Book Launch | Before Grenfell: Fire, Safety and Deregulation in Twentieth-Century Britain

On 14 June 2017, flames engulfed a residential block of flats in West London. Seventy-two people lost their lives and many hundreds more were traumatised as a housing safety crisis unfolded across the country. Yet the Grenfell Tower fire was a disaster foretold – the culmination of successive decades of deregulation, corporate greed and institutional failure to learn from the lessons of past multiple-fatality fires. Commended in the House of Commons, Before Grenfell: Fire, Safety and Deregulation in Twentieth-Century Britain(Opens in new window) (published in 2023 by the University of London on open-access) deepens our understanding of the events surrounding the disaster and reveals how the housing crisis has been going on a long time—the result of either deliberate Government policy or Government neglect to give public safety the priority it deserves.

This panel event, sponsored by the IHR and History & Policy(Opens in new window), will include:

Shane Ewen - Author (Professor of History, Leeds Beckett University)
Peter Apps (journalist and author of the Orwell Prize winning book, Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen)
Deborah Garvie (Policy Manager at Shelter)
Andy Slaughter (Labour MP for Westminster and a Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fire Safety and Rescue).

Speakers will discuss the past, present and future of housing safety and fire policy - with the aim to heed the lessons of the past in protecting communities whilst also contributing to improved policymaking.

The event will be chaired by Philip Murphy, director of History & Policy.