Nottingham. They talk about how growing up in a small mining town, Eastwood, influenced the writer and poet D H Lawrence and how, despite escaping it through self-imposed exile abroad, he returned to the ambience of his childhood in his late novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
Episode 67. Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Sir Brian Harrison, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Oxford about his major study of the personalities, achievements, and tactics of British feminist leaders between the Wars and associated book, Prudent Revolutionaries (1987).
Episode 64. ‘These Houses Are Ours’: The Co-operative Housing Movement, 1870-1919
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the author and journalist, Andrew Bibby about the affordable, community-led housing alternatives that grew out of the nineteenth century co-operative movement.
Episode 63. Dick Sheppard and the Peace Pledge Union
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the screenwriter and literary historian, Professor George M Johnson about the pacifist priest and founder of the Peace Pledge Union, Dick Sheppard.
Episode 53. Keir Hardie and the Labour Church
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Neil Johnson about his separate books on Keir Hardie and the Labour Church
Episode 51. Hilaire Belloc
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Chris Hare about his 2022 book, Hilaire Belloc: The Politics of Living.