BRHG Mayday event: When Bristol Fought Back

Printers, Trams and Trade Unions

To celebrate Mayday and three new Bristol Radical History Group publications focusing on the vibrant labour history of Bristol we are bringing the authors together at Tony Benn House for an early evening event. Deference and Dissent: Labour relations in a family firm by Mike Richardson is a study of the printing and publishing company J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd from 1855 to 1927, providing a window into the working lives of compositors, letterpress machinists, and bookbinders and their relationships […]

Voices of the Bristol Crisis Service for Women

This multimedia display allows visitors to hear the voices of current and former staff and volunteers of groundbreaking feminist mental health service, the Bristol Crisis Service for Women. Now known as Self Injury Support, this pioneering group was started in the back of a charity shop in Easton as a feminist collective in 1986. Its goals were to listen to, support, and amplify the voices of women using self injury to cope with their experience of trauma. In 2022, as part of an oral history […]

History From Below in Schools

In recent years, Bristol Radical History Group and the Remembering the Real World War 1 group (RRWW1) have been working with teachers in Bristol on resource material about resistance to World War 1 and, lately, workhouses. This session will set out what has been achieved so far and invite debate about what we, and others involved in education, can do in the future to introduce radical histories, histories ‘from below’ and 'hidden histories' to young people.  

Stokes Croft Squatted

  Squatting is central to Bristol's history. For the last 50 years Stokes Croft and the neigbourhoods that surround it have been one of the city's most squatted areas. This short walking tour includes a selection of buildings squatted in and around Stokes Croft and St Pauls in the 1970s, 1980s, 2000s and 2010s. The buildings were used by a variety of people and groups for housing, political organising, art, music and as social centres. Join us to look back at what Bristol owes to squatting, […]

South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group

From the website: "The South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group (SGMRG) was set up by local people to understand, record and, where appropriate, preserve the remains of what was once an extensive industry for the present community and future generations. SGMRG is a voluntary organisation that relies on grants and donations from local people. Our membership is made up of archaeologists, surveyors, historians, engineers, cavers and those simply interested in finding more about what lies under […]

Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society

From the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society website: "The founders of BGAS back in 1876 wanted to create a learned society where interested individuals from any walk of life could share knowledge and discoveries about all aspects of the past, in Bristol and Gloucestershire. Today, while we tend to divide ‘the past’ into either history or archaeology, the two disciplines have always overlapped and we still aim to welcome anyone with a deep interest in either field." News, […]

Sodbury and District Historical Society

A local history group that meets the second Friday of each month, 7.30pm at the Masonic Hall, Hatters Lane, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol BS37 6AA. Annual fee is £15, no monthly fee. Join at any meeting, reduced annual fee after December for new members. E-mail: chippingsodburyhistoricalsocie @gmail.com