The story of how we came to have this Empire is a wonderful tale of adventure and romance Major General Baden-Powell in Scouting for Boys Many children’s ‘classics’, some still in print, glorify the British Empire. In this essay, Colin Thomas argues that they help to perpetuate racist attitudes which only recent children’s books have begun to challenge.
This is an account of the case of the Shrewsbury 24, one of the longest, if not the longest, campaign to overturn injustice in this country. The Shrewsbury 24 were building workers convicted of various charges arising from picketing during the 1972 national building workers’ strike. The book takes us back to a very different time when there were 12 million members of trade unions in the country and a wave of strikes which led to the defeat of the Conservative Government by the National Union of […]
England, tobacco and forced labour Roger Ball will outline the symbiotic relationship between the colonisation of the Americas in the seventeenth Century and the production of tobacco as a commodity. The talk will consider the economic mechanisms that encouraged the expansion of landholdings and the introduction of forced labour, leading to the domination of chattel slavery based upon the use of enslaved West Africans. Nicotiana Brittanica Will Simpson tells the story of the illicit […]
This article first appeared on the BRHG Facebook page in October 2019. It is published here as a tribute to Steve Philbey who passed away in August 2022. The connection between indentured labourers in the Chinese city of Amoy (now called Xiamen) in the 1840s having the letter C burnt into their ears and a Somerset man who was for a time the richest merchant in England illuminates a story that has been overshadowed by Bristol’s involvement in the slave trade and the fortunes made by the likes of […]
Many years ago, stuck in a traffic jam on the Bath Road bridge, I looked up to see a series of massive slogans expertly pasted onto the advertising hoardings on the billboards. The first on an insurance company advert said: WHO IS SPARTACUS? The second said: ARE YOU SPARTACUS? The third over a group of 'Kwik Fit Fitters' said: WE ARE SPARTACUS And finally the last in the row... YOU ARE SPARTACUS This was one of my first introductions to the work of the Saint Just Mob, artists and subvertisers […]
In a tribute to the community theatre group acta based in Gladstone Street, Bedminster and their 2014 play Gas Girls, Christine Townsend examines the exposure of a piece of lost Bristolian history that has international repercussions to this day. Acta's research helped to publicise the top secret production of mustard gas in Avonmouth factories during World War 1, and the lives of the women who carried out this dangerous work. Come and hear about the brilliant research conducted by Acta and the […]
During the summer of 1946, thousands of British families took the law into their own hands to temporarily solve their housing problems by “requisitioning” empty military camps. This mass-squatting movement was rapid, spontaneous and entirely working-class in character. While it was often driven at ground level by women, the movement soon developed a formal leadership structure dominated by ex-servicemen who had served as NCOs and warrant officers. Bristol, with particularly acute housing […]
Many of those who crowd the streets of Bedminster during Upfest or for the Winter Lantern Parade are probably oblivious that they are actually deep in mining country. For many residents, the idea that this was once an area where several coalmines existed and men emerging from pits covered in coaldust was a feature of the working day, has long been forgotten. Above ground, there are no surviving reminders of that history except a single noticeboard in Dame Emily Park. But below the nearby […]
In collaboration with radical historians from south of the river, Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) are putting on a series of events over the autumn of 2022 looking at the hidden histories of their neighbourhoods. The first set of events is the Bedminster-Southville history festival in September and early October which features events on the history of tobacco and the experiences of those who worked in the Wills and Churchmans factories as well as talks and films on mining, squatting the […]
Not A BRHG Event
BRHG will be taking it's Book Stall to Trinity Centre on bank holiday Sunday, 28 August, 11am to 4pm, for the all new Bristol Alternative Market. The Market is described on it's FB event as: A Wonderful new event for Bristol's Alternative community! An inclusive space for everyone. 80 booked traders set in a gorgeous Gothic community owned venue. The stalls will cover a diverse range, including: Clothes - new, pre-loved, reworked, vintage Books - radical, gothic, vintage, alternative health, […]
