In 1902-03 Lenin paid the first of several visits to London on this occasion with his wife Krupskaya. He lodged just off Kings Cross Rd in Islington and spent much time consulting books in the old Round Reading Room of the British Museum. His studies led to the book Materialism and Empiro Criticism.
However Lenin also liked to get out and about- he stayed in London for a year- and as Krupskaya revealed in a later memoir enjoyed trips to Primrose Hill in North London on the bus. They normally rode on the top deck observing London life and people something you can still do today if your knees are up to getting up the stairs (mine are-just)
We were in the habit of going for rambles in the suburbs too. More often than not we went to Primrose Hill. It was the cheapest trip – the fare only costing sixpence. The hill commanded a view of almost the whole of London – a vast smoke-wreathed wilderness of houses. From here we took long walks into the parks and country lanes. Another reason we liked going to Primrose Hill was because it was near the cemetery where Karl Marx was buried. We used to go there.
London 1902-1903 Krupskaya
For more detail on Lenin in London see Bob Henderson’s recent London Socialist Historians Seminar:
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