Kingsbury Coffee Morning: Memoir from Mugsborough

Well-known Brent local historian, Philip Grant, takes us back to his home town of "Mugsborough", as it was called in the novel written in and about the town during the first decade of the 20th century.

The book tells the story of life as experienced by the author and his workmates (the unwitting philanthropists of the title), when men in the building trade earned barely enough to live on, and if you were out of work your family could go hungry. It is also the fascinating story of Tressell himself (not his real surname), of places in the town that still appear exactly as they were in the novel, and how the book came to be published, but only after Tressell's early death.

The National Year of Reading 2026 is an ideal time to rediscover "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists". It is a book everyone should read at least once in their life, and if you have not read it before, this richly illustrated talk will encourage you to read it now, either in its original text or in its modern graphic novel format.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage