Places

Featuring two of LSE’s founders, the Webb portrait hangs above the fireplace in the Shaw Library. Sue Donnelly tells the story of Sidney and Beatrice Webb at Passfield Corner by William Nicholson.

“In the present year Mr and Mrs Sidney Webb keep a joint seventieth birthday and it is proposed to celebrate this event by securing the painting of a […]

LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly writes about this Spring’s archaeological dig on Houghton Street at LSE.

London’s many building sites are the source of frequent disruption and irritation but they also provide opportunities to find out more about the history hidden beneath the buildings and streets. The preparatory works for the Centre Buildings Redevelopment was an opportunity to discover what lies […]

Sport at LSE has a long history, writes LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly, as is proved by the 1911 photograph of the first hockey team. But the acquisition of the Malden sports ground in 1921 encouraged sports of all kinds to flourish at LSE.

Under Director William Beveridge Houghton Street saw constant building, but LSE expansion also included the acquisition of […]

LSE’s sportsground opened in 1921 and among the many sports taking place at the new ground, in Malden, Surrey, was tennis. There was a tennis club and games took between staff and students. These images from the 1920s introduce tennis at LSE.

Tennis club, 1920:

Staff and student tennis, 1926 (William Beveridge (centre) on his left Vera Anstey, behind her Professor Arthur Sargent, to his […]

These fantastic photos from the LSE Library Flickr site tell the story of football at LSE, 1930s-1980s. 

Students v Porters Football, 1936. There used to be a match every year between the porters and students for the ‘Blotto Cup’ which was an old tea caddy. There was a dance in the evening following the football:

The porters won the match. (Alan […]

LSE’S early accommodation was modest but set the model for the School’s location in the heart of London – between the City, government and the law.

From 1895 to 1902 the School was based in the Adelphi, an area between the Strand and the Thames, developed between 1768-1774 by the Adam brothers – John, Robert, James and William. The development […]

The Founders’ Room, or as it is more popularly known the Shaw Library, is much loved by students and staff past and present as a place to read, snooze or eat your lunch but how did this quiet haven on the top of the Old Building come into existence?

The Founders’ Room

The sixth floor of the Old Building was completed […]

Tucked away on Clement’s Inn Passage, the Anchorage was built in the early 1800s but only became part of LSE’s estate in 1970.

In the early twentieth century the property was bought by the Reverend William Pennington-Bickford, rector of St Clement Danes Church, becoming the vicarage. The front of the building bore a large cast iron anchor, the symbol of […]

Watch LSE Archivist Sue Donnelly share the secrets of Houghton Street, touring the East Building just before its closure and demolition, in The Changing Face of Houghton Street:

Read more about the East Building
“The last block of buildings I ever really expected to see”
So wrote William Beveridge in his Director’s Report for 1936-1937 reporting that work was about to start on the […]

For 60 years LSE shared Clare Market with two significant neighbours: the St Clement’s Press and the Government Laboratory.

Government Laboratory

The government established the Government Laboratory in 1842. Based in the City of London the Laboratory’s initial role was guarding against the adulteration of tobacco and protecting the government’s revenue. Following the 1875 Sale of Food and Drugs Act the […]

When Clare Market opened in 1968 it marked the culmination of an ambition, beginning with William Beveridge in the 1930s, to extend LSE along Houghton Street – an ambition that took over 30 years to come to fruition.

1930s – War service

In 1932 LSE took over the leases of both 17 Houghton Street, occupied by a bookshop, Messrs McLeish, and […]

In the 1960s (before the Troubles), the School was known, among other things, for having “arguably the worst food north of the Thames.” At least that was the Sunday Observer’s characterisation of the daily fare dispensed on the third floor. Such judgments are always in the eye of the beholder and a matter of individual taste. But one thing the Refectory […]

On 28 May 1920 George V and Queen Mary left Buckingham Palace in an open carriage escorted by the Life Guards. They were accompanied by Herbert Fisher, Minister for Education and as they approached St Clement Danes the church bells began to ring. Halting on Clare Market the royal party entered Passmore Edwards Hall as the Royal Standard was […]

Now home to LSE, 20 Kingsway used to house the Tea Cup Inn – a tea shop for suffragettes. Look closely and traces of the suffragettes, LSE’s early neighbours, can still be found around our campus today.

LSE moved to Clare Market and Houghton Street in 1902 to occupy the newly-built Passmore Edwards Hall – and was surrounded on all sides by suffragette […]

The LSE war memorial hangs alongside the Old Theatre in Old Building and lists the names of 70 staff and students who lost their lives in the First World War. Seventy lives telling seventy stories.

Between 1914 and 1918 the School Governors received regular reports of staff and students who had enlisted, received honours and medals, been wounded, taken prison, […]

‘The Students’ Union is anxious to commemorate those students of the School who fell in the Great War, and propose in the first place to erect a memorial table bearing their names, and in the second place, if funds permit, to establish a prize or scholarship in connection with the School.’

So began a circular letter sent in March 1921 […]

In its early years LSE occupied two rented houses in John Street and Adelphi Terrace, south of the Strand and close to Charing Cross station, but within five years it needed more space and a home of its own.

In the late nineteenth century London County Council had a grand plan to clear the slums around Clare Market to create […]