I interviewed Florence Exten-Hann in March 1973 and this article appeared in the socialist feminist magazine Red Rag (no.3 1973). It draws also on notes she wrote about her life for a Workers’ Educational Association class in 1968. The original article was subsequently reproduced in a collection of my writings, Dreams and Dilemmas, Virago, 1983. I have modified it somewhat for clarity and added some new comments at the end. My article, ‘She Lived Her Politics’ first appeared in the anarchist […]
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 and Hazel Gower, director and writer of a TV film about Ellen and Rolinda Sharples, in exploring the places where they 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 […]
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 and Hazel Gower, director and writer of a TV film about Ellen and Rolinda Sharples, in exploring the places where they 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 […]
Di Parkin, Secretary of Bristol Radical History Group shares her memories of 1968 from the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and the women’s equal pay strike at Ford's Dagenham to the 'Prague spring', the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia and Enoch Powell’s 'rivers of blood' speech. Watch this talk
Introduction On 11th November 2017 Colston's Girls’ School (CGS) announced that they would not be changing the name of the school, despite its associations with Edward Colston, the Bristol merchant who both organised and profited from the transatlantic slave trade. Colston was a major investor, manager and then deputy-governor of the Royal African Company (RAC) which held a monopoly over the West African slave-trade in the seventeenth century.] During Colston’s time managing and then leading the […]
Not A BRHG Event
Part of Bristol Women’s Voice, International Women’s Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A crèche with two hour slots is available at the venue. Black and Asian women's involvement in the British Suffrage Movement is largely unknown. Similarly, in America, the story of black women's struggles for the vote was omitted from the triumphalist histories written at the time of enfranchisement in 1920. The talk explores my efforts to uncover these stories so […]
Not A BRHG Event
Part of Bristol Women’s Voice, International Women’s Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, at City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A creche with two hour slots is available at the venue. Some writers have claimed that human religion began everywhere with worship of a 'Great Mother Goddess' responsible for fertility of earth and humans. Archaeologists have also looked to find a 'leader' or 'chieftain' in prehistoric communities. But are assumptions about hierarchy in early religion and […]
Not A BRHG Event
Part of Bristol Women's Voice, International Women's Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A crèche with two hour slots is available at the venue. During the 1930’s a small group of ultra-nationalistic women, joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF). Surprisingly some of these women were former high ranking members of the suffragette movement. This short talk looks at the politics of the time, why women may have been attracted to the BUF […]
In Russia in October 1917 the Bolsheviks could rule only in coalition with LEFT SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARIES who's charismatic leader MARIA SPIRIDONOVA was the equal of Lenin. Till April 1918 they maintained a fragile alliance but by June an uprising was inevitable and the outcome uncertain. SPIRIDONOVA maps those few months as tension grows and the divide between Leninism and a more libertarian socialism becomes starker........and fixed in history. Spiridonova is awash with assassins, plotters, […]
Not A BRHG Event
Members of Plan C, who have just returned from volunteering on civil projects in Rojava (the Democratic Confederation of Northern Syria) will be reporting back on Rojava and the wider Kurdish movement. The revolution is based on direct democracy, gender equality and ecology, and seeks to create a solidarity economy. How can we in the West learn from what is happening and offer our solidarity? Followed by question and answer session. We will also be screening some short films in tribute to Mehmet […]
