On 20 January 1849 a moving article was published in the weekly journal, The Examiner. Entitled, ‘The Paradise at Tooting’, its author, Charles Dickens, gave a damning account of the running of the Infant Pauper Asylum at Tooting, south-west London:

‘The parish authorities who sent these children to such a place, and, seeing them in it, left them there, and showed no resolute determination to reform it altogether, are culpable in the highest degree. … it was brutally conducted, vilely kept, preposterously inspected, dishonestly defended, a disgrace to a Christian community, and a stain upon a civilised land.’

The children’s workhouse was established in 1804 and the horrors that took place there during the 1848-9 cholera outbreak were revealed some ten years after Dickens had published Oliver Twist. Clearly nothing had changed. This talk explains what went on at Tooting, and how Dickens helped bring the scandal to the public’s attention.

How did London and the industrial cities of the nineteenth century become focal points for infectious diseases like cholera?

The development of nonconformist thought from the Black Death to the Industrial Revolution shaped the transformation of England from a rural to an urban, industrialised society. Entrepreneurial dissenters were at the forefront of economic and social change, with nonconformist ideas fuelling enlightened thought. Influenced by Northern European religious ideology, the emergence of divergent dissident Protestant sects helped create an environment not merely for enterprise, but also for more radical changes within society. The vision which had provided the spark for innovation would also be a catalyst for revolution.

Amanda is currently writing (2025-26) the authorised biography of Isaac Newell.

Born in the Medway Towns in 1853, Newell emigrated to Argentina in the 1860s with a vision. He established a school which provided an education focused on the development of both mind and body, in essence the forerunner for sporting academies around the world. Known as ‘el pionero del fútbol’, he also introduced the standardised Association Football game to Rosario. Recognised today as one of the founding fathers of the modern game, Isaac’s vision culminated in the establishment of the iconic Newell’s Old Boys football team, which has since nurtured some of the greatest names in the history of the sport.