About Us

Keep in touch

If you would like to join our email list please send us an email. We will let you know about Bristol Radical History and other interesting events however, we will not send you lots of junk email. Bristol Radical History Group promise not to pass on your email addresses to anybody else or to use them for anything other than the email list.

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BRHG in a nutshell

Since 2006 BRHG have organised over 500 events; staging walks, talks, gigs, historical recreations, films, exhibitions, trips through the archives and fireside story telling. We have several active research projects, publish a range of books and pamphlets and host an archive on this website.

BRHG projects and events are organised by local people from Bristol and the group is NOT funded by universities, political parties, business or local government. No members of BRHG are paid, we break even by relying on our members giving their labour for free, donations from the audiences and the sale of publications.

BRHG are associated with several other history groups in Bristol including Remembering the Real World War One, Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group and the Countering-Colston Group. BRHG are also a member of the International History From Below Network.

Our philosophy

Bristol Radical History Group was formed in 2006 after the cricket and football teams we were playing for got sick of us going on about the book The Many Headed Hydra and its connections to Bristol. This book inspired us to look into our local history and its connections with the revolutionary Atlantic. We organised the first Bristol Radical History Week in Oct/Nov 2006 with the following aims:

• To open up some of the ‘hidden’ history of Bristol and the West Country to public scrutiny and challenge some commonly held ideas about historical events.
• To approach this history from ‘below’ by examining the actions and perspectives of those involved rather than just accepting contemporary establishment histories.
• To recognise that the history of Bristol is inexorably linked to that of the Atlantic and former British colonies through its seafaring and trading activities.
• To engage academics, local historians and the general public (including children) in the process through lectures, public debates, films and other events.

The events in 2006 were a resounding success and showed that there was a significant public interest in radical history. Since then we have organised more than 500 history related events attended by thousands of people.

Through these events we have both created and expanded into a network of local, regional and international historians, meeting many interesting and supportive people on the way. We would like to say thank you to all those who have helped and inspired us, and wish you all ‘a long life and a merry one’.

Since 2006, BRHG have collectively learned how to research, write and speak about history. We have several active research projects, have produced more than 70 publications ranging from pamphlets to books and have recently began to produce history materials for schools.

Our public events are free or of minimal cost and open for anybody to attend. The talks and walks are given by members of the public, local history groups and visiting expert speakers.