Bristol History Podcast is dedicated to exploring various aspects of Bristol’s history. Produced in partnership with the Bristol Cable since April 2018. Episodes include Tom Brothwell’s interviews and conversations with Bristol Radical History Group members and many others.
Subject Index: History (Theory & Practice)
The content on this site is put into subject categories. These pages list content filed under each subject. You can also use the Tag Index to see a full list of keywords used on the site.
Turning local history into theatre
The story of Hannah Wiltshire
This meeting brings together local historians, and writer and director Ingrid Jones of the Bedminster based acta Community Theatre. We will discuss the process from the seed of an idea, to research, devising, scripting, rehearsal and performance. We will also consider the difficulties of doing 'history from below', researching periods beyond living memory, where to find the voices of people and how to create a script and theatre piece from this. This will be an open discussion with plenty of […]
History From Below in Schools
In recent years, Bristol Radical History Group and the Remembering the Real World War 1 group (RRWW1) have been working with teachers in Bristol on resource material about resistance to World War 1 and, lately, workhouses. This session will set out what has been achieved so far and invite debate about what we, and others involved in education, can do in the future to introduce radical histories, histories ‘from below’ and 'hidden histories' to young people.
Listen Up! How to do a successful oral history project
Oral history creates space for the voices of ordinary people and overlooked communities to make a contribution to the historical record. It creates new primary sources which, although always subjective, provide rich and compelling narratives. What’s more, oral history offers new and exciting interpretive opportunities, from embedded QR codes that make exhibitions speak via your smartphone to the ever growing history podcast market. This panel discussion on the pleasures and pitfalls of oral […]
Choose your own adventure: digital play and history from below
How can digital technologies help us to think more creatively about making radical histories from below? This talk considers the use of immersive ‘real world’ digital tools, not only in the reconstruction of radical pasts, but in challenging the conservatism of the ‘authoritative voice’ in mainstream ‘top-down’ history. Historically-based games with open-ended outcomes, it is suggested, invite audiences to think more critically about the ways in which evidence might be pieced together in the […]
What can we learn about mental health care from Bristol’s psychiatric hospital?
In 1861, Bristol’s Lunatic Asylum opened its doors and 164 pauper patients transferred from the workhouse. What treatment did this new state-of-the-art hospital provide, and how did it evolve over the next 130 years until closing in 1994? Stella Mann of the Glenside Hospital Museum, housed in the old asylum chapel, will talk about the evolution of Bristol’s mental health provision from the Victorian age to the present day. History can be discovered through many different routes. Every […]
Putting History on Television
Producer/directors David Parker and Colin Thomas have both challenged conventional approaches to television history in their productions: David by tapping into home movie archives and by seeking out 'history from below' contributors in West Country series like Reel Lives; and Colin by including different historical perspectives within the same programme. Michael Sheen described The Dragon Has Two Tongues, a series on Welsh history which Colin made for Channel 4, as “one of the greatest history […]
Haunting Ashton Court
A Creative Handbook for Collective History Making
“Mishmash” is the term the authors of this book use to describe their various working methods. It is also an accurate description of the book itself which contains not only the performance script of the Haunting Ashton Court production but also its sources and inspiration, some creative writing, a toolkit for similar productions and a wise afterword. Plus – totally new to me – QR code sections that enable a reader with a smart phone to see and hear parts of the live production. I confess that […]
Making History Then and Now – Bristol Broadsides and Haunting Ashton Court
Two influential projects, one from the past and one from the present.....
We are very pleased to have Ian Bild a founding member of the influential Bristol Broadsides and the cast, researchers and organisers of the recent Haunting Ashton Court project speaking and performing at M Shed. Bristol Broadsides was a non-profit making publishing co-operative founded in 1977. Its aims were best summed up by the Hut Writers from the Southmead council estate in their book Corrugated Ironworks: For too long we’ve been sitting back, complacently accepting everything that has been […]
The role of Museums in constructing our understanding of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
As I worked on gathering pertinent words that will appear in the index of my forthcoming book: The Journal of Captain Thomas Phillips of Brecon, the Slave Ship Hannibal, and all who Sailed on Her (1693-1695) the key word ‘museum’ appears on my list. Why had a word associated with exhibition interjected itself into a narrative of events that had occurred nearly 330 years ago? To answer this question, I refer to the plaque commissioned by Brecon Town Council in 2010 to honour the life of the slave […]