Week 26
This week was our presentation on leisure and pleasure in London. I focused on many subjects - the London zoo, coffee houses, the Great Exhibition of 1851 and Selfridge's. I felt that by researching a number of topics that our presentation would be more varied and interesting, but I agree with Bobby in that my topics lacked depth because I did not explore any of them as greatly as I would have if I had focused solely on 1 topic. I was disappointed in the lack of cooperation of the group, and felt our presentation could have been much better had certain members been more organised. I greatly enjoyed researching the topics for my presentation, especially about Obaysch the hippo. I am fairly pleased with the grade of 66%, but if our group would have cooperated more in the weeks before the presentation, I am sure we could have achieved a higher grade. 

Today while researching for my presentation, I found a great painting by Claude Monet. It shows the houses of Parliament in 1903 covered in the thick fog London was famous for. 

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110001576

Week 25

This presentation was on the South of London. I felt they covered the topic fairly well, but perhaps could have talked about more than just South Bank. The lack of books used as sources was slightly disappointing as quite a bit of the information came from blogs, which is not a reliable source of information. The delivery of the presentation was confident - there was no reading from notes. The activity was very creative but did not teach us anything about the topic. 

The East End Presentation - Week 24

This presentation was great - and the history of theatre in the East End was really interesting, looking at the performance techniques was quite fascinating. The film of the Spitalfields market was great, and learning about the huguenots was also interesting. I feel I didn't learn much from the activity, but it was fun.  

Today I listened to the podcast on London at war. While it was convenient to listen to it at home  I much prefer the interactive setting of the lecture room. The emphasis on crime during the war was very interesting as this is a side of London at war which I have not studied before. It is also interesting to look at London in the aftermath of the war, and how squatting became popular due to the severe lack of housing. 

Week 23

The presentation this week was on health care. I think this was the best presentation yet - we were given tasks throughout the presentation to engage us with the topic. The group also gave their aims of the presentation, and both the introduction and conclusion were concise and well explained. The timeline activity really helped me understand the topic. Overall, I enjoyed this presentation and feel I learnt a lot. 

Week 22

The presentation this week was on London at war. Everything was well explained, and there was a focus on women's roles during the war, which was very interesting. 
I liked the task at the end of the presentation - drawing the poster was a really creative way to get us thinking about the topic.

I have also read the 'Warning-piece to all married men and women being the full confession of Mary Hobry the French midwife' . She had an abusive husband, and murdered him. For this she was burnt at the steak. 

http://eebo.chadwyck.com.ezproxy.bathspa.ac.uk:2048/search/fulltext?SOURCE=var_spell.cfg&FILE=../session/1364142862_16228&ACTION=ByID&ID=D00000135232920000&SUBSET=&DISPLAY=AUTHOR&WARN=N&SIZE=10

Week 21

This week in the first presentation took place. I really enjoyed this and thought that it was clear that a lot of work had gone into it, and the activity they used was very interesting, and certainly got the class engaged in the topic. I liked the murder mystery element to the presentation in the last section, however I feel there were too many case studies. It has given me quite a few ideas about working on our presentation, and I did not like that the slides were in chronological order. Perhaps we could organise our slides in terms of themes.

This week our lecture was by Brian, and was on immigration. We did not have a Wednesday seminar as Bobby was away in Rome. I found it interesting to learn about the criminal statistics in Irish areas of London. For example in 1861, 16% of all men arrested were Irish, which is a large figure considering that Irish people made up a very small part of the population at this time.

London at night by Jason Hawkes

Week 19

I unfortunately could not attend the seminar this week because I was unwell, however I did read 'The writer's handbook - avoiding plagiarism'.

https://minerva.bathspa.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp

Research Week

This week our group did not meet up, but I managed to visit London myself. I visited the department stores Selfridges and Liberty, visited Fortnum and Mason (which was fantastic) and did some shopping in Covent Garden. I also went to a coffee shop and watched a film at Leicester square. My trip was great and gave me a good insight into why people visited London for leisure.  I have started putting things together on Prezi. It is a little tricky to use, but I think I am getting there.

Things to think about now:
 The activity that our presentation must have. 
 Starting to compose the slides of our presentation.
 Getting books out of the Library. 
 Assigning topics to research to each member of the group. 



