Sheila Caffrey will talk about some of the picket lines and broader campaigns seen in Bristol in the last couple of years, and some of the bigger protests and how these have also affected the mood e.g. Black Lives Matter and COP-26, and the role Trades Unions have (or could have!) played in these. Sheila Caffrey is an active trade unionist in Bristol. She first got involved with Bristol Trades Council 15 years ago, after becoming a teacher and a campaigner in the National Union of Teachers […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Twentieth century artist Doris Hatt (1890-1969) was a woman ahead of her time. She was a feminist and socialist, and a pioneer of modernism in Britain, but her life and work have been under-appreciated until the last few years. Doris Hatt was born in Bath, but after World War I she moved to Clevedon with her mother, where they established their home, Littlemead. When her mother died in 1929 Doris’s partner Margery Mack Smith, a school teacher and weaver, came to live with Doris, beginning a 40 […]
The Bristol Tramways Lock-Out, 1901 - Rob Whitfield In the summer of 1901 the Bristol Tramways Company sacked 90 employees who had recently joined the Gasworkers’ and General Labourers’ Union. Another 300 tramways employees went on strike in support of their dismissed fellow workers. This action by the Tramways Company was a direct challenge to the trade union movement in Bristol and beyond, and the wider labour movement rallied in support of the tramwaymen. The company threw all the resources […]
Reel Lives (6 x 25 mins) is a six part series that tells the social history of the 1930s to the 1960s of Bristol and Somerset through home movies and the stories of ordinary people. It was produced by David Parker of Available Light for HTV Bristol. A must for all Bristolians.
The Women For Life on Earth march took place in 1982 and as we pass 2022, 40 years later we are drawn back to the work of Monica Sjöö, artist, activist and writer, who continued to hope that the struggle, courage and sacrifices, particularly of women imbued with Her trust in the Goddess would make the difference to our protection of Gaia, our Earth Mother. Monica was a Swedish born visual artist, resident in Bristol and her paintings and writing were foundational to the development of feminist […]
The 1963 bus boycott against the Bristol Omnibus Company (BOC) was the first black-led campaign against racial discrimination in post-WW2 Britain. In the early 1960s,the black citizens of Bristol were experiencing racial discrimination in housing, employment, education, and welfare organisations. The one area of discrimination that particularly rankled was the 'colour bar' on the buses. A small group of local black activists decided to campaign for equal rights to employment on the city's buses. […]
Swords into Ploughshares (60min, 2018) is an edited version of The Plan, a documentary made by Steve Sprung. It tells the story of how and why Lucas Aerospace workers in the 1970s evolved a Corporate Plan to change their output from those that serviced the armaments industry to socially useful products like kidney machines, heat pumps and wind turbines. An excellent film exposing a hidden history of great relevance for today. A compliment to the talk by Andy Danford.
