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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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.
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 […]
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 […]
A new title from Six Points Publishing: In October 1831 as reform riots shook Bristol, the authorities urgently requested the help of troops stationed in South Wales. An infantry unit marched from Cardiff to Newport with the intention of boarding a steam boat to Bristol, but their way was blocked by a hostile crowd. This book explores the background to this incident, setting it in the context of the reform crisis in Newport, Monmouthshire and other parts of south Wales in the early 1830s. […]
Not A BRHG Event
Our guest speaker on Tuesday, October 29th at 6.30pm at the Newport Rising Hub will be Rosemary Caldicott, a social history researcher and author. During the event, Rosemary will provide insights from her book Voyage of Despair, focusing on lesser-known aspects of history. Rosemary Caldicott is recognized for her commitment to revealing untold narratives from history. Through her research, she offers a new insight into the history of Captain Thomas Phillips and the slave ship Hannibal, delving […]
Not A BRHG Event
Breaking the Dead Silence:Engaging with the Legacies of Empire and Slave-Ownership in Bath and Bristol’s Memoryscapes was published by Liverpool University Press in July, four years after the events that brought the authors together. Nineteen diverse and distinctive voices offer timely commentaries and reflections, as well as strategies towards re-telling obscured stories and getting unheard voices heard. These free events are opportunities to hear from some of the creatives, academics and […]
