Monthly Archives: November 2010
Legacies of British Slave-Ownership
A one-day workshop at the Council House, Bristol Saturday 27th November 2010 10:30am–5:00pm
This workshop examines the dispersal of compensation money paid to slave-owners following the abolition of slavery in 1833 and explores the ways in which the money was used by beneficiaries in the South West and South Wales as it shaped economic, social, cultural and political life over the next fifty years.
Speakers include:
Catherine Hall, Keith McClelland and Nick Draper (UCL) - Legacies of British slave-ownership
Dr Roiyah Saltus (University of Glamorgan, Vice Chair Butetown History & Arts Centre) - The black presence in South Wales
Lucy MacKeith (Independent historian) - Local Black History – a beginning in Devon
Ruth Hecht (Bristol family historian) -
Personal and political impacts of family slave-ownership
To book a place or for further information http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/workshops or contact lbs@ucl.ac.uk
Hands Off Our Forest
Hands Off Our Forest is an organisation dedicated to fighting the threatened privatisation of the Forest of Dean. They have a new website that will contain information about meetings and rallies if you want to get involved.
The address is: http://www.handsoffourforest.org/
Hands Off Our Forest
- an organisation dedicated to fighting the threatened privatisation of the Forest of Dean.A full web site will be published in the next few days but meanwhile for further information, to offer your support and help and for news of planned meetings and rallies
- an organisation dedicated to fighting the threatened privatisation of the Forest of Dean.A full web site will be published in the next few days but meanwhile for further information, to offer your support and help and for news of planned meetings and rallies
Swing Walk By John Owen Smith
The Anniversary Rioters' Walk Exactly 180 years after the rioters did it a guided walk from Selborne to Headley and back again distance approximately 7 miles out and 7 miles back.
Tuesday 23rd November 2010 starting at 10am
We plan to walk from Selborne to Headley, from the car park behind the Selborne Arms and finishing at the Holly Bush in Headley. Distance approx 7 miles, some of them muddy. Should arrive in time for a pub lunch.
Please contact me <http://www.johnowensmith.co.uk/riot/walk.htm> for further information.
In 1830, a mob several hundred strong attacked the workhouse in Selborne, Hampshire, turned out the occupants, burned or broke the fittings and furniture, and pulled down the roof.
The next day an even larger mob, containing most of the Selborne rioters, did the same to the workhouse at Headley, some seven miles away. The parsons in both villages were coerced into promising to reduce by half the income they took from tithes.
Less than a month later, at a special court hearing in Winchester attended by no less a person than the Duke of Wellington, nine local men were sentenced to transportation, and all but one sailed for Australia in the Spring of 1831 never to return.
According to the famed historians J.L. & Barbara Hammond, "If these riots had succeeded, the day when the Headley workhouse was thrown down would be remembered ... as the day of the taking of the Bastille."
Sex and Docks and Rock and Roll
£10; £9 conc; £8 BAC & TUC members
A musical comedy
Written by Chumbawamba’s Boff Whalley
Directed by Rod Dixon
Set in 1960’s Liverpool during a dockworkers and seafarers strike the play looks and laughs at this changing world through the microcosm of one terraced house where the TV does battle with the upright piano. Against a backdrop of picketing, marches and jailings, the McDermotts fight, laugh, lie and sing their way through these challenging times fuelled by home-brewed banana beer and a tea-chest bass. Jack croons the classics, Jerry sings skiffle and beat and Mum belts out the old bawdy sailor’s songs. “Keep the noise down, love, Z-Cars is on.” It’s history with choruses you can sing along to with Red Ladder reconnecting noisily with a great tradition of radical, political and entertaining theatre.
LGBT History of Bristol
I'm a historian and part of a group called LGBT History of Bristol.
I have developed a walk covering sites of lesbian, gay and transgender history around the centre of Bristol, and I'm planning to run the walk for the third time) on Sunday February 27 2011, as part of LGBT
History month.The walk last between 1.5 and 2 hours, and covers many of stories and periods, from the 18th century onwards, including male and female protagonists, some suffragette history and Bristol's role at a remarkably early moment in the history of gender reassignment. I usually ask for a donation of £3 per person which goes to the LGBT History Group funds.I wonder if BRHG would be interested in advertising it to your membership?
Best regards Andy Foyle
I'm a historian and part of a group called LGBT History of Bristol.
I
have developed a walk covering sites of lesbian, gay and transgender history around the centre of Bristol, and I'm planning to run the
walk
(for the third time) on Sunday February 27 2011, as part of LGBT
History
month.The walk last between 1.5 and 2 hours, and covers many of
stories
and periods, from the 18th century onwards, including male and
female
protagonists, some suffragette history and Bristol's role at a remarkably early moment in the history of gender reassignment. I
usually
ask for a donation of £3 per person which goes to the LGBT History
Group
funds.I wonder if BRHG would be interested in advertising it to your membership?Best regards, Andy Foyle > I'm a historian and part of a group called LGBT History of Bristol. I > > have developed a walk covering sites of lesbian, gay and transgender > > history around the centre of Bristol, and I'm planning to run the walk > > (for the third time) on Sunday February 27 2011, as part of LGBT History > > month.The walk last between 1.5 and 2 hours, and covers many of stories > > and periods, from the 18th century onwards, including male and female > > protagonists, some suffragette history and Bristol's role at a > > remarkably early moment in the history of gender reassignment. I usually > > ask for a donation of £3 per person which goes to the LGBT History Group > > funds.I wonder if BRHG would be interested in advertising it to your > > membership?Best regards, > > > > Andy Foyle
West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network
University of the West of England, St Matthias Campus, Fishponds, Bristol BS16 2JP,
10.am-1pm Room M030
Saturday Dec 4th 2010
A study day open to all members of the network and anyone interested in women's or gender history Whose history? Women’s political activism in the 20th century.
