In February 1885 William Morris wrote, “Like most of our East Enders, Frank Kitz is certainly somewhat tinged with anarchism… but I like him very much. I called on the poor chap at the place where he lived, and it fairly gave me the horrors.’ Morris was on friendly terms with Anarchists Frank Kitz and Charles Mowbray, who in 1885 were living in one of East London’s most deprived slum areas – the Old Nichol, on the Bethnal Green/Shoreditch border.

Join us for an evening with historian and author Sarah Wise, as she explores William Morris’s encounters with East London’s poorest districts in his passionate campaign for socialism.

• Sarah Wise is the author of four books about British social history – the second, The Blackest Streets, is a portrait of the Old Nichol slum in East London. She teaches 19^th-century social history and literature to undergraduates and adult learners and is visiting professor at the University of California’s London Study Center. Read more about Sarah.

Image: William Morris (1880), Photograph by Abel Lewis