As told to Patrick Allen

I came to live in Tolmers Square through Vince (Vincent Hetreed). We had become friends at Corpus Christi College, Oxford where I studied Classics and English, graduating in 1973. I then spent a year in Italy and, following this, enrolled on a postgraduate course at the Warburg Institute called grandly Combined Historical Studies in the Renaissance. Professor Ernst Gombrich was the Institute Director. In his welcoming address to us he said ‘if you want to become art historians leave now and go to the Courtauld: we do cultural and intellectual history here, not art history’.

I was interested in industrial archaeology and spent time wandering around Docklands with a camera watching warehouses being pulled down and taking a lot of photographs to record the process. I recall seeing a toilet in (I think) the East India Docks bearing a chalked sign ‘whites only’, but I cannot find a photograph so perhaps did not have a camera with me at that time.  

Vince had opened up the semi-industrial second floor on the south side of Tolmers Square. Four houses (nos 19, 20, 21, 22) had been converted to horizontal use as offices or light industrial and were now empty. 

Vince was deemed to be in charge of the space and was very happy for me to occupy a room. It was extremely convenient for the Warburg which was a short stroll away across the Euston Road. After ascending the stairs of No 19 to the second floor, one turned right into a kitchen, then a large room which was Vince’s, then a suite of 3 or 4 ‘rooms’, separated by a series of large orange sheets. I had the first of these. It had windows looking out onto Tolmers Square. I became a fixture for 2 years, as others came and went. For much of the time I lived with Christine Burden (now Hall), who later had an eminent career at the British Library.

We had electricity and running water. There weren’t great collective meals at number 19 but Vince and I mostly ate together.

Seeking the legal and moral high ground I attempted to pay some rates to Camden Council which ended disastrously. I sent them a cheque; more than a year later, long after I had left the Square, I was arrested for non-payment of rates on the whole building of four houses. I needed legal help to get me out of trouble and a jail sentence for not paying. 

In 1975, when Joe Levy served eviction notices on 27 houses, I attended meetings about dealing with the press but was not comfortable with the approach and pulled back from activism. We had the International Socialists and the International Marxist Group amongst us vying for position. I was not directly threatened with eviction and did not need to attend court, but I did appear in the group campaign photograph.

The course at the Warburg started in the autumn of 1974 and ran for 2 years. I then went on to an MA in Museum Studies with English Local History at Leicester University but visited London and Christine regularly. 

I then moved to Greenwich where I took a job at the National Maritime Museum. I bought a house there. I moved on to the British Museum where, over ten years, I became a specialist in the ”lesser arts” of the European Renaissance – small sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, enamels, glass… In 1987 the Museum hosted my exhibition `Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance’.

I moved to Oxford in 1990 as Keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum and I and my family (wife Jane, children Alastair, Julia, David) have been based here ever since. I was a fellow of Balliol College and Professor of the Arts of the Renaissance. I made many visits to Italy and I write interminable books on Renaissance pottery (see Tim’s website). Though now retired from the Ashmolean I keep on with my work and have done two recent exhibitions and others in Vienna and Urbino are (as of March 2022) about to open. These days I concentrate on French and Italian Renaissance ceramics.

Memorable Tolmers moments:

I remember Rastafarians coming round selling sausages which were stained blue – was this because they were designated as dog food? We ate them without ill effects.

It is me in the photograph sitting on a chair in the square surrounded by self sown yellow flowers, reading a book in the sunshine.

Vince brought two high class call girls for supper which was typical Vince. However there was no free service at the end of the dinner.

Nick Wates asked me to write the history chapter for his book ‘The Battle for Tolmers Square’. I was pleased when Simon Jenkins in his review called it ‘the excellent historic chapter of this book’. (See Tim’s local history chapter here). My research was done at Swiss Cottage library. I did not do doorstep history talking to tenants and recording their stories with a tape recorder which I now regret. 

Did Tolmers change my life?

I changed from being a straightforward academic and amateur lefty to being someone who believed that the skills I had could be put at the service of urban communities. If the London dockland museum project had been carried out by the National Maritime Museum, I would have had a big role in that; but in fact the Museum of Docklands in the West India Docks was carried through, brilliantly, by Chris Elmers of the Museum of London. 

But I still managed to be involved in community action. In Oxford I became chair of a group trying to restore the canal basin which Lord Nuffield built over. So far we haven’t succeeded. It is currently a car park.

Living in Tolmers was a big leg up – to live for over two years rent free with a grant for my studies at the Warburg made a huge difference.

Read more about the author Tim Wilson