Our friends across the water, the Newport Chartist historians have recently founded a publishing house ‘Six Points’, which aims to produce and promote high quality books that explore nineteenth century Radicalism, the ideas of Chartism and their historical antecedents, the movement’s context and development into modern times. A recent work is Peter Strong’s The Bristol Connection, the neglected story of the political, cultural and commercial links across the Bristol Channel between the city of […]
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The 1831 reform riots in the southwest – display
In early October 1831, the defeat of the Second Reform Bill in the House of Lords led to a huge wave of pro-reform protests and disturbances across Britain and Ireland. Major disorders in the east Midlands, Dorset and Somerset were followed in Bristol by the most serious riot in nineteenth century England. This 11 panel display outlines the political context to the reform protests, both nationally and locally in the southwest, investigates the nature of the riots in Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, […]
Eastville Workhouse, the mentally ill and systemic murder mysteries
The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act aimed to prevent the mentally afflicted from being incarcerated in workhouses for long periods. However, studies across the country have demonstrated that large numbers of people with mental health issues were being held in these institutions, sometimes in appalling conditions, throughout the Victorian period and even into the twentieth century. Data for Eastville workhouse (constructed in 1847) in east Bristol supports this trend, despite the fact that after 1845 […]
The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire: Bedminster Union Workhouse and Victorian social attitudes to Epilepsy
In 1855 rumours of murder and a cover up were circulating in the small north Somerset village of Walton-in-Gordano. An epileptic destitute country girl, Hannah Wiltshire, had died in the Bedminster Union Workhouse at Flax Bourton. The Board of Guardians were suspected of concealing the true magnitude of neglect at the workhouse, leading to accusations of medical negligence. Wiltshire’s death caused public outrage after letters were written to the local newspapers, sparking a campaign for […]
Bristol Heroes – Volunteer Fighters in the Spanish Civil War 1936-39
The Spanish Civil War was an important pre-cursor to the Second World War, pitting republicans and revolutionaries against an emerging military dictatorship in Spain and their fascist allies in Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. After a fascist inspired military coup, led by General Franco in July 1936, was halted in its tracks by the armed action of the Spanish working class, the battlelines were drawn for three years of bloody conflict. Volunteers from all over the world went to Spain to […]
The Bristol Admiral who defended the Haitian Revolution
In 1804, the former Caribbean slave colony of Haiti became the first free black republic in the world, having emancipated itself by force of arms by defeating the armies of France, Britain and Spain on the battlefield. This new nation sought international allies to help safeguard its hard-worn freedom in a world of imperial slavery. In this talk, we uncover the lost story of Thomas Goodall, a Bristolian who served as Haiti's first Admiral and tangled with the Royal Navy in the fight to defend […]
The London Recruits: undercover in apartheid South Africa
The history of the Anti-Apartheid movement brings up images of boycotts and public campaigns in the UK. But another story went on behind the scenes, in secret, one that has been never told before. This is the story of the foreign recruits and their activities in South Africa, how they acted in defiance of the Apartheid government and its police on the instructions of the African National Congress (ANC). Ken Keable made two undercover trips to Johannesburg and Durban in 1968 and 1970 to […]
Bristolians vs Blackshirts: militant anti-fascism in the 1930s
During the 1930s in Bristol and nationally much of the working-class identified Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists (BUF) as a major threat to their freedom, their organisations and to ethnic and religious groups within their number. This walk visits the venues that welcomed Mosley's Blackshirts and celebrates the community that vigorously rejected him along with Mussolini, Hitler and General Franco. It will introduce some of the flashpoints in the city-centre marking a proud history […]
What can we learn about mental health care from Bristol’s psychiatric hospital?
In 1861, Bristol’s Lunatic Asylum opened its doors and 164 pauper patients transferred from the workhouse. What treatment did this new state-of-the-art hospital provide, and how did it evolve over the next 130 years until closing in 1994? Stella Mann of the Glenside Hospital Museum, housed in the old asylum chapel, will talk about the evolution of Bristol’s mental health provision from the Victorian age to the present day. History can be discovered through many different routes. Every […]
Fighting for two Republics : Irish volunteers in the British Battalion, International Brigades
Between 1936 to 1939 Spain was engulfed in a brutal Civil War, as the Republican government struggled to defeat a fascist military coup, which was supported by Hitler and Mussolini. Workers from all over the world volunteered to fight in the International Brigades against the fascist threat. This included a significant number of Irishmen, many of whom were veterans of the IRA and were part of the Independence struggle against British rule. In this talk the story of these Irish volunteers will be […]