Goldsmiths Occupations: a chronology

Found at the awesome 56a Info Shop archive a copy of SHIP Network News (Southwark Homeless Information Project) reports an occupation at Goldsmiths College in Summer 1991, specifically of the  Outreach Unit at 32 Lewisham Way which had just been closed down. 'the occupiers have opened it up to anyone and everyone' and proclaimed a 'free university' with a planned democratic education summer school. Not sure how far this got, as they seemed to have quickly been served a court summons. I don't know if this was the same 1991 occupation at which there was talk of Spiral Tribe putting on a party in the Great Hall only to be blocked by nervous student union officials.

There have been quite a few occupations at Goldsmiths over the years, some of which we have covered here previously. But here's an attempt at a chronology - no doubt missing many so let us know if you have any others - or have memories/documentation of the one below.

1968: Perhaps surprizingly Goldsmiths does not seem to have been directly affected by the wave of student occupations of art schools in 1968, notably at Croydon and at Hornsey Colleges of Art. It is though recorded that ‘Sixty students from Goldsmiths’ College of Art, New Cross, SE, invaded Hornsey College of Art on the first day of its new term… They crowded into the corridors of Hornsey and chanted ‘We support you. We support you’. Hornsey college authorities called police, who dispersed the students and ejected them’ (Times, 5 November 1968).

1976: Students at Goldsmiths voted to occupy as a part of a wave of protests sweeping teacher training colleges prompted by the fact that at a time of education cuts many newly qualified teachers were leaving college and ending up unemployed.(Socialist Worker, 29 May 1976)

1984:  the Administration building (later the Whitehead building) was occupied for 8 days to protest against staff cuts in the Media and Communications team (more here)

1991: 'free university' occupation at 32 Lewisham Way (see above)

1999: as detailed by Past Tense, 'Part of Goldsmiths College, New Cross, was occupied 26th February – March 5th 1999. 300 students took over college admin building, after eight students were expelled because they couldn’t pay £1000 a year tuition fees that had been imposed on them. A court granted the college an eviction order, but the occupying students refused to leave till the eight reinstated. A few weeks previously, students had held a demonstration, blocking New Cross Road outside, over same issue'. Mark Brown told me on Twitter that during this occupation they received a message of support from Kevin Rowland (Dexys Midnight Runners) and that Rob Newman, Silver Sun and Mark Keds (Senseless Things) all played.

2009: a two day occupation of the Deptford Town Hall building  by 50 or so students as part of a national wave of protest against Israel's bombing of Gaza (plus ca change). The occupation did achieve one of its demands -  scholarships for students from Palestine's al-Quds university. The blog from the occupation is still online 

2009

2010 saw a huge movement linking together university students, school students and others in the front line of austerity in the aftermath of the financial crash.  In November 2010 around 40 students occupied the old Deptford Town Hall for two days in protest at education cuts and the proposed increase in students fees. Effigies of prime minister David Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg were strung up on New Cross Road next to a banner saying 'Education for the Masses, not the Ruling Classes'. More here.

November 2010 occupation

Then in December 2010 there was a larger scale occupation of the library, with several hundred taking part at the beginning. This lasted for almost a week from 5 to 11 December (More here and here). I believe Kae Tempest (then known as Excentral Tempest) performed at the occupation. The radical anthropologist David Graeber, then working at the College, was heavily involved, going on the next year to play a significant role in the Occupy protest in New York.  I gave a talk in the library on the radical history of New Cross.

December 2010

In March 2011 there was a short occupation of the Town Hall in support of striking lecturers. More here

March 2011

A short occupation of the Whitehead building in November 2011 declared itself 'in solidarity with the UK-wide strike on November 30th and the global occupy movement. We are here because we reject the privatisation of the university, symptomatic of the neo-liberal agenda that permeates all aspects of life. For this reason we have strategically occupied the building housing Goldsmiths’ finance offices, responsible for executing the cuts and the privatisation agenda'. More here.

November 2011

In December 2013 around 100 people occupied the Town Hall building in support of striking staff. More here.

2013

March 2015 saw another occupation of the Town Hall with a wide range of demands and a focus on the marketisation of education. More here

2015

The Goldsmiths Anti- Racist Action occupation of 2019 took over part of the Town Hall and lasted for a mammoth 137 days between March and July. Arising as part of the global Black Lives Matter movement its demands focused on institutional racism at Goldsmiths. 

