The Gentle Author of the popular blog Spitalfields Life has gained an extraordinary following in recent years, by writing hundreds of lively pen portraits of the infinite variety of people who live and work in the East End of London. As part of our Spitalfields Life Chit Chats, butchers, Joe Lawrence, Greg Lawrence and Peter Sargent present a lively look at Smithfields Market and life as a butcher from the 1960s up to the present day. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

The Gentle Author of the popular blog Spitalfields Life has gained an extraordinary following in recent years, by writing hundreds of lively pen portraits of the infinite variety of people who live and work in the East End of London. As part of our Spitalfields Life Chit Chats, fishmonger Charlie Caisey talks about his life as a fishmonger and Billingsgate Market. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Rhyming slang can claim to be London's one truly home-grown language. It may have started around 1830 among the canal-digging navvies, the villains of St Giles or, as is most likely, the costermongers of the East End, spreading over time to Australia and the United States. But it remains the most quintessentially 'London' of all slang's vocabularies. It isn't a vast lexis, something over 3,000 words in all, but it's still going strong. Like black cabs and red telephone kiosks it's not what it was, but like them it's part of the world's shorthand for 'London'. Jonathon Green is the world's leading expert in slang lexicography. His latest work, the three-volume Green's Dictionary of Slang, appeared in 2010. He has continued to amend, improve and expand the database, and the ongoing work is scheduled to be launched online later this year. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

In October 1912 Sylvia Pankhurst climbed onto a wooden platform outside an old baker's shop on Bow Road, and painted the words 'VOTES FOR WOMEN' in golden letters above the door. What began as a simple recruitment drive for the Women's Social and Political Union soon sparked a rebellion in the suffragette ranks, and launched a mass movement for equality with Roman Road market at its heart. Get to know these forgotten East End rebels, who always said that votes for women were just the beginning. Sarah Jackson is the author of Voices From History: East London Suffragettes with Rosemary Taylor, and organised the East London Suffragette Festival in 2014. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Following the publication of London: A Travel Guide Through Time, join historian and broadcaster Dr Matthew Green on an historical journey through 800 years of London's history, from the depths of the Middle Ages, through the time of Shakespeare, the Great Plague and Empire, to the pummelling of the city during the Blitz, and its resurrection in the gloomy 50s.If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Between 1981 and 1986, Ken Livingstone led the most experimental, controversial and influential city government in modern British history. In Promised You a Miracle, a new and revelatory book about Britain in the early 1980s, acclaimed historian and Guardian journalist Andy Beckett uncovers the forgotten triumphs and disasters of Livingstone's Greater London Council: from its doomed attempt to make the capital a citadel against Thatcherism to its far-sighted efforts to transform London for women and ethnic minorities. In conversation, Beckett and Livingstone discussed the GLC's brief and dramatic life under 'Red Ken', how it was linked to the other radical forces altering Britain in the tumultuous early 1980s, and how it helped create the London of today.If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

The success of the recent film Pride has sparked new interest in the history of LGBT activism in the 1980s. Colin Clews, author of the informative and popular blog 'Gay in the 80s' and prominent and outspoken campaigner for equalities Linda Bellos OBE reflect on life in the 80s for LGBT people. In partnership with the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (LAGNA). If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

The East End Preservation Society and Bishopsgate Institute are delighted to present the Inaugural C R Ashbee Memorial Lecture. This lecture honours C R Ashbee (1863 – 1942) as founder of the Guild of Handicrafts in the East End, as a pioneer of the Conservation Movement, and a progressive architect and designer whose influence was seminal upon Frank Lloyd Wright among many others.If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.

Poverty, slums and hungry children. Find out what sights met Doctor Barnardo in London's East End in 1866 with historians Sarah Wise and Ken Worpole. If you enjoy listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up at www.bishopsgate.org.uk.

Acclaimed writer and historian Jerry White takes a unique look at London during the First World War as seen through the eyes of the people who lived there.If you enjoyed listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up. Recorded live on Thursday 27 November at Bishopsgate Institute.

Behind our democracy lurks a powerful but unaccountable network of people who wield massive power and reap huge profits in the process. In exposing this shadowy and complex system that dominates our lives, Owen Jones sets out on a journey into the heart of our Establishment, from the lobbies of Westminster to the newsrooms, boardrooms and trading rooms of Fleet Street and the City. Recorded live at Bishopsgate Institute on Thursday 6 November 2014. If you enjoyed listening to this event do take a look at the other events we have coming up.