This talk is based on a community oral history project, that in 2014, explored the lived history of local people who worked in the tobacco factories in Bedminster and Ashton. It offers an understanding of the social fabric of the Bedminster area, and the economic forces which have shaped our community. Helen will provide an overview of the manufacturing processes and how they changed over time; and an insight into what it was like for the workers: recruitment, working conditions, […]
I entered the shop floor of the small Bristol tobacco factory, Churchmans, in 1972. I wanted see, hear and smell the work and to talk to women manual workers about their work, their lives and their views. They were called ‘semi-skilled’ workers. What they did, weighing and cutting and rolling tobacco awed me with its speed and skill. Yet they could talk above the overwhelming rattle of machinery. Amazingly, I could interview them too. I had approached several larger factories in Bristol to do […]
This is a hugely ambitious book, setting out to provide an integration of the work of both archaeologists and of anthropologists. The extent of their ambition is spelt out on page 24 “we will not only be presenting a new history of humankind, but inviting the reader into a new science of history, one that restores our ancestors to their full humanity.” I accepted that invitation but confess that I sometimes found it hard going, as demanding an intellectual workout as some choose to subject […]
Not In An Event Series
The Red Lodge Museum, Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LJ. Booking details here. Bristol Radical History Group member Mark Steeds, author of Cry Freedom, Cry Seven Stars and co-author of From Wulfstan to Colston, is giving a talk animated by archive poetry readings to tell the international story of the movement towards abolition during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The lecture will begin with some history on African agency, starting with Nanny of the Maroons and followed by the 1736 […]
Hurray! Bristol has a new road named Mabel Tothill Place in the Barton Hill area. This is great news as it is well deserved and highlights a local activist who did so much for the area. There are remarkably few roads named after women anywhere in the country. Mabel Tothill who lived from 1869 to 1964 was a peace campaigner, a Quaker, a socialist and Bristol's first woman councillor (for Easton ward). She was a committed social activist who was part of campaigns and organizations that worked to […]
Active local history group with website and Facebook. Pilning and Severn Beach, villages beside the Bristol Channel to the west of the city. Founded in 1999, the history group has since produced publications and newsletters on local history, and has assembled a a collection of archival documents and photographs relating to the local area. The Group's heritage trail is well worth checking out if you live in or are visting these villages. See website for further information and membership details.
There isn’t a lot of history in Eve Livingston’s book – “The British labour movement: A potted history” pages 10-15 – but what there is is sharp and perceptive. “The days of unionised and secure jobs in manufacturing and industry, and a time when class was widely recognised as an organising principle for society, have long made way for precarious and exploitative work and an active attempt to obscure and the experience and effects of class difference.” But while acknowledging the impact of […]
Not A BRHG Event
A Celebration of the Book - Sat 11th June St Andrews Church Centre, Old Church Rd, Clevedon BS21 7UE Funded by Clevedon Community Bookshop Cooperative, Bookbinders, book artists, paper-makers, book makers, independent publishers and pamphleteers come together to celebrate the ‘book’ with exhibition stalls and sales. Bristol Radical History Group will have a bookstall at the event and are giving two talks: 12.15pm – 1.00pm Rosemary Caldicott - 'The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire: A Case study […]
Callout for feedback on our 4th Bristol Radical History Festival
How time flies in the midst of the multiple global crisis of capitalism! A week ago our 4th Bristol Radical History Festival was just beginning, and we at BRHG were pretty pleased with how it all went, especially as we put it on at fairly short notice after the event was postponed due to covid in 2020 and 2021. A big thank you to all the excellent speakers, to the radical history walk guides, the stallholders who came from near and far, the singing of Red Notes socialist choir, and the films we […]
We are delighted to welcome people back to M Shed this Saturday, 14th May, for our 4th Bristol Radical History Festival. It's been a frustrating two years of delays and postponements due to covid since this was first planned, but now all systems are go! All are welcome - this is a free event, you do not need to buy a ticket. Here's the Directions to M Shed. We have organised a full programme of events for our 2022 Radical History Festival, in collaboration with our hosts at M Shed. The Festival […]