List of topics to research for presentation:
Coffee Shops/drinking tea Abigail
Parks and pleasure gardens Edward
Sports Emma
Animal bating
The theatre/cinema
Playing games
Gambling /prostitution
Shopping (for both food and clothes) and the rise of the department store Abigail
 Reading newspapers Abigail
Holiday taking, perhaps look at the guest houses/hotels of London

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

In 1831, Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle behind the electric transformer and generator. This discovery was crucial in allowing electricity to be transformed from a curiosity into a powerful new technology.He was partly responsible for coining many familiar words including 'electrode', 'cathode' and 'ion'. He invented the Faraday Cage. Faraday cages shield their contents from static electric fields.
He also was one of the first scientists to notice the terrible state of the Thames and investigate it. 

Week 17

This week we spent time looking at primary documents in both the lecture and seminar. We also got lots of helpful advice from Jackie on how to write our journal article review. I found writing my review quite challenging and handed it in this week. I reviewed an article about the historiography of crime in 18th Century London. I not only gained knowledge from reading the article, but received a lot of guidance on how to do the review, which was very helpful.  I found it a challenge because I have never written anything like this before, however I did enjoy it.

Week 16

This week we looked at prostitution in London. The lecture and the reading of primary documents made me realise that prostitution was very widespread in London. Reading the primary sources in class was helpful because developing the skills to assess documents is important.

Week 15 and our seminar presentation.

This week's lecture on newspapers in London gave me some ideas about what I could do in London while I research for our seminar presentation. I would like to find out more about newspapers in London, and when they became popular with London's residents - as reading a newspaper in the evening or morning is something Londoners will have done for leisure and pleasure.

I have decided that I am going to go to London on my own on the 8th of February, I attempted to organize a group trip but this has proven difficult. I would like to visit fleet street, and some department stores, perhaps Carnaby Street. I have decided that since there are no exhibitions on at the Victoria and Albert museum that are relevant to our project, I no longer will go. I have also notified the other members of the group that I think we should use a different program than power point to make our presentation stand out.

The program I would like to use is called prezi : prezi.com
It will give our presentation more of an interactive feel, and hopefully will be more interesting for the audience - it's important that they learn from our presentation.
So far the other members on my group have not informed me of the areas they would like to research for our presentation, but I would still like to further research tea drinking, newspapers and coffee houses, also perhaps the theatre. These are all areas I must look into.

This week I found an notice in a 1731 newspaper about a coffee house opening as part of Kevin's task which has helped me understand the nature of places like this at this time:

I will bring this into class on Wednesday. Hopefully the members of my group will come to this seminar so I will have the chance to discuss our presentation with them.  In the meantime I will continue to research the topics that I have chosen. 

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1670coffee.asp

http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm

Week 13
This week we had a making the most of your feedback workshop. I feel that now I should make greater use of my feedback when doing assignments, ensuring not to make the same mistakes twice. My feedback was that I need to write less in narrative, this is something I must work on in future assignments. I also read the education documents on Minerva,  and received my grade back for my essay in a tutorial. I received 64% on my essay, I am a little dissapointed with this as I feel I can do better - I will try to improve my grades by utilizing my feedback in the next assignment, which is due in Week 17.

7th September 1764
Today I visited the Foundling hospital once more to seek information about admitting my daughter. Since the Father of my daughter has no presence in her life and I am unable to financially support her, there is no conflict between my situation and the rules for admission to the hospital. I was advised that there was no shortage of mothers wanting their children to be admitted to the hospital, and that I must return tomorrow to take a ballot which will decide my daughter's fate.

8th September 1764
When I arrived at the hospital today, I was instructed on how the ballot works. There is a bag with a number of balls in it, some are white, and if picked, the child of the mother goes to live at the Foundling hospital. A red ball indicates that the mother must wait to see if a place becomes available, and a black ball indicates that the mother has been unsuccessful and must take their infants elsewhere.  I picked from the bag and received a black ball - this means my daughter's application was unsuccessful. A lady working at the hospital told me that most mothers pick black balls, and that the hospital is over subscribed as it is. Now I must attempt to find assistance in the upbringing of my daughter somewhere else. I hope I will be lucky enough to find some help.