Blog

Petition to give Bristol a slave trade memorial & Abolition Shed on Welsh Back NOT another bar!

By Randell Brantley

Sign the petition. Throughout time Bristol has played a key role in events, ideas and literature that have shaped people’s freedom and parliamentary reform. Previously these topics have been neglected because they don’t quite fit the national narrative. The narrative has to change for the 21st Century. By recognising this there’s a great chance Bristol can lead the way. For a fleeting moment there’s a golden opportunity to make it happen; a vital retelling of the role Bristol has played on the […]

1968 events in 2018

By e2windsor

Bristol Radical History Festival 2018 Poster Dark Large

As the second Bristol Radical History Festival rapidly approaches, it is also worth doing a shout out for several other 1968 events happening in the coming weeks. Remember-Discover-Research-Critique-Celebrate-Commemorate-Repeat and Exceed the <événements> of May 1968! Here’s a quick round-up, but there will be others. National and international events (Tuesday 1st May 2018 onwards) Film screenings: ‘1968 Festival. A festival inspired by ‘1968’ and organised by the Radical Film […]

Video from Bristol Radical History Festival 2017

By Randell Brantley

These videos are of talks that were presented at the Bristol Radical History Festival 2017. Black lives and white mans war Silu Pascoe. Three British Anarchists in America Sheila Rowbotham. Mutiny in world war 1 Julian Putkowski. John Maclean and The War After The War Jim Slaven. Refusing to fight in World War 1 Lois Bibbings and Cyril Pearce. Bristol Women against world war one June Hannam and Bernadette Hyland.

Passing of a star…. Jayne Dentith

By Roger

It is with great sadness that we report the death of Jayne Dentith on 5th July. Jayne was one of the Red Hot Frilly Kickers Can Can troupe who literally kicked off the first ever Bristol Radical History Group event in October 2006. The Frilly Kickers played the role of the ranting women who with radical Quaker preacher James Nayler blasphemously recreated Christ's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday in Bristol in 1656. Jane is shown below protecting James Nayler (Ben) from arrest by […]

The Bristol Riots 1831 and the ‘Picketing of the Bristol Packet’ at Newport

By Randell Brantley

This article was recently published in the excellent Chartism online magazine and is the result of a collaboration between BRHG and David Osmond, Ray Stroud, Peter Strong, Les James, historians from Newport and Cardiff. Our thanks to Les James for authoring the piece and allowing us to reproduce it. Members from the Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) brought their bookstall to the 2016 Newport Chartist Convention held at the John Frost School. Di Parkin, Roger Ball, Maureen Ball, Steve Mills […]

Colston Hall, the first domino goes down…

By Randell Brantley

It's official, today the board of the Bristol Music Trust (BMT) have announced the Colston Hall will be changing its name. Congratulations to the Counter-Colston campaigners and their supporters for all the work they have done over the last few years to highlight this issue. We have been having a laugh today reading some of the reactions... Apparently Tory Councillor Richard Eddy will now be boycotting the hall....is this because he will only go to venues that are named after slave-traders? […]

New WEA Course: History of the Women’s Movement (1968–1988)

By Randell Brantley

New WEA Course: History of the Women’s Movement (1968–1988)

Dr Debi Withers is running a new WEA course in Bristol entitled History of the Women’s Movement (1968 – 1988): An introduction. Details below:

Renaming the Colston Hall: An opportunity to rediscover the hidden history of Bristol

By Randell Brantley

A close up of Colston's face from his statue in Bristol's centre

The following statement by BRHG historians was published in the Bristol Post last week in response to Councillor Richard Eddy's article the week before entitled: Prominent Tory: Renaming Bristol's Colston Hall 'panders to tiny minority'. Almost a century ago in 1920 the Reverend H. J. Wilkins of Westbury-on Trym penned a biography of Edward Colston which began to expose the troubling history surrounding Bristol’s so-called ‘moral saint’ and ‘great philanthropist’. Wilkins was astounded at the […]

The Maltreated and the Malcontents on History Workshop blog

By Roger

The Maltreated and the Malcontents on History Workshop blog

An article posted on History Workshop journal website by Mike Richardson on the Great Western Cotton factory in Barton Hill based upon his recent book The Maltreated and the Malcontents published by BRHG.

The Slave Trader ‘Celebration Season’

By Randell Brantley

The onset of autumn in Bristol sees several idiosyncratic ceremonies, rituals and traditions that remember the locally born slave trader Edward Colston. Whilst public display has in recent years retreated, commemoration and maintenance of a partial historical narrative focused only on philanthropic endeavours persists ‘behind closed doors’. These closed doors are, for the rest of the year, presented to the Bristolian public as some of the most ‘open’ and ‘welcoming’, they include some of the […]

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