Podcast Summary: New Books Network Episode: Matt Houlbrook, “Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London” (Manchester UP, 2025) Date: December 2, 2025 Host: Dave Guest: Matt Houlbrook

Episode Overview

This episode features a deep dive into Matt Houlbrook’s forthcoming book, Songs of Seven Dials: An Intimate History of 1920s and 1930s London. Houlbrook and host Dave explore the multi-layered history of Seven Dials, a central but often overlooked London neighborhood. The discussion illuminates themes of urban transformation, race, class, gentrification, media representation, and the personal stories of ordinary residents—focusing particularly on the saga of Jim and Emily Kitten, whose café became the epicenter of legal and social battles.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing Seven Dials: Context & Geography

[01:51 – 06:01]

• Houlbrook describes Seven Dials as an area at the heart of central London, geographically wedged between Covent Garden, Soho, and Bloomsbury.
• Originally a planned development in the 1690s designed for maximum street frontage, it quickly slipped into poverty and notoriety, becoming “almost synonymous with crime and vice and poverty and the depravity of urban life” (Matt Houlbrook, 03:51).
• In the 1920s and 30s, it functioned as “a rough and ready place of home and work” for market workers, migrants, and those seeking cheap accommodation.
• Quote:

  “It’s an area that serves the needs of other neighborhoods around it.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 05:50

2. Why Seven Dials? Personal & Historical Hooks

[06:01 – 11:07]

• Houlbrook was drawn to Seven Dials via the personal story of the Kittens—Jim, born in Sierra Leone, and Emily, from London’s East End—who opened a successful café frequented by a cosmopolitan clientele.
• The café attracted hostility, especially from the right-wing newspaper John Bull, which launched a smear campaign, ultimately leading to a libel trial in 1927.
• Quote:

  “It’s really unlikely in lots of ways ... for this café and this couple to end up in the High Court of Justice and to end up being discussed in Parliament, I think is really unusual.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 09:21

• Houlbrook sees their story as emblematic of the broader processes of gentrification and urban conflict.

3. Gentrification & Urban Visions: Political and Economic Forces

[12:25 – 16:48]

• Post-WWI, both political and capital-driven ambitions targeted Seven Dials for radical transformation—plans to demolish it and build a “grand plaza that will rival Piccadilly Circus.”
• Local government sought to raise property and rental values, viewing the area’s working-class and immigrant population as disposable.
• Commercial interests (hotels, theatres) eyed Seven Dials for expansion, pushing out long-term residents.
• Yet, both visions ultimately failed, leaving the area in further decline by WWII.
• Quote:

  “No one ever really says the quiet part out loud, but the plan to work rests on the assumption that the 5,000 people who live there will be moved somewhere else.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 13:33

4. Media Representation, Racism, and the Creation of ‘Black Colonies’

[19:29 – 24:33]

• Seven Dials, by the mid-1920s, was constructed in media as “a problem to be solved,” characterized as a slum and a racialized space requiring intervention.
• Newspapers like John Bull exaggerated the presence of Black and Asian communities, fueling a moral panic and justifying state action.
• Quote:

  “You have to call a slum into being in order to justify your grand schemes for its demolition.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 20:36

• The “black colony” label “racializes the problems of urban poverty and the slum” (Matt Houlbrook, 24:13).

5. The Kittens’ Story & Libel Trial: Microcosm of Broader Conflicts

[24:33 – 36:30]

• Proximity and influence: Café was situated directly across from a hotel owned by politically connected developer Bracewell Smith, who used his connections to drive opposition to the café.
• Bracewell Smith mobilized local authorities, neighbors, the press, and national government to target the Kittens.
• The libel case becomes a literal trial of race, class, and power—one where the Kittens are always at a disadvantage.
• Quote:

  “It is impossible to hear the story that the Kittens want to tell in the winter of 1927 ... the Kittens themselves who are being scrutinized and judged.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 30:37

• The trial’s verdict was not just against the Kittens but a confirmation that the law, economic power, and social prejudice aligned against such communities.
• After losing the trial, increased police harassment and the sale of the building followed—a clear linkage between legal, economic, and racialized violence.
• Quote:

