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From The Archives

From the Archives allows us in the Humanist Library and Archives to share some of our wonderful items and our learning with you!

Victorian Blogging – Introduction to the project

Having begun working at Conway Hall as Digitisation Coordinator for the Victorian Blogging digitisation project at the end of last year, I am already experiencing the full array of goings on here and enjoying the early stages of the project. My interest in this project stems from my background in studying both Victorian social history and archives […]

A short history of Conway Hall Ethical Society

Beginnings The story of Conway Hall Ethical Society dates back to 1787 and a nonconformist congregation, led by Elhanan Winchester, rebelling against the doctrine of eternal damnation. This group of freethinking individuals, based in a small chapel on the eastern edge of London (Parliament Court Chapel), was the beginnings of what was to become a […]

Victorian Blogging – The Pamphleteers Who Dared to Dream of a Better World

Today, Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, Bloomsbury, has received £88,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project, Victorian Blogging – The Pamphleteers Who Dared to Dream of a Better World.

Peppercorn Rents and Parchment

Many of the items included in our digitisation project, Architecture and Place, were leases for the property on which Conway Hall was built. They span several centuries and the oldest dates back to 1685. There are many interesting aspects of these documents and two of these are explored below. Peppercorn Rents Nowadays when we rent […]

Architecture and Place digitisation project launch

It has been some weeks since we launched the Architecture and Place digitisation project in September during the 2016 Open House London Festival. We had over 300 people visit the library over the weekend (well above our usual attendance!) and several took advantage to join the tours given by our CEO, Dr. Jim Walsh, and the […]

A New Home for the Society

“Sunday, September 1, 1929, is a memorable date in the history of the South Place Ethical Society, for on that morning its members met for the first time in Conway Hall. It was a moment of joyful excitement. At last the new home was ready for occupation and here we were in it, congratulating one […]

Architecture and Place: June 2016 update

A profound design process eventually makes the patron, the architect, and every occasional visitor in the building a slightly better human being. – Juhani Pallasmaa Welcome to the June update for the Architecture and Place digitisation project underway at the Humanist Library and Archives at Conway Hall. We have included a summary of the progress […]

Conway the Journalist

Moncure Daniel Conway was a prolific writer, authoring a multitude of books and pamphlets and contributing to a number journals and magazines. In 1860, when Conway was twenty-eight, he founded The Dial, the title of which paid tribute to a Transcendentalist journal of the 1830s and 40s founded by his spiritual father, Ralph Waldo Emerson. […]

Architecture and Place: introducing a Conway Hall digitisation project

“All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.” – Philip Johnson Conway Hall opened in September 1929 for the members of the South Place Ethical Society. It was designed by F. Herbert Mansford, a member of the Ethical Society, and […]

19th Century Finance Records

This month’s choice is a selection of finance reports from the 19th century from the early days of the society when it was located in South Place, Finsbury.

The Accusation, Condemnation and Abjuration of Galileo Galilei (1819)

This gem was recently discovered in the Library at Conway Hall. Published by Richard Carlile (1790-1843) in 1819, it is an account of the trial of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in 1633 who was charged with heresy by the Catholic Church.

La Bible Amusante (1882)

The first of this series of treasures from the library and archives at Conway Hall is an anticlerical book by a French author under the pseudonym of Léo Taxil.

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