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London 1666-1851: Emporia and Empire (Online)
Online course
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Our courses are built using the latest Microsoft software. Tune in to expert lectures live or catch up on demand. Join discussions and continue your learning with downloadable handouts and presentations. Find out more >>
Interested in learning about London? This course explores the transformation of the elegant city of Christopher Wren into the vast imperial metropolis of the Great Exhibition, a massive emporium of the world’s riches and the greatest European city since ancient Rome.
With this online ticket, you can tune in to watch every lecture live as it is delivered, or you can learn at your own pace. Lecture recordings and study materials, lecture notes, copies of the presentations, and additional study materials are available in our secure Microsoft Teams environment for 10 weeks after the course ends, so you'll never miss a thing. And finally, join the conversation: share your perspective with your fellow students in our online discussions, and support each other in your further enquiries outside of class time.
If you would prefer to join this course in-person at V&A South Kensington, you have two options: attend the lectures live, or upgrade your experience with five complementary gallery talks.
Discover all V&A Academy courses, workshops and events.
With this online ticket, you can tune in to watch every lecture live as it is delivered, or you can learn at your own pace. Lecture recordings and study materials, lecture notes, copies of the presentations, and additional study materials are available in our secure Microsoft Teams environment for 10 weeks after the course ends, so you'll never miss a thing. And finally, join the conversation: share your perspective with your fellow students in our online discussions, and support each other in your further enquiries outside of class time.
If you would prefer to join this course in-person at V&A South Kensington, you have two options: attend the lectures live, or upgrade your experience with five complementary gallery talks.
Discover all V&A Academy courses, workshops and events.
V&A Academy Course Director
Mike Berlin
Mike Berlin is a Lecturer at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a specialist in the social history of early modern London and has published extensively on the history of London’s guilds. Before joining Birkbeck, he was a research officer at the Centre for Metropolitan History, Institute of Historical Research.
This was a fantastic course, one of the best I have done and I do a lot of them! Many thanks to Mike and all the team. Previous online course student
Course overview
In the two hundred years after the fire London emerged as the world’s greatest city, the metropolitan capital of the largest empire in history, consisting of grand houses and elegant squares, a river teaming with ships from all corners of the globe, and a galaxy of artists, writers, actors, musicians and master craftsmen drawn from all over Europe. Industry came with empire and from the early 1800s new docks, canals, warehouses and eventually railways girded London and sped up the ebb and flow of people and goods. Yet this achievement was marked by widespread social unrest. Events such as the Gordon Riots showed how the London mob could threaten the peace of the prosperous. In response new institutions such as the workhouse, the penitentiary and the police were created to still the grumbling hive, along the way creating a new infrastructure of metropolitan government.
Guest Speakers include: Elizabeth McKellar, author of Landscapes of London: the City, the Country, and the Suburbs 1660-1840; Rosemary Ashton, OBE, author of One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858 and other guest lecturers and V&A curators.
Guest Speakers include: Elizabeth McKellar, author of Landscapes of London: the City, the Country, and the Suburbs 1660-1840; Rosemary Ashton, OBE, author of One Hot Summer: Dickens, Darwin, Disraeli, and the Great Stink of 1858 and other guest lecturers and V&A curators.
V&A Academy. A learning environment you can trust.
Our courses are built using the latest Microsoft software. Tune in to expert lectures live or catch up on demand. Join discussions and continue your learning with downloadable handouts and presentations. Find out more >>
Enrol now
Online course: London 1666-1851: Emporia and Empire (Online)
21 January 2026 - 25 March 2026
£300.00
Need help enrolling? Talk to the admissions team:
+44 (0)20 7942 2000
Open 10.00 - 13.00, Monday to Sunday (closed 24-26 December)
Related events
Header image: Watercolour, St. Paul's Cathedral from below London Bridge, William Payne, Great Britain, ca. 1776-1830. Museum Nr. D.901-1900