  “These two things, police harassment plus the sale of property in the area, ... it felt a little bit like the smoking gun. Like this is what’s happening.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 35:33

6. Aftermath & Transformation: From Decline to Gentrification

[37:59 – 45:23]

• Neither the political nor commercial plans for radical transformation succeeded in the interwar period. Seven Dials continued to decline, with modernist architectural “solutions” like the Cambridge Theatre failing to revitalize the area.
• By the 1940s–1960s, the area was in physical and social crisis; postwar waves of gentrification would ultimately erase its working-class, cosmopolitan past.
• Quote:

  “By the 1930s, the grand plans for Seven Dials have gone to all intents and purposes. ... The neighborhood is just continuing to decline.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 43:46

7. Seven Dials Today: Heritage, Gentrification, and Loss

[45:23 – 49:39]

• In the late 20th century, opposition to demolition was more successful, but the area transformed into an upmarket, exclusive destination, largely owned by big landlords.
• The physical fabric remains, but the diverse community is gone—replaced by “consumerist” visitors and expensive shops.
• Quote:

  “We’ve kept the place, but we’ve lost the people ... that story of Seven Dials ... is of a place that feels to me increasingly exclusive. ... Those problems [poverty, marginality] have not gone away ... they’ve been pushed out of central London neighborhoods like Seven Dials.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 48:10

8. Reflections & Next Projects

[49:39 – 53:00]

• Houlbrook plans to continue exploring neglected facets of the 1920s/30s, focusing on the lives of ordinary residents, such as women workers and migrants, as hidden agents in the making of modern London.
• He sees a need to challenge stereotypes of the period (e.g., “Roaring Twenties”) with richer, more complex narratives.
• Houlbrook’s next project may delve into the stories of boarding houses and the role of working-class women, showing that “modernity” was built on precarious, often overlooked lives.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s an area that serves the needs of other neighborhoods around it.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 05:50

• “It’s really unlikely ... for this café and this couple to end up in the High Court of Justice ... I wanted to understand ... what had to happen for that process to take place.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 09:21

• “You have to call a slum into being in order to justify your grand schemes for its demolition.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 20:36

• “The IDEA that Seven Dials is a ... black colony is a kind of ... artifact of the moral panic over race and citizenship that follows the Great War.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 23:30

• “It is impossible to hear the story that the Kittens want to tell ... The Kittens themselves are being scrutinized and judged.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 30:37

• “We’ve kept the place, but we’ve lost the people.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 48:10

• “What has happened is that they’ve been pushed out of central London neighborhoods like Seven Dials ... that to me doesn’t really feel like a positive, positive process that we’ve turned a place of home and work into a playground.”
  – Matt Houlbrook, 48:52

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:33 — Episode/Guest Introduction
• 02:45 – 06:01 — History and geography of Seven Dials
• 06:32 – 11:07 — The story of Jim and Emily Kitten and the origins of Houlbrook’s project
• 12:25 – 16:48 — Urban politics and gentrification; utopian plans and their failures
• 20:33 – 24:33 — Media narratives, “slum creation,” and racialization
• 24:33 – 36:30 — The Kittens, property developers, and the trajectory to the libel trial
• 39:26 – 45:23 — Post-trial decline, the Cambridge Theatre, and stalling of grand plans
• 45:23 – 49:39 — Late 20th-century transformation; heritage, gentrification, and what’s lost
• 49:39 – 53:00 — Houlbrook’s future research directions and reflections

Overall Tone

The episode is erudite, empathetic, and methodical, merging urban history with personal narrative. Houlbrook’s language is precise, reflective, and often tinged with melancholy for lost worlds and communities, while Dave’s questions are probing, respectful, and focused on drawing larger connections between individual stories and broader historical processes.

For listeners and readers alike, this episode provides a compelling window into how urban space, gentrification, and social exclusion are constructed, resisted, and reimagined across generations—and reminds us what—and who—gets lost along the way.