I enjoyed this book as it is an easy read and Sylvia Mason painted a graphic picture of the times - Mary Frost's shop and home, the 1839 Chartist uprising in Newport, the family, the rallies and the spies. "Were any of the injured men bandaged and fed by the Frost women and helped to get home"? Initially I was a little irritated by the questions Sylvia Mason posed as there was no 'real' evidence, however, I soon appreciated it as a way of telling Mary's story which set the scene of the times as, […]
We are pleased to host this exhibition at the BRHFestival 2022 on 14th May at Mshed. You can view the exhibition from 10am to 4pm, at the Level 2 foyer, inside Mshed. Talk - 2pm at the Level 2 Foyer, Sue Tate, a trustee from the Feminist Archive South, will give a talk about the exhibition, and answer any questions. About the exhibition: Politics and Protest is a dynamic, colourful and inspiring exhibition of 70+ posters selected from Feminist Archive South's collection of over 1000. It was […]
Not A BRHG Event
In the summer of 1797, Citizen John left the shadow of government spies in London to visit Samuel Coleridge in Nether Stowey and then stay in the Stroud area. We recreate Citizen John's adventures with a performative walk around Stroud. Meet at the Lockkeeper's Cafe at Walbridge, Stroud, GL5 3JS at 1.00pm (2 min walk from Stroud Train Station). A leisurely walk along the Stroudwater Canal and then a climb to Rodborough Common. We then descend to The Prince Albert for a pint or two. Probably […]
Not A BRHG Event
A Night of Solidarity with Myanmar takes place at The Cube on 2nd March from 7.30pm - get tickets here. Early arrivals will enjoy some 'Myanmar snacks' cooked up by members of the Myanmar community in Bristol. Hosted by the local #WithMyanmar support group on FB, it's aim is to spread awareness, information & understanding of the current situation in Myanmar (aka Burma), and generate support for it's people resisting the Military Coup there on 1st February 2021. That Military Coup followed […]
This ‘supremely singable’ collection of 120 songs with musical settings should ‘enlighten and enliven our discussions and our singing in equal measure’ (Oskar Cox Jensen, Historian, UEA) At the heart of ‘Again with One Voice’ are the words and melodies of a remarkable collection of one hundred and twenty British songs from the turbulent hundred years that culminated with the Second Reform Act of 1868. The collection charts a century of working-class struggle for democracy and political reform […]
Not A BRHG Event
Court drama, pioneering photography and toppling statues...Newport Chartist Convention 2021 The annual Newport Chartist Convention will take place at St Woolos Cathedral 105 Stow Hill, Newport NP20 4ED, UK. There is a full programme of lectures, with guest speakers including Professor Joan Allen on Legality and Injustice in the Age of the Chartists, with reference to Regina v Frost in 1840; Roger Ball and Mark Steeds will discuss the Rise and Fall of Edward Colston; and Dave Steele will look at […]
Elizabeth I claimed that she had “no desire to open windows into men’s souls” while seeking to do just that. This pamphlet traces the way British governments have been snooping into the lives of its citizens ever since, culminating in the recent insidious Spy Cops Bill. State Snooping: Spooks, Cops and Double Agents, is the 51st in our series of BRHG pamphlets. It's the latest by one of our regular authors Colin Thomas. You can buy the pamphlet here for £3.00 inc p&p. State Snooping provides […]
In 1827, radical journalist James Acland launched the West Country’s first daily newspaper. He called it The BRISTOLIAN. Undercutting the advertising rates of existing weekly papers, conducting a lively letter column and breaking the law by publishing at one and a half pence without paying the newspaper stamp tax, Acland’s publication was a muck-raking popular radical paper for the working classes. The paper concentrated on exposing the abuses both of the unreformed Corporation which ran Bristol […]
How did Bristolians respond to the democratic ideas unleashed by the French Revolution? This talk rejects the conventional view that the city’s labouring classes were uninterested in progressive politics and argues on the contrary that the relatively low profile of radical organisations reflects not indifference but the determination of the local authorities to keep them under surveillance and obstruct them. From the founding of the Constitutional Society in 1792 to the mass outdoor meetings […]
The trial and execution of Charles I in 1649 has in the past been portrayed as the outcome of a crazed 'bloodlust' for revenge by supporters of parliament. This simplistic and dubious narrative obscures more than it reveals, and what is hidden by it is quite remarkable. Norah Carlin's new book Regicide or Revolution? What Petitioners Wanted, September 1648 - February 1649 is a collection and examination of the petitions from numerous units of the New Model Army and commoners around England in […]
