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 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 75. Shell Shocked Prophets: Chaplains and the Great War
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the expert on the history of religion and the First World War, Dr Linda Parker, about her book, Shell-Shocked Prophets, which tells the story of how trench experience changed the social attitudes of Anglican chaplains.
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 68. Bridget Foreman: The Devising of Plays and Community Theatre
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the playwright Dr Bridget Foreman, Associate Director of Riding Lights theatre company and Senior Lecturer in Playwriting at the University of York about her career, pioneering experience of devising community theatre and latest co-written play, His Last Report (2025) about the social researcher, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree.
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 65. Ellen Ranyard: Pioneer Social Worker
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with author and co-founder of infed.org, the online encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, Mark K. Smith about the Victorian pioneer of social work and district nursing, Mrs Ellen Ranyard.
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 62. Two Portsmouth Portraits: John Pounds and Robert Dolling
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the TV writer, novelist, book dealer and publisher, Matt Wingett about the history of his home town, Portsmouth and its two eminent social reformers, John Pounds and Robert Dolling..
Episode 60. Cicely Saunders and the Modern Hospice Movement
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the distinguished sociologist of palliative care, Professor David Clark, about the founder of the modern hospice movement, Cicely Saunders.
Episode 59. Henry Scott Holland and the Common Good
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the academic Dr Ralph Norman about the Anglican preacher and social reformer, Henry Scott Holland.
Episode 56. Maude Royden and the Guildhouse
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the Revd Canon Alison Falby about the life and times of the pioneering Anglican preacher, suffragist, pacifist and public intellectual Maude Royden.
Episode 55. The Ragged School Movement
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Erica Davies, Director of the Ragged School Museum and the academic Bill Jacob about the Museum’s place in the London Ragged School Movement, before the advent of state education in 1870.
Episode 47. The Suffragettes and Morris Dancing
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Kathryn Atherton about her 2024 book, Mary Neal and the Suffragettes Who Saved Morris Dancing.
Episode 39. The Two Lives of Christabel Pankhurst
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Timothy Larsen about the feminist and fundamentalist preacher, Christabel Pankhurst.
Episode 38. Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Frances Knight about the founding visionary of the Garden City Movement, Ebenezer Howard.
Episode 32. Father Groser and the Royal Foundation of St Katharine
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the Venerable Roger Preece, the 68th Master of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine about his influential predecessor and Christian Socialist, Father St John Groser, the 58th Master of this retreat centre and oasis of calm in urban London.
Episode 31. Octavia Hill
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the biographer, speaker and broadcaster Gillian Darley about her biography of Octavia Hill, the social and housing reformer who is best known today for co-founding The National Trust.