'Riot!' The Bristol Bridge Massacre of 1793. Mike Manson author of 'Riot!' The Bristol Bridge Massacre of 1793 talks about the riot and massacre that were a result of toll gates on the Bristol Bridge. Listen to this talk: Download this talk (7 Mb mp3 file)
The Surfin' Turnips will bring a shredding ramonewurzel pirate punk to the outcasts of the nations of the earth in Bristol Radical History Week, bring your prize veg. The Surfin' Turnips also played on Sunday 4th November.
Sugar and Tobacco: Drugs of Capitalism - Dave Cullum This lecture studies the impact of Bristol's international trade on the developing industrial economy of England in the 18th and 19th centuries, with a focus on diet, nutrition and addiction amongst the new urban proletariat…. Listen to this talk: Download this lecture The Anti-slavery Movements in Bristol - Madge Dresser There were three anti-slavery campaigns in Bristol between the late eighteenth and the early twentieth centuries: the […]
Clarkson This film tells the story of an unsung hero in the fight to abolish slave trading and is set in Bristol in 1787. Although Wilberforce has won public acclaim for finally outlawing the trade, it was Thomas Clarkson who provided him with much of the data that he used to back up the cause. The film is one of contrast: between the pious young divinity student, straight out of University, and the bawdy taverns and rough slave port where he conducted his fact-finding. Clarkson 'grows up' as […]
West Country Slavery (700-1150) - Chris Brian Slavery in England is little known about, neither is the fact that in medieval times the West Country had a very high proportion of it's population enslaved. The talk highlights West Country slavery, including the early establishment of Bristol as a slave trading post. It also explores who was likely to become a slave in medieval England, and asks what were the conditions like for these slaves, compared to other slave cultures. Slave Revolts - Edson […]
Based on the 1962 David Caute novel Comrade Jacob. This film deals with some of the life story of the 17th Century revolutionary and writer Gerard Winstanley, who, along with a small band of followers known as The Diggers tried to establish a self-sufficient farming community on common land at St. George's Hill near Cobham in Surrey (wikipedia). Directed by Andrew Mollo and Kevin Brownlow, this is a true masterpiece of British Independent Cinema. The talent of these two film makers […]
The Watchman: Coleridge, Beddoes and the radical 1790s in Bristol - Mike Jay During 1795-6, Bristol's popular protests against Pitt's 'Reign of Terror' were led by two remarkable figures, both recent arrivals in the city: the radical doctor Thomas Beddoes and the young lecturer and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together they campaigned against the government's crackdown on free speech and public assembly, and collaborated on The Watchman, a journal which risked prosecutions for sedition by […]
Generously, Bristol Museum allowed a special viewing of a series of paintings, water colours and engravings depicting the 1831 Queens Square uprisings and their aftermath. Artists such as William James Müller (1812-1845) and J. B. Pyne were present at the events and recorded them for your viewing pleasure. Sheena Stoddard the Curator of Fine Art and an expert on Bristol painters also gave a talk about the paintings.
For the whole week there was a display of historic radical journals from Bristol such as Coleridge's Journal The Watchman and the original Bristolian. There was also be a special viewing, conducted by Jane Bradley the Local Studies Librarian, of the Bristol Room which contains among other things Judge Jeffreys' (the 'Hanging Judge') chair - 2pm on Monday 30th October. The Bristol Room is designed as a memorial to the old library in King Street. It contains the original bookcases and fireplace […]
An exhibition opening on Sunday 29th October including prints of the 1831 uprising, images from slave rebellions, photographs from the 1987 uprising in St. Pauls and an actual cell door (complete with prisoner's graffiti) from the Bristol city jail (cira 1840). The Exhibition includes A Luta Continua (The Struggle Continues) by Bandele Iyapo (artist and "trouble maker"). This consists of works in a variety of media including a collection of montages critiquing the inability of Bristol's […]
