Third Course

Join Dr Alessandra Pino and Dr Dan O’Brien on a journey into the murky depths of London’s culinary and funerary past. From butchered whales washed ashore to bottles dredged from disaster sites, and from the feasting tables of the living to the memento mori traditions that remind us the human body is ultimately food for worms, this talk explores how the Thames bears witness to centuries of consumption and decay. Along the way, we’ll examine the river’s shifting shoreline for clues- fragments of lost lives and meals that once sustained the capital. Step aboard and follow the current into a rich, unsettling story of what (and who) London has eaten.

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Dr Dan O'Brien

Dr Dan O’Brien is a historian of death and funerary culture, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath. His research focuses on the development of the undertaking trade in eighteenth-century England, exploring how funerals, mourning goods, and death rituals shaped social life and popular culture. Dan regularly speaks and writes on the history of burial practices, the material culture of death, and the role of undertakers before the Victorian era.