2019

Goldsmiths students occupied the Stuart Hall building on 20th February 2024 in solidarity with Palestine. The occupation finished after five weeks, with the University agreeing to create an additional Palestinian scholarship:

(2024 images from Gold4Palestine)

On 29 May 2024 there was a further Palestinian solidarity occupation of the College's gallery, the Centre for Contemporary Arts, prompted by allegations of it receiving sponsorship from Zac Gertler, a property magnate described last year as 'Netanyahu’s new favorite multimillionaire, the owner of the Carlton Hotel in Tel Aviv, where Bibi spent a tense election night last November'. The occupation continued until the end of term nearly a month later.

photo by not_crime_twinc

With Goldsmiths management threatening to make more than 130 lecturers redundant as part of a brutal programme of cuts, students occupied the Council Chamber in the old Deptford Town Hall on 4 June 2024 and remained there for over a week.

photo by @phellermann

Update April 2026:

In April 2026,  students occupied the library against the latest round of  funding and staff cuts. The occupiers reckoned that this was the 15th Goldsmiths occupation, and have built on what I wrote above to find out some more about this history: 

'Goldsmiths has an extraordinary history of student organising and activism, earning itself a reputation as the first to take action against injustice. Students at Goldsmiths have occupied at least 14 times since 1968, in 1976, 1984, 1999,  2009, twice in 2010, 2013, 2015, 2019, four times in 2024. And now in 2026 we have this returned to the potency of the occupation in our defence of knowledge and creativity. 

In honour of our predecessors and to sustain the collective memory of Goldsmiths as a place for action, we have filled our occupation with archival banners, placards and zines from pa'st student organisers, campaigns and occupations.  Please visit us so together we can investigate what can be learned from past organisers and occupations, and if you have any additional material from previous occupations, please drop them off, we’ll take good care of them! (Free Goldsmiths, April 2026)

Music Monday: Jacqui McShee and Pentangle

Happy 80th birthday Jacqui McShee, born in Catford on Christmas Day 1943. Like many of their generation, Jacqui and her sister Pam got involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the early 1960s, and through this got involved in the folk music scene. With friends she started a folk club at the the Red Lion Pub in Sutton, and then in 1967 she started the band Pentangle with guitarists John Renbourn and Bert Jansch, joined by  Danny Thompson on double bass, and Terry Cox on drums. A  string of innovative albums from 1968 to 1972 defined a new direction for English folk music, with jazz, rock and psychedelic influences. There have been various revivals and reformation since, and Jacqui is still performing.

2024 London Calendars

Couple of fine 2024 calendars on sale at the Word bookshop in New Cross (and other local independent bookshops). South East London pubs by Lydia Wood is the latest outcome of her project of aiming to draw every pub in London. London Rebel History 2024 from Past Tense does what it says on the tin.

 

A young Irish woman in Lewisham, 1959

Leaving aside the dubious framing of this story ('workaday beauties' ffs), some nice local detail of a young Irish women's life in Lewisham 1959 - Mary O'Donoghue from Cork working in the Robertson Jam Factory in Catford, living in Davenport Road with her sister (a nurse at Hither Green Hospital) and socialising at the Harp Club in New Cross.

Flaneuse/'London as a man's city'

I recently read Laura Elkin's 'Flaneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London' which explores the act of women's public presence on the streets as a subversive practice:

'It would be nice, ideal even, if we didn't have to subdivide by gender - male walkers, female walkers, flâneurs and flâneuses - but these narratives of walking repeatedly leave out a woman's experience... I like the built environment, I like cities. Not their limits, not the places where they become not-cities. Cities themselves. The heart of them. Their manifold quarters, sectors, corners. And it's the centre of cities where women have been empowered, by plunging into the heart of them, and walking where they're not meant to. Walking where other people (men) walk without eliciting comment. That is the transgressive act. You don't need to crunch around in Gore-Tex to be subversive, if you're a woman. Just walk out your front door'.

Elkin, a New Yorker who has spent much time in Paris, lived in Brockley when she was working on the book and mentions some of her London haunts: 'I have walked everywhere, and come to know Peckham High Street and Highgate, Bethnal Green and Green Park, Holland Park and Honor Oak, the Isle of Dogs and Dulwich, Clerkenwell and Camberwell, Greenwich and Gravesend'.

I was reminded of this when browsing an old guide to London,  Clarence Winchester's 'Let's look at London: A Travelogue for the Short Time Visitor' (Cassell 1935) which asserts that London is not a place for women... and that seemingly this is a good thing! (yes Clarence is a man in case you were wondering):

'If an Englishman's home is his castle, a Londoner's home is his thrice-moated strong-hold, even though the front wall stands on the pavement and there is only a yard of grass at the back. Perhaps that is why London strikes us as a man's city... 

It is true that London is by no means short of women, but they are not predominantly noticeable unless you take a stroll along Regent Street and Oxford Street about tea-time. We do not notice women in London as we do in New York or in Paris, or in Nottingham even. There are the "castles" to be looked after, and it is the women's job to see to that, which is just as well if we consider- as we should- that the domesticated man is an anachronism and an offence against nature.

In no other city in the world are men so well provided for as in London. In no other city is there a Clubland that so adequately symbolizes masculinity'

Music Monday: Chainska Brassika songs of Brockley and New Cross

Popular South London ska band Chainska Brassika include plenty of local references on their album 'Tales of a Londoner' which came out last year (and I'm only now catching up with).

'Down the Barge' tells of nights out in the Brockley Barge, which features in the video:

Another pub, currently closed, is mentioned in New Cross Stomp: '171 on a Friday night, down the White Hart for a couple swift pints'.

Life is one big road with a lot of sign

A traffic sign in New Cross Road, near to the bus garage, has been hosting a running commentary on the state of the world for over a year.

The latest iteration photographed today  includes the very timely 'ceasefire now', along with 'Just Stop Oil',  'A wealth tax could easily fund the NHS' and 'support workers  when they strike - tax the rich'

From April of this year 'Boris Johnson should pay his own f*cking legal fees':

November 2022 and there's a call for 'general election now', in smaller print underneath 'Rishi Sunak has too much money' (later somebody not so keen on the electoral road sprayed a black @sign over this, you can see a trace of it on image above)

September 2022 - 'say no to tory tax cuts, F**k the fat cats' complete with cat

(See some other examples of these people's work here)

 

Small Worlds - Caleb Azumah Nelson

Like his previous novel 'Open Water', 'Small Worlds' by Caleb Azumah Nelson is a beautifully written slice of young London African life, set in South London. In this instance the story of the unfolding family and intimate relationships of a young jazz musician living in Peckham - and visiting Ghana - is set between 2010 and 2012.

Narrator Stephen's parents have come to London in the 1980s in hard times: 'Mum says, when she arrived in winter she was so sure that in London, everything would be possible for her. What Mum didn't realize was that she was moving to a city in the wake of the Brixton riots and New Cross fires, a London living in the wake of explicit violence, a London in which there were people who might explicitly wish death upon her. Still, her older brother was already living here, so she quickly found accommodation halfway between New Cross and Lewisham, and work as a cleaner in Brix-to. To get to work, she would walk to Lewisham bus station, riding the P4 until the last stop, her hands thrust deep in her pockets to protect from the cold'.

Now Stephen has grown to be a young adult in the city. There are nights out in Deptford and Peckham, including at what was then peak period Bussey building and Peckhamplex cinema (not to mention Camberwell Nando's). One of the more evocative scenes for me though take place in one of my favourite places with Stephen jamming with some of his fellow jazz musicians:

'One time, we crammed into two cars and drove a little further south, to Beckenham Place Park, with its grounds which sprawl endlessly. It was spring and new life seemed to be blossoming, everywhere. Everything was possible. We dragged our instruments, deep into the wooded area, and formed a circle, sending sounds into the trees. Just before we started playing, someone placed a recorder in the middle of our small gathering, not because we didn't think we would remember, but because we didn't want to forget. As we were playing, my fingers slipped, an odd note coming from my horn. The mistake didn't go unnoticed, but we continued on. It made me grateful for the freedom to be in that space, to make a mistake; and how that mistake might be beautiful to the right ear; how Del heard that odd note and followed with her own, adjusting her thrum; how the rest of us followed that twist and shift, surrendering to whatever unknown we were going towards. It was there that I noticed I only really knew myself in song. In the quiet, in the freedom, in the surrender. Afterwards, as we trailed back to the cars, spent and yet still so full, we said things like 'I didn't know I needed that' and 'that was a spiritual experience.''

Put me in mind of those sweet jazz sessions you would stumble upon during Covid lockdown, in Peckham Rye or Hilly Fields or wherever.

Music Monday: Laura Misch 'Sample the Sky'

East Dulwich-raised Laura Misch has been marking the release of her new album, Sample the Sky, with some interesting local events in the last few weeks. There was a sound walk in Sydenham Woods, an event in the Brockwell Park greenhouses and, on 21 October 2023, a 'cloud bath' in the old waiting room above Peckham Rye station.  The latter featured an improvised set with Laura's saxophone accompanied by Slow Moon on guitar. People were invited to bring cushions so they could relax on the floor while artists Holobiont projected cloud imagery. Lots of lush reverb drenched tones approaching a spiritual jazz vibe, it was a lovely event.

