My article, A patchwork panel ‘shown at the Great Exhibition’, has just gone up on the V&A Online Magazine. It takes a small textile in the V&A collections as the starting point for an exploration of working peoples’ cultural lives, and the practice of exhibiting ‘rarities’ for money, in the years between 1830 and 1860. This research uncovered links between patchwork, Temperance and the fight for voting rights. It also showed that while the Great Exhibition of 1851 brought together working people and the middle classes, this meeting was not always harmonious, with middle-class commentators deriding the tastelessness of goods designed by workers. Finally, it introduced me to some fascinating characters such as John Brayshaw the Lancaster tailor, John Monro the tailor and Temperance lecturer, and Stephen Stokes the Inspector in the Irish Police – all of whom made pictorial patchworks!