News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

Rethinking the Rebecca Riots?

The Rebecca riots were a series of disturbances and direct action that spread across south-west Wales in the early 1840s. They were carried out by local farmers, workers and others who dressed in dramatic costumes and acted under the symbolic leadership of “Rebecca”. This talk will look at the success of the rioters in resisting the imposition of tolls on road travel, for which they are best remembered. But it will also show that “Rebeccaism” was a wide-ranging popular movement, generated by the […]

Everything for Everyone

Intentional Communities and the Utopian Impulse

From the Diggers to the Hippies via the Chartists, Owenites and Tolstoyan Anarchists the utopian impulse has resulted in literally hundreds of new communities across the UK. Drawing on 30 years of researching and living communally the talk will explore the past, present and future of intentional community in Britain.

Making Utopia Great Again

This talk revisits and re-evaluates the critiques of utopianism offered by Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt and Isiah Berlin at our current moment in history, a time when far-right movements and emergent fascisms are confidently tapping into the power of both utopian and dystopian narratives.

Imagining Otherwise: Utopia and the Work of Hope

How can imagined worlds offer hope and drive change? Utopian thinking has been described as “social dreaming,” but it is social dreaming that is put to work. Across literature, film, music, and art, creators have been energised by utopia’s capacity to interrogate the present and envision other possibilities. This talk explores how utopia functions as a form of creative collective imagination that shapes the possibilities of shared futures, drawing on examples from the late nineteenth and early […]

Utopian Bristol: Visions of Our City from the Middle Ages to the Far Future

Bristol has always been a city of dreamers and visionaries. From religious millenarians to social reformers, from science fiction writers to climate activists, people have continually reimagined what Bristol could become. This talk explores these varied and often conflicting visions of our city's future, examining how different people and communities have sought to build their ideal Bristol, and what we might learn from their successes and failures. The presentation traces four interconnected […]

Future Song: a thrutopian vision of near-future Bristol

Dystopian visions far outnumber utopian visions in literature, and my last novel, Vampires of Avonmouth, is no exception. Set late this century between Avonmouth, which has become a vertiginous mega-city, and a part of future West Africa corresponding to today's Accra, climate change is all too real, yes. But the 2087 world of the book is also pervaded by shoddy AI; it's run by technology corporations; and everyone's brains are directly connected to the internet. In effect, the first two of […]

Radical Abundance and How We Get it

Capitalism has created a world of bullshit abundance, where we have too much of what we don’t need and too little of what we do. Through this system’s relentless pursuit of profits, we have been put on a collision course with social and ecological limits that can no longer be ignored. We need an alternative. We need radical abundance, a world of human and non-human flourishing made possible by democratically planned production. But radical abundance can’t just be voted into existence through […]

Woman Magic 2026

Ecofeminist posters from women artists weaving between Bristol, Wales & Sweden (1968-1983)

‘Moving from politics to magick we were still radical in our thinking’, in the words of artists Beverley Skinner, Anne Berg, Marika Tell and Monica Sjöö The works include radical visionary symbolism that mitigates against ecological crisis and social justice, openly campaigning for marginalised groups. The group of women artists that formed initially Woman Power then Woman Magic in Bristol in the 70s were advocates for a collaborative society that valued this form of interconnectivity, holistic […]

Jenkin Morgan: Chartist Scarecrow

The aftermath of the armed Chartist rising in November 1839, which ended in fighting at the Westgate Hotel in Newport, saw the inevitable state repression unleashed. The stories of the Chartist leaders John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones, who were sentenced to death and then transported are well known, but what of the others? Jenkin Morgan has become part of the invisible landscape of Welsh Chartism. This Pillgwenlly milkman and tallow chandler was initially sentenced to be hung, […]

Causes and Characters of the Chartist Riot in Llanidloes, Mid Wales in 1839

The Newport Rising in November 1839 is the most celebrated event in early Chartism linked to Wales. But it marked the disappointing end of a year which had opened with high expectations from the General Convention of the Industrious Classes and the presentation of the National Charter to Parliament. Less renowned, but no less significant, were events in Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire earlier in April, when attempts to arrest local Chartist leaders led to a riot in which the established forces of […]