There's an interesting interview with Laura at The Line of Best Fit where she talks about her musical and woodland inspirations.

The album is more song based, including the previous single Portals -  the video of which, I am reliably informed, was styled with the help of Bleak House Flowers in Brockley Cross

The Tidal Year

 

Freya Bromley's 'The Tidal Year: a memoir on grief, swimming and sisterhood' sees the author travelling around Britain's tidal pools in the aftermath of her brother's untimely death. Along the way she visits some of my favourite swimming spots including Walpole Bay in Margate, Clevedon Marine Lake (on the Severn Estuary) and Dancing Ledge in Dorset.

But her home turf swimming spot is Brockwell Park Lido, even through the swimming there does not always come easy: 'Getting in the lido felt like a punishment, which something inside me needed. Getting out felt like a rebirth, which everything inside me needed. I took short, sharp breaths as the water burned my ankles, thighs, stomach, then chest. Crying happens on an inhale, and swimming gives me that same breathless sensation. I swam three laps, then at the deep end screamed underwater. When I emerged, I couldn't stop crying. Witnessing someone having a breakdown in a public pool must be a good way to see British manners'.

Along the way friendships and romance play out against a backdrop of familiar South London landmarks. East Dulwich Picturehouse, the Prince of Wales in Brixton, Myatts Fields, Herne Hill market, the Camberwell Arms and the Silk Road restaurant (also in Camberwell) all feature, not to mention a first date checking out the Lime Kiln in Burgess Park.

Just Stop Oil Meeting SE14

Tuesday 24th October 2023 at Avalon Cafe, Surrey Canal Road, SE14

 

Cider with Joyce

Delighted to have the first pint to be served of the new 'Joy is an Orchard' cider at Joyce in Brockley tonight, blended by them at Ross on Wye cider.

 

Peckham Taser Death Protest

A demonstration took place on Saturday 30th September to protest against the death of Zodoq Obatolah, a 52 year old man who died after being tasered by police in Peckham earlier this year. People marched from the Rye Hill Estate, where the man died in April apparently after falling from a balcony following being tasered. The protest ended in a rally at Peckham police station where people sat in the road to hear speeches from the United Friends and Families Campaign, which brings together people affected by the deaths at the hands of the police.  Speakers included Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg died in Brixton police station in 2008, and Germaine Phillips whose son Adrian McDonald died after being tasered by police in Staffordshire in 2014.

La Discotheque/Bouncing Ball/Kisses/Chicago's in Peckham

La Discotheque in Soho's Wardour Street  opened in around 1961 and was perhaps the first place to use 'discotheque' as the name for a club in the English speaking world (there had been clubs of that name in Paris since the 1940s). The Soho club earned some notoriety as the 'Soho nerve centre' of 'the purple heart racket' (Times 10 June 1964) but that didn't stop it expanding with other branches opening up in  Oxford Street, Streatham High Road and Peckham High Street. 

Not sure of the source of the advert below promising 'The West End comes to Peckham' with 'the accent on Rhythm and Blues, and Twist' to 'Hi Fi Stereo featuring the famous Nite-Sounds':

This advert from Streatham News suggests that the Peckham club ('London's most fabulous dancing club') opened in June 1963 and was open every night until 2 am:

I found a memory of the club on Facebook: 'Went a fair bit when around 15... can remember Frankie Fraser selling purple hearts and black bombers from his car parked outside. Probably around 1964'.

Location is given as 'facing the Odeon cinema' which was where the Job Centre now stands. I assume the club was in the same location as the later Bouncing Ball/Mr B's/Kisses/Chicago - 43 Peckham High Street. Originally built in 1890s as the Central Hall, it was the base for a Christian organisation, the People's League, and then housed various churches including the Church of Strangers. In the early twentieth century it also housed a cinema. After the Second World War it seems to have been an Irish social club before becoming  La Discotheque, then was known for for a while in the 1960s as the Maverick club, becoming Mr Bee's (maybe around 1970) and after that The Bouncing Ball.

Think this Bouncing Ball flyer is from 1979, mostly reggae including Delroy Wilson and lovers rock girl group Brown Sugar (with young Caron Wheeler later of Soul II Soul). Bob Marley and the Wailers are believed to have played there in 1973 though there is a story that the band refused to play on one occasion. Don Letts took Joe Strummer from The Clash to the club.

The back cover of Trinity's 1981 album 'Full House' shows him playing at Bouncing Ball. 

