Ringleaders and Reds in Khaki - British Army mutinies during the First World War British Military historians and assorted flag-wavers celebrate the enthusiastic rush to the colours; the ensuing blood sacrifice of British Tommies, White Dominion troops and (belatedly) colonial formations and even military labourers. The stereotype of soldiers dutifully marching to their deaths was always a conservative mirage but only a handful of books have drawn attention to the hundreds of thousands of […]
Meet at Bristol Temple Meads station forecourt. Well over 50 people turned up when we put on this walk in July. It was so popular we’re doing it again. So if you enjoyed it so much last time you want to do it again, or you’ve been kicking yourself because you missed it, come along on 2nd October. The walk takes about two hours. It’s mainly on the flat with one short incline. It will finish at Hydra Bookshop in Old Market where tea & coffee will be available as well as several books/pamphlets […]
According to historians of the slave-trade in Bristol there were 'precious few' Abolitionists in the city - but at least there were some and not just in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The last Anglo-Saxon Bishop, St Wulfstan, managed to get the 400 year-old trade of slaves between Bristol and Dublin banned in the 11th Century. Still obscured, the only 'good' story you can get from slavery is the banning of it. Bristol Radical History Group member Mark Steeds will try to shed some light upon the […]
A 2 hour walk around St Philips and the Dings. Alfred Jefferies lived in St Philips before 1914, he was shot for desertion in France On 1st November 1916. We will walk around the area, highlighting forgotten industry, back streets, schools, and social history. The years leading up to 1914 saw a wave of strike action across Britain; at the same time there were fears of war with Germany whipped up by the press and in popular culture. Some like Bristol’s Trade Union Leader Ernest Bevin argued that […]
At the Watershed, 1 Canons Road, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5TX. 1 July 1916 was the first day of the battle of the Somme. That day saw the highest British casualties of any day in World War 1. The battle continued for four months. Over a million men on both sides were killed or wounded. The British and French armies gained six miles of German territory. In August 1916 the government released the film 'Battle Of The Somme'. Sequences in the film were faked and the government specified what music […]
A re-enactment of Walter Ayles' Militry Tribunal Bristol Register Office, Corn Street, BS1 1JG. Walter Ayles was Bristol’s most prominent opponent of World War 1. He was a member of the Independent Labour Party and city councillor for Easton from 1912. When war was declared in 1914 he was the only councillor to vote against a motion offering “whole hearted support” for the war. He became a national executive member of the No-Conscription Fellowship. In April 1916, when conscription was […]
Cyril Pearce is Britain's foremost researcher into World War 1 conscientious objectors (COs) and war resisters. His book 'Comrades in Conscience' looked at the anti-war movement in Huddersfield. Since then, Cyril has extended his work to look for other ‘Huddersfields’ and has created a database of British COs - the Pearce Register of British Conscientious Objectors The database currently contains details of almost 20000 men who refused to fight in the war and is an invaluable tool for any local […]
Captain Jack White DSO attracted adjectives like jam does wasps - flamboyant, gallant, romantic, handsome, idiosyncratic, incorrigible - and every one of them was appropriate. He was a Presbyterian from the northern part of Ireland who fought in the Boer War, became the first commander of the Irish Citizen Army in the 1913 Dublin Lockout, was arrested for sedition during WW1, fell foul of all the police/paramilitary/governmental authorities in Ireland between 1913 and 1936, and participated in […]
Live performance of poem by Heathcote Williams The Red Dagger: the symbol of the City of London's treachery and oppression, paraded about in plain sight for 700 years; but who noticed? A live performance of Heathcote Williams' epic poem depicting the origin of the infamous blade and detailing the depredations of the City of London over the last 650 years. Watch this performance
It is 44 years since the first-ever national building workers strike in Britain. Five months after the strike ended, 24 pickets were picked up and charged with over 200 offences, including unlawful assembly, intimidation and affray. Six of the pickets were also charged with ‘conspiracy to intimidate’. None of the pickets had been cautioned or arrested during the strike. There were no police complaints laid against the pickets at the time. At the first Shrewsbury trial, beginning in October 1973, […]
