In the 1550s Elizabeth I claimed that she had “no desire to open windows into men’s souls” while seeking to do just that. This pamphlet traces a near 500 year history of British governments snooping into the lives of its citizens. From the anti-Catholic paranoia of the sixteenth century to the effect of the radical ideas underlying the French Revolution of the eighteenth, the state increasingly expanded its surveillance activities. Industrialisation in the nineteenth century gave birth to mass […]
Not In An Event Series
Due to people reaching out and wanting to see the films we have added this screening of the short films and the recorded Q n A On January 25th, 2021 four defendants appeared at Bristol Magistrates Court on charges arising from the toppling of the Colston statue at a huge Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 7th 2020. That toppling reflected the frustration of many about the continued memorialisation and honouring of the slave-trader Colston, despite years of campaigning to reveal the truth […]
Today, the 25 January 2021 four people, Rhian Graham, 29, Milo Ponsford, 25, Jake Skuse, 32, and Sage Willoughby, 21, will appear at Bristol Magistrates Court charged with causing criminal damage to the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol City Centre during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest on 7 June 2020. The BLM demonstration attracted thousands of protestors. These four young people were selected out of a crowd of hundreds who cheered as the statue of Edward Colston, a leading organiser and […]
This is an eloquent and angry account of Professor Hazel Carby’s family history linked to the shameful history of the British Empire. She is painfully honest about the relationship of her own parents - her mother born in Wales, her father from Jamaica, their marriage soured by “the climate of virulent and violent British racism.” It was in Bristol where her mother had grown up and where “ambition took root and flourished, the city that nurtured and nourished her dreaming…the city’s architecture […]
On the day of the first scheduled court appearance of the Colston 4, there will be a online film screening and conversations to provide a context for that event. January 25th, 2021 will see four defendants appearing at Bristol Magistrates Court on charges arising from the toppling of the Colston statue at a huge Black Lives Matter demonstration on June 7th 2020. That toppling reflected the frustration of many about the continued memorialisation and honouring of the slave-trader Edward Colston, […]
Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group (EWMG) was formed in 2014 after a public meeting with residents of Eastville and Greenbank in East Bristol. The primary aim of the group was to research and publish the names and details of the inmates from Eastville Workhouse who were buried in unmarked pauper graves at Rosemary Green. Information on the more than 4,000 burials was published in 2015 and is available on this website. In the two days after its release more than 3,000 people down loaded the data. […]
The talk will present an examination of the fundamental ideological basis of the Zionist movement going back to its founding by Herzel in 1896. Herzel attributed the historical persecutions of the Jews solely to an innate anti-Semitism on the part of the gentiles. He called it a Psychopathology which had no remedy. Actually, while anti-Semitism was always present to a greater or lesser degree, it does not explain why the attacks broke out where and when they did. It requires an examination of […]
In 1921, in response to a severe depression in the coal trade, colliery owners, supported by the government, slashed labour costs. Refusing to accept this cut in wages, a million British miners, including many war veterans, a were locked out of their pits. The consequences for the 6,000 Forest of Dean miners, their families and the whole community, was brutal. However, the miners fought a determined battle for an alternative which included public ownership of the mines with decent pay and […]
Emma Byron and Trevor Houghton present the story of a network of neighbours, workmates, families and comrades who stood together and refused to take their part in the war machine. Steps Against War is an innovative micro-history of resistance to war in a working-class district of south Bristol. The book grew out of a community project to create a history walk with puppets, and the talk will be illustrated with short videos and images of puppetry, as well as pictures from Bedminster in the […]
