Poor Law Relief and Miners’ Lockouts in the Forest of Dean
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‘I fear there will be blood spilt this evening’: The Blandford Forum riots of 1831
In October 1831, the refusal of the House of Lords to pass new legislation for the reform of parliament plunged the whole country into a deep political crisis. Rioting broke out in a number of towns, leaving local authorities hard pressed to restore order. One such town was Blandford Forum in Dorset. Here, protesting crowds attacked the property of anti-reformers, defied the orders of local magistrates to disperse, and fought with an armed cavalry regiment sent out to tackle them. In the […]
Bristol (mini) Anarchist Bookfair
At The Exchange on Sunday 24th November
Not A BRHG Event
The Bristol Anarchist Bookfair Collective (BABC) has been reformed after a hiatus of several years. They return with this mini-Bookfair event at The Exchange, 72-73 Old Market Street, Bristol BS2 0EJ, from 10.30 to 3.30pm...and are promising a mega-Bookfair in 2025. BRHG's book stall will be out and about at The Exchange - so come by and say hello! From the FB Event, the Collective state: Inspired by Active Distro's Radical Bookfairs we're hosting an event at Exchange this winter. A chance to […]
Book launch: City of Swimmers
A radical history of Bristol’s pools, lidos and wild swimming
In the 1930s, the Bristol Baths Committee announced its aspiration “Every Bristolian a swimmer”, setting a target that every home should have a swimming facility within a mile. City of Swimmers is a verrucas-and-all history of swimming in Bristol, from the eighteenth-century Rennison’s Baths in Montpelier to the beautiful historic Jacob’s Wells and Bristol South baths, and the mostly overlooked pools in more recent leisure centres. Readers may have memories of a world of award patches, metal […]
Pamphlet launch: Parent Power
The fight against school closures in south Bristol, 2000–2001
At the beginning of this century, residents of Hartcliffe and Withywood in Bristol were shocked to hear that the city council planned to close two of their local primary schools. Children, parents and teachers, including Mike Richardson, the author of this pamphlet, mobilised to oppose these closures. The ensuing campaign organised public meetings, wrote petitions and held demonstrations in the city centre, as well as adopting some less orthodox direct action in their bitter determination to […]
Book launch: Hartcliffe Betrayed
The long awaited launch of Paul Smith's book Hartcliffe Betrayed: The fading of a poast-war dream, or how a garden city became a housing estate, 1943-1963. A salutary lesson for current planners can be drawn from this detailed examination of the failure of an ambitious project in the immediate post-war environment to live up to its expectations. Houses were desperately needed: What principles should underpin a new ‘settlement’? Where should the houses go? Who were they for? And what provision […]
Bristol Miners Support Campaign Archive: Appeal for Artefacts
Looking back to the Miners’ Strike and the Bristol Miners Support Group In March 1984 the publicly owned National Coal Board provoked Britain’s miners into a year-long strike by announcing the closure of twenty of Britain’s 173 coal mines. The strike was defeated and within 20 years Britain’s last deep coal mine had closed. 200,000 jobs were lost and hundreds of working-class communities were laid waste. Looking back 40 years later, it is easy to think that, despite the high price paid by the […]
Bristol History Podcast
Bristol History Podcast is dedicated to exploring various aspects of Bristol’s history. Produced in partnership with the Bristol Cable since April 2018. Episodes include Tom Brothwell’s interviews and conversations with Bristol Radical History Group members and many others.
The 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott
A struggle for racial justice In 1963, activists from the West Indian Development Council (WIDC) had their suspicions confirmed that Bristol Omnibus Company operated a colour bar on the employment of drivers and conductors. But who was behind this? Management? Workers? Unions? Passengers? Silu Pascoe explores the background and the ensuing campaign to end the blatant discrimination on the buses. “I was there!” One of the young activists was Joyce Morris-Wisdom. In this pamphlet, she tells of her […]
City of Sanctuary?
Seeking refuge in Bristol
Bristol has been host to refugees for centuries—but just how welcoming has the city been? The events of the first week of August 2024 follow a pattern that stretches back centuries—refugees and asylum seekers seeking refuge in Bristol and encountering hostility from some, but a welcome from others. Colin Thomas’s short history charts the reception given to those fleeing war and persecution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first, outlines the stories of organisations that have developed […]