Events Archive - Page 4 of 60 - Bristol Radical History Group

Copper, Coal and Colonizers: The Welsh in the West Country and their impact on Bristol’s past

Exploring the Welsh people and places that helped shape the city’s history, from colonists to Chartists, enslavers to abolitionists – with the odd pirate and colonial governor thrown in for good measure. A two hour walk from M Shed to the Colston stump via Welsh Back and the Llandoger Trow. Meet outside the front of M Shed.

War on Democracy: Loyalist Propaganda in Britain after the French Revolution

When groups advocating democratic reform in Britain grew and prospered after revolution in France in the 1790s, William Pitt’s government responded with a ruthless programme of repression. Centred on prosecutions for seditious language and High Treason, the loyalist offensive was nourished throughout by anti-gallican, anti-republican propaganda. Tom Paine was burnt in effigy the length and breadth of the country, reformers beaten up by gangs of loyalist thugs, conservative tracts widely […]

The General Strike in Bristol: an introduction

In May 2026 we mark the centenary of the General Strike. This talk will cover the events of those nine days in Bristol and put them in their national context. We will also look at the miners' lock-out which began before and lasted longer than the General Strike.

Putting Welsh history on TV

This talk with video extracts, will look at attempts to turn the complexities of Welsh history into accessible television. It will include clips from Horrible Histories, Huw Edwards’s The Story of Wales and the ground-breaking and much-loved series, The Dragon Has Two Tongues in which Wynford Vaughan Thomas and Professor Gwyn Alf Williams offered two very different versions of Welsh history. The latter series, produced and directed by Colin Thomas in 1985, was recently described by […]

Documenting Bristol communities in the 1980s

A selection of social documentary photographs of community life in Bristol in the 1980s by Carrie Hitchcock. Featuring Barton Hill Youth Club, Lockleaze and St Werburghs in the 1980s and 1990s.

Abolitionist, Quaker, Sailor, Dwarf and Revolutionary—Becoming Benjamin Lay

Benjamin Lay (1682-1759) was a Quaker abolitionist (and dwarf) and one of the first people to demand the immediate emancipation of enslaved people worldwide. Scorned in his own day and since for his radicalism, he was until recently almost completely unknown among historians and the general public. Becoming Benjamin Lay, directed by Tony Buba and produced by Professor Marcus Rediker, asks, what can Lay’s life tell us about living with courage and conviction in dark times? Book a place here. This […]

Garden suburbs of Bristol

Steve Hunt, author of Bristol Radical History Group book, Yesterday’s To-morrow: Bristol’s Garden Suburbs, will discuss the principles and practical impact of the garden-city movement in our city at April’s North Bristol History Society meeting. The 1918 Tudor Walters Report came with the well-known aspiration to build “homes fit for heroes” after the First World War. The interwar council housing boom that followed shaped much of the development of Bristol as we know it today. It aimed to create […]

Gafael Tir – A history of land rights and protest in Wales

Gafael Tir, the Welsh sister show to the popular Three Acres and a Cow, is presented in collaboration with Bristol Radical History Group. The show explores the history of ‘y werin’ (the Welsh common folk) and their struggle for a better life. Their tales are told and old ballads sung as we meet kings, crossdressing farmers, radical preachers, land workers and unions; a thousand years of history. Drawing on Welsh folk arts, the show touches on politics, human rights, freedom of thought and […]

The Spies Who Ruined Our Lives

In collaboration with the Bristol Radical History Group, we take a deep-dive into the SpyCops scandal. For over 40 years, British undercover agents spied on people in the UK and many other countries. The police unit infiltrated more than 1,000 activist groups (and victims including the family of Stephen Lawrence). To carry out their spying, the police stole the identities of deceased children. Under false identities, they started relationships with women, had sexual relations and even children. […]

The Centenary of the 1926 General Strike

May 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of the nine day ‘General Strike’. This solidarity action was an attempt by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to prevent wage reductions and increasingly bad working conditions for 1.2 million coal miners who had already been locked-out by their employers. Around 1.7 million workers, mainly in transport and heavy industry, responded and the country was confronted with explicit class war. “I will not see the strikers’ own food left to rot!” Chris Bowkett from the […]