History is important, people are important and individuals are important. When people pass, we have moments of instant memorialisation, the obituaries are written, and then often we forget, or the memory of that person passes into the background as the noise and bustle of life continues. We can forget the impact, the power, the energy and the force that people can wield with their creative endeavours. Mark Stewart is someone we must never forget, but also one whose impact and legacy are all […]
From local councillor to welfare benefits adviser, radio presenter and campaigner for the rights of older people, Judith is a dynamo who doesn’t stop, despite being in her eighties. Judith was interviewed by Trish Mensah for the Activist Memories series, supported by Bristol Older People’s Forum. The Activist Memories series captures, through oral history interviews, the life experience of those who have fought for a better world.
This panel considers the work of contemporary artists who have had an influence and impact on Bristol but sought little exposure for themselves. Two artists who have recently passed away, Steve Philbey and Tony Forbes, certainly fit the bill, as do the activities of the Bristol Refugee Artists Collective. Steve Philbey (1943 - 2022) was a painter, muralist, graphic artist, photographer and founder/chronicler of The Saint-Just Mob. And also variously a factory worker, Father Christmas, painter […]
Andy Danford brings to life his experience as a worker and senior union representative in Bristol’s arms industry during the 1970s and 1980s. During these two decades, life on the shop and office floors, and the strength of workplace trade unionism, shifted dramatically, as the advent of Thatcherism marked the beginning of the sustained attack on worker and union rights which extends to this day. Against this background of change, Andy provides a rich account of the actions of rank-and-file […]
A walking tour as part of Bristol Radical History Festival Meet at the MShed front entrance at 4.00pm. Finish at the Louisiana around 5:30pm. Bristol’s city centre has been a focus for squatters making a political point: on housing need and homelessness, in solidarity with strikes, in solidarity with land struggles and in defence of the natural environment. This short tour includes five buildings squatted in the Harbourside, Old Town and Redcliffe in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and […]
What is the connection between the Bristol Sharples family of artists, the American Revolution of the 1780s and the Royal West of England Academy of Art? Join Lee Cox in exploring the places where Ellen and Rolinda Sharples lived and worked at the beginning of the 19th century. Rolinda became the only female member of the Bristol School of Narrative Artists, whilst the Sharples family little known legacy led to the establishment of equal art training opportunities for women alongside men […]
An urban walk that explores the political reverberations of the first cholera outbreak in Bristol in 1832. The 1830s was a time of radical political and social division in Britain. At this moment a terrible disease arrived in the country – the Cholera Morbus. It seemed to afflict old and young alike, doctors were baffled by its cause, and for some of its victims it led to a terrible end. The walk examines the social, economic, cultural and political impacts of the epidemic in the South West. The […]
Catch Bristol’s wonderful Red Notes Choir, who will support the Bristol Radical History Festival by performing at 11:30am. They’ll be singing in the Ground Floor Foyer by the M Shed main entrance. The Red Notes Choir is a Bristol-based socialist choir. They have a repertoire of songs from around the world on historical, union, peace, green and human rights themes. “We use the streets of Bristol and further afield to spread our message of fighting for the rights of working people, those who are […]
The unveiling of a blue plaque to Hilda Cashmore, the first warden of Bristol's Barton Hill Settlement, took place at noon on 8 March, 2023 (International Women's Day). A Quaker, feminist, social reformer and educator, whose work led to her election as the first woman president of the British Association of Residential Settlements, Cashmore was one of a number of influential women social reformers in early twentieth-century Bristol. After the unveiling, Helen Meller, author of the BRHG book […]
Art and Labour William Morris (1834-1896) was, and is, one of England’s most famous nineteenth-century socialists. On the 3rd March 1885, the famous Victorian designer came to Bristol to deliver a talk on “Art and Labour,” at the Museum and Art Gallery. Addressed particularly to the workers of the city, the event was sponsored by the Bristol Branch of the Socialist League. His words as an artist and thinker could not have been more relevant at a time when the British Empire was on the ascendent, […]
