‘Song Birds in East London Homes, from Henry Mayhew to Charles Booth’

In Joseph Harley, Vicky Holmes and Laika Nevalainen (eds), The Working Class at Home, 1770–1940 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2022)

Songbirds were the most popular pet to keep in working-class East End homes. They were cheap to buy and look after and took up little space in a cage. But, more importantly, their owners developed deep affection for them as sociable and musical companions.

‘Strange Love: the Captive City Chorus in Victorian London’

In Mike Collier, Bennett Hogg, John Strachan (eds), Songs of Place and Time: Birdsong and the Dawn Chorus in Natural History and the Arts (Gaia Project Press, 2021)

Caged birds could be heard singing throughout London, outside shops and in the parlour. The full chapter can be read here, starting at page 156: https://issuu.com/drling/docs/songs_of_time___place_final_high_res__reduced_

‘Surviving Twentieth-Century Modernity: Birdsong and Emotions in Britain’

In Hilda Kean and Philip Howell (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Animal-Human History (London: Routledge, 2018)

The voices of birds have had profound emotional effects on humans. I look at the early twentieth century cultural and scientific ideas about what birdsong does to us, while considering the ways we have perceived birds as emotional beings themselves, when they sing.

https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Animal-Human-History/Kean-Howell/p/book/9780367733650

‘Ludwig Koch’s Birdsong on Wartime Radio: Knowledge, Citizenship and Solace’

In Robert Bud, Paul Greenhalgh, Frank James, Morag Shiach (eds) Being Modern: The Cultural Impact of Science in the Early Twentieth Century (London: UCL Press, 2018)

This is the first detailed assessment of the wartime work of the German nature sound recordist, Ludwig Koch. His recordings of British birds in the late 1930s were a triumph of determination and a mastery of new field recording techniques. Though Koch believed everyone could appreciate the beauty of birdsong and take pleasure in witnessing it, he wanted listeners to pay attention and learn about the birds around them.

The chapter can be read here: https://ucldigitalpress.co.uk/Book/Article/64/88/4856/