7:00pm, Wednesday 28th of May, Spaces Camden

Almost everything in life can be reduced down to data. Facts and figures can open our eyes to the most exciting of possibilities and the most terrifying of threats. No one knows this more than Georgina Sturge. Georgina is the House of Commons Library statistician. When MPs need numbers, they come to her.

Join us as we explore the times the UK has counted itself - from the revolutionary first census of 1801 to modern worries over technological surveillance. Condensing a whole society into numbers brought hidden problems to light: mapping cholera deaths in Soho led researchers to a single deadly water pump and the discovery that industries like firework-making were almost entirely staffed by women helped improve workers' rights.

Records reveal the remarkable presence of escaped American slaves living in nineteenth century Leeds, and that by 1901 there were 600 professional Italian cooks in the UK. Sturge also tracks those who have resisted the state's attempts at tabulation - people burning survey forms, stripping naked in protest and, in the case of 500 Suffragettes, avoiding the 1911 census by skating all night round Aldwych roller rink.

Join us for a night of numbers as we dissect the history of Britain, by the data!

TICKETS:

Members: Live ticket £5, Virtual Ticket £0

Non-members: Live ticket £40, Virtual Ticket £15. Want to become a member? Click Here