Speakers:
June Hannam (UWE), Writing women into Labour Party history : post-war autobiographical writings of women activists
Elaine Titcombe (UWE), Rewriting Greenham’s History: women activists and the cold war
Debi Withers, Sistershow Revisited, Feminism in Bristol, 1973-1974.
To be followed by a round-table discussion on the general theme of the workshop. All contributions and thoughts relating to your own or other people's research will be very welcome.
All welcome – there is no charge for this workshop.
For further information email Katherine.Holden@uwe.ac.uk
Tel 0117 3284395
Hands Off Our Forest
FORESTERS have sprung into action in united opposition to what they believe will be a sell-off of public forests in England, including parts of the Dean.
Action got underway following the government’s announcement last Friday (October 29) that it is committed to: “Fundamentally reform the public forestry estate, with diminishing public ownership and a greater role for private and civil society partners.”
Political leaders in the Forest unanimously welcomed the announcement.
Forest MP, Mark Harper said: “full measures will remain in place to preserve the public benefits of woods and forests under any new ownership arrangements.”
The leader of the Forest of Dean District Council, Cllr Peter Amos said: “I am pleased with the reassurances from the coalition government and 180 years on I feel Warren James can continue to rest in peace.”
But their comments have done little to allay fears among Foresters.
Dean Forest Voice held a meeting at the Rising Sun, Moseley Green, on Monday (November 1) and announced the setting up of a steering group to act as a source of “reliable information regarding the possible threats of a sell-off of the Forest woodlands and to coordinate opposition.
“As in 1981 and 1992, this is not the first time that the Forest has come under threat from sell-off and now, as then, we are determined to fight the threat.”
Colin Smith, chairman of Friends of the Forest, said: “We declare our strongest opposition to even the slightest threat to our public woodlands, especially, of course, to the Forest of Dean. We hope all local environmental groups will unite to nip this lunatic suggestion in the bud.”
The Review has been inundated with letters and calls, all in opposition to any potential sell-off (see our letters section).
Bill Hobman, former chairman of the district council writes: “I state then as now, that the people of this country to whom the Forest belong fought two world wars for King and country, it is ours, no one owns the freehold of the Forest of Dean, the government are the custodians and the Forestry Commission its managers.”
Nationwide there is a petition in opposition to any forestry sell-off which has already attracted 28,000 people.
Locally the Review has joined forces with its sister paper, The Forester, in a Hands off our Forest campaign, with online petitions on both our websites and a cut-out paper version in our newspaper.
Why not vote on our online poll...
BONFIRE CALL TO BATTLE!
THE Fern Bonfire at Speech House Field on Saturday (November 6, 6pm) will be the setting for a massive protest in song to stop the proposed sale of Forestry Commission woodlands.
Anyone who attends the event, which begins at 6pm, is being invited to join in a resounding rendition of the Battle Hymn of the Dean – last sung when our woodlands were similarly threatened in 1993/94.
Penned by the late Lily Dunn, the rallying call will hopefully be backed (as in the last battle) by Forest of Dean Male Voice Choir members. Dave Harvey has agreed to be MC. It is believed television cameras will be present too.
The Hands Off Our Forest campaign is gathering momentum and a petition form is printed here. It will also be available online on our website.
Skimmity Hitchers Gig
Skimmity Hitchers (AKA Quiffey’s new band)
Day: Tuesday 9th November
Time: 8:30ish
Venue: The Seven Stars, Thomas Lane, BS1 6JG
Cost: Your soul
There was a time when the naughty little Quiffey boy was in a band called Who’s A’feared. Well they are no more but the quiff would not lie flat and so a new band the Skimmity Hitchers have been formed to continue the Dorset toss. Or as the Quiffmiester himself puts it:
Back at last to one of Bristol’s finest and most historical boozers, we hope to emulate the many rip-roaring gigs we’ve played here before.
Current landlord Paul is proud of the pub’s history, and also a firm believer in quality ale and cider. The pub recently won CAMRA’s best Bristol boozer for the second year in a row. Top hole fellas!
For those who don’t know already now, the Seven Stars has a proud place in the slavery abolition movement: http://www.brh.org.uk/plaque/index.html
The 1970s - New Events Announced
The programme of events for Bristol Radical History Group's The 1970s - Life Before Thatcher has been released.
From Dagenham to Grunwick, Glam to Punk and Wilson to Thatcher.
Talks, films and music, 13 free events between Sunday 14th November and Tuesday 7th December 2010.
- "Make Them Grovel": The 1976 West Indies Cricket Tour
- From The Ford Workers’ Group to Made In Dagenham
- The Asian Youth Movement
- Grunwick: The End Of An Era?
- Spies, Lies And The Coup: State Repression In The 70s
- Cry Freedom Concert
- How We Won: Strikes In The 70s
- Glam-Punk Disco Inferno
- The Anti-Vietnam War Movement
- Punk And The Pistols
- From Recruitment To Dialogue: How Does The Radical Left Relate To Workers?
- Italy In The 1970s: Bodies In The Street, A Tale Of A Country Like Ours
- "Can't Do Nothin' If You Ain't Bad"': The League Of Revolutionary Black Workers