Although best remembered as a reggae club, the Bouncing Ball also hosted a regular heavy metal Monday night in the early 1980s with resident DJs The Bailey Bros - two black former Yorkshire miners (flyer below from December 1981):

Known as Kisses in the mid 1980s, regular DJs there George Power and Gordon Mac (McNamee) named their new London dance music pirate radio station after it - Kiss FM. In that period the club was closely linked to the pirate radio/soul scene - Solar Radio put on events there and LWR (London Weekend Radio) did a a live broadcast from there in 1986, shortly before the club changed ownership and was renamed La Plaza. This prompted 'Blues & Soul' (25/2/86) to  note that  "Kisses, that long time funk oasis in the hinterlands of Peckham, is no more." 

Delroy Wilson at La Plaza Nightclub, from Black Echoes, 29 August 1987

Later it became Chicago's, there's a short Channel 4 drama from 1992 called 'We the Ragamuffin'  (directed by Julian Henriques) that was filmed there and on the now demolished North Peckham Estate. For a while in the early 1990s there was a Vaders club night, featuring DJ Seduction and Grooverider among others.

In July 2000 a gunman opened fire on people queuing to get into Chicago's, injuring nine. The club closed shortly afterwards.

The building is now divided up into several units. The unit on right is currently (2024) Strong Arm Steady barber shop. Comparing with 1935 image below, that seems to have been the main entrance in to the hall.

Update: 

I've found a whole lot more about this place, you could write a book about it! Seems in the early 1960s, before it was the Discotheque it was known as the Top Twenty. There was also a time c.1970 when it was called The Westerner.  Possibly also the Teen and Twenty at some point. More to come...

Looking History and other walks

A couple of walks coming up in the 'Looking History' series. My walk 'Peckham Against Racism and Fascism' takes place at 11 am on Sunday October 1st and will hopefully do what it says on the tin, exploring the history of anti-racist/fascist/colonialist moments and movements in the Rye Lane area.

Before that on Sunday 24th September there's 'A Kaleidoscope Walk of the Elephant and Castle' with people being encouraged to share stories about particular places with meaning to them.

One of the best things about these kind of walks is the contributions and memories of people who turn up. On the 'Dirty Walworth' walk in July there were was a nice moment where walk guide Chris passed round some sarsaparilla, a drink taken as a health tonic for many years in that area and famously sold on East Street market and at Baldwin's herbalist/health food shop on Walworth Road. That sparked off childhood memories from somebody present who also recalled being sent by her mother to pick up orange juice from Walworth health centre which was provided free to babies - she sneaked her first taste of orange.

On that same walk as we passed Husky Studios on Amelia Street I mentioned that I'd once read in South London Press that Destiny's Child had rehearsed there prior to a performance on Top of the Pops, so Beyonce had been in Walworth.  A guy who had been a regular drinker in the nearby Tankard pub for years said that lots of people using the studio had popped into the pub in the past including John Lydon and Stevie Wonder! Somebody else chimed in with the tale of Drake being spotted in Walworth Road bagel shop. Folklore or facts? Tell me more...

I also enjoyed the Radical History Faction walk around Newington Green, one of a series around Hackney and Islington. Visiting 29 Grosvenor Avenue - home to a radical commune in the early 1970s and raided by police searching for the Angry Brigade - one person on the walk remembered visiting for anarchist meetings (there was a print shop in the basement) while somebody else lived there now. They have one final walk this season coming up around Angel/Upper Street on 15th October

I also went on the Rye Lane film locations walk on 10 September, part of the Peckham and Nunhead Free Film Festival. It told some of the history of the area taking in locations from recent Rye Lane movie, including a park bench on Holly Grove, the Peckham Soul shop and the indoor market.

 

South London Street Art Gallery, September 2023

Refugees Welcome - Nettleton Road SE14

Refugees Welcome - Nunhead

'Now playing Stereolab Parsec' - Station Passage SE15

'Stop lying' - Peckham

'South London is Anti-Fascist' - Peckham High Street

'Edelweiss Piraten' sticker, Nunhead (name of underground youth subculture in Nazi Germany)

Multilingual radical posters Bellenden Road SE25

'Transphobia belongs in the bin' - sticker, Brockley

'Justice for Chris Kaba', New Cross Road (shot dead by police in Streatham in September 2022)

'Black Lives Matter' - Choumert Grove Car Park, SE15

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'Black Lives Still Matter' by Aliyah Art from her exhibition 'Anime through Black Eyes' at Peckham Levels (OK not actually street art, but thematically linked)