Bishopsgate Archive at the Institute Picture: Mike Butler
On the hottest day of the year in the summer of 2022, with the temperature inside what was Backstreet in Mile End hitting 40 degrees, Stef Dickers, curator of the LGBTQI+ archive at the Bishopsgate Institute was rushing to get out as much memorabilia as possible.
London’s by then oldest and only remaining gay leather bar had closed. Steph said, ‘I had been told the bar was closing by a number of people at the time, but out of respect to those that ran the bar and the staff losing their jobs I held back until they needed me.’
Stef added. ’I was given three hours to get what we could. We unscrewed the cage from the floor, I asked for the handpumps from the bar, and we took four pairs of boots out of a collection of 400, as well as anything else that could be added to both the ’kink’ and the LGBTQI+ archive.‘
For those that do not know, ‘kink’ is best defined by Madonna in her version of the song ‘Hanky Panky’. Leather on the gay scene is considered a ‘kink’. The kink archive at Bishopsgate includes the Peter Freeman collection of erotic fiction works on themes of spanking, corporal punishment and fetish (think anything from strawberry jam and cream to cages, whips and chains …).
The thought of the normally laid back, jocular Stef huffing and puffing, straining to get as much of the former venue out as possible in a rush and heavily overheated goes against the cool laid back character that I know, sitting in front of me casually dressed in a cap, open necked shirt, and jeans, grinning, as he relates the story.
The archives include items that tell the working history of the common people of London through to an extensive collection of LGBTQI+ paraphernalia to the latest additions to the kink archive that was first started by Stef in 2016.
The Institute itself opened in 1895 using charitable funds that the church across the road, St Botolph’s, had accrued over the previous 500 years. On discovering this sum existed, the then vicar of St Botolph’s, William Rogers, a social reformer, set the Institute up as a working peoples’ cultural institute with adult education centre. With concerts and a library to develop the skills of the working poor of the immediate area.
His successor Charles William Frederick Goss (1864-1946) was more confident, energetic, and fully committed to democratic learning principles. He understood the value of informal adult education to working people from non-privileged backgrounds. He had grown up the son of a plasterer in a crowded and chaotic South London home. He left school at thirteen to work as an office boy, a job that eventually led to him becoming a librarian and to his post at the Institute.
He also began collecting materials on the history of trade unionism and the early labour movement, including the library of the Victorian radical activist and politician George Howell who had collected an important library of books, pamphlets, trade union reports and papers that remains part of the library today.
Goss was determined that the records of working people who fought to obtain a more democratic and just society in the nineteenth century would be preserved for future generations.
The Institute continued in this fashion until Stef Dickers claims responsibility for first launching the LGBTQ+ archive on his arrival at the Institute in 2001. Stef had previously worked on the archives of the London School of Economics (LSE) and had built up considerable amounts of archive material including items relevant to the LGBTQ+ community that could not remain at the LSE
Stef Dickers, Curator of the Archives Picture: Mike Butler
The Kink/BDSM archive began in 2016 when Stef was offered a collection of rubber, kink and fetish gear from a stranger based in Birmingham who was downsizing. Stef had no prior knowledge of the man or his collection, and was swept away by the significance, extent and organisation of the collection. Immediately, he agreed to add it to the archive at the Institute.
This now forms a central part of the LGBTQ+ archive that holds records covering subjects as diverse as, London history, protests and campaigning, feminist and women’s history, Labour and socialist history.
Stef insists on making the archive as accessible as possible, there are no restrictions on who can go and look at items in the archives and he goes on to say that ‘everyone’s history is important, everyone’s voices should be heard’ There are minority voices in the archive, with current work on Club Kali oral histories about the Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ scene in London. Work around tattoos, who gets what tattoo and why, what do those tattoos mean to the people getting them.
Anti-Section 28 March Picture: Bishopsgate Institute
Stef said ‘’Then we’d get bits of gear (clothing) as well, like jackets, and that expanded it out and we got a few bits from Dykes on Bikes and SM Dykes – I felt that we should let everyone in!’ This also means collecting stories from Pride and other marches and protests from the 1970s onward, such as anti-Clause 28 through to the Pits and Perverts support of the striking miners in 1985.
Collecting the diaries of ordinary people. Keeping records of the Trades Union and Labour movements of the present day. There are many examples of radical activism and campaigning that bear witness to working class struggles.
The photographic archives contain over 500,000 images, with over 150,000 books, pamphlets and maps of London, and hundreds of thousands of press cuttings as well as emphera including banners, badges and club flyers helps add colour to this extensive resource.
This goes along with the original mission statement of the Institute. ‘Our mission is to provide welcoming and inspiring spaces for people with a thirst for knowledge to learn and flourish. Through our library, historic collections, courses and cultural events, we enrich, entertain and stimulate independent thought in a vibrant city environment.’
