The annual Aylmer Lecture invites experts to discuss their research.

Power and Policing in the British Metropole: 1957 and now

In 1957 the Home Office reached out to 41 chief constables of police forces scattered around the country, explaining that they had been selected because they were working in areas that had recently seen an ‘influx’ of people of colour from around the Commonwealth. The Home Office, and their ministers, were curious about the possible ‘problems’ arising from this post-war wave of immigration. 

The survey that they attached, and the responses by the police forces, paint a vivid picture of the way that the Windrush generation were treated by the British government and their local police in this period.

In this important and timely talk, historian Charlotte Lydia Riley of the University of Southampton will explore the survey and responses, asking how they can help us understand more about the Windrush Scandal, the Hostile Environment and cultures of policing in Britain today.

This event will take place on Thursday 15 June 2023, 5.30pm to 7pm.

It will be held at the Berrick Saul Building, booking is required.

Visit the Festival of Ideas webpage for further information.

About the speaker

Charlotte Lydia Riley is a lecturer in 20th-century British history at the University of Southampton. Her book, Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain, explores the ways that empire has shaped and changed British society, politics and culture since the Second World War, and will be published by Penguin in summer 2023. She has recently edited a collection of essays on free speech, The Free Speech Wars: How did we get here and why does it matter? (Manchester University Press, 2021), which  examines the contemporary culture wars around freedom of speech. She has written for Tribune, New Humanist, the Guardian, BBC History Magazine and the Washington Post.

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