News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

Bristol & The Revolutionary Atlantic

A Spot in Time: The Opposition between Terror and the Commons in the Perspective of the Atlantic Revolutions - Peter Linebaugh Was the coincidence on 2 April 1792 in the attempts to abolish the African slave trade and to make the English working class 'a spot of time', to paraphrase William Wordsworth, where vivifying virtue may restore our minds to the sense of right in the midst of fiercest strife, or instances of the perfidy of Albion, splitting the race of Man in twain? What role has the […]

Insurrectionary Bristol: 1932

Revolt of the Unemployed : Bread or Batons in Bristol c. 1932. As unemployment topped 3 million and the Labour government collapsed, benefit cuts and the means test sparked unrest across the country. In 1932 Bristol was briefly at the forefront of the protests which rocked the country. The mass demonstrations met brutal repression including police ambushes and the arrest of key activists. This will discuss the character of the movement, tracing its roots back to the ex-servicemen's protests of […]

Insurrectionary Bristol: 1980

Riots In 1980 St. Pauls in 1980 Southmead in 1980 The events of April 1980: Riot or uprising? How the St. Pauls riot was viewed by the media 1981 : Like a summer with a thousand July's Why is the Southmead riot forgotten?

Author’s Choice: Peter Linebaugh

Magna Carta And The Commons Magna Carta And The Commons. Or, How Bad King John Pretended to Launch a Crusade against Islam in order to better Conceal his Robbery of the People's Hydrocarbon Energy Resources which at the time (1215-17) took the form of Woodlands; and, Whether the Hydrocarbon Energy Resources which in our day (2006) take the form of Petroleum can be Restored to the "communa tocius terre," or not. We may propose three methods of interpreting Magna Carta: in a word, the legal, the […]

The Cunard Yanks & GI Babes

Cunard Yanks Bristol premiere of a Cunard Yanks already shown in Liverpool and New York to popular aclaim. In the early 1950s young, white, Liverpool seamen who worked the Cunard Line, were sailing to New York. Although they did not know it at the time, they were to collide with the explosion of a new cultural scene in the U.S.A. This was the great migration of Afro-Americans to the northern states and the cities of Chicago, Detroit and New York which had brought new music, dance and fashion to […]

Religious Radicals 2: Dorothy Hazzard

Suggested areas of discussion…. The religious/political turmoil of the 17th century Non-conformism and women preachers Hazzard's early life, her beliefs and her non-conformism Hazzard, the English Civil war and the Royalist attack on Bristol Why was Hazzard forgotten and why she should be remembered

Author’s Choice: Mike Manson

'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)

Surfin’ Turnips

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.

Slavery: Resistance & Rebellion 2

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 & Tamango

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 […]