Time: 7-10PM

Venue: 81 – 83 STOKES CROFT

Drinks: P.R.S.C. 37 JAMAICA ST.

On the 13th of August 2010, the diversity of life in Stokes Croft will snap into focus with the opening of Stokes Croft Museum: A small independent space opposite Hamilton House on Stokes Croft. Conceived and created by Katy Bauer. Informed and constructed in partnership with The People’s Republic of Stokes Croft.

The project aims to shift the reverence automatically afforded museum environments from the past to the present. With local visitors encouraged to add anecdote, knowledge, ephemera, and fresh observation. These contributions will create an archive and the museum experience will become increasingly layered and changing because of it. People will stamp themselves directly into history instead of waiting for someone to get it all wrong a hundred years hence.

The museum contains what is apparent – chips, dogs, the post office and also reveals that which is hidden: artists, anarchists, policy, the shattered, and the generous. Some of the displays will be curious inventions; however, all the displays will be true!

The museum is intended to be a permanent fixture in Stokes Croft. The initiative receives no funding.

STOKES CROFT MUSEUM: REMEMBERING THE PRESENT

[1]www.stokescroftmuseum.info

[2]http://stokescroft.wordpress.com/

Topics will include the world cup just passed, the next world cup to be held in Brasil and international fan culture. There will also be cheap Brasilian food and cocktails. From 7:30pm at the Stag and Hound at the bottom of Old Market.

Friday 13th August, 7pm, Coleford Baptist Church. £3

In 1831 Warren James led 3000 Foresters to tear down the enclosures that prevented their livelihood….

In 2010 300 people gathered at Hopewell Colliery at an event to remember Warren James and this history…

A talk by Simon Sandall historian, lecturer and author. The free-miners of Dean and the defence of Forest custom during the seventeenth century ‘I want to say a few words about the history of protest in the Forest of Dean, this lecture will provide historical context for the Warren James uprising of the early 1830s.’

This will be followed by a debate on the relevance of Forest rights to those living in the Forest of Dean Today. Free mining and common rights, ownership, privatisation,.. And asks ‘Was Warren Right to Protest?’

Come along and share your views….

BOX OFFICE

All tickets are available at: The Forest Bookshop, 8 St John Street, Coleford

01594 833334 9 am–5.30 pm or on-line, post free, at www.forestbookshop.com

http://web.me.com/forestofdeanpodcast/Site/Welcome.html

Keep an eye open for photos etc. from the event.

BRISTOL BRIGADERS

William G. Boyce Jan. 20th 1938 Teruel

William J. Burton Feb. 1937 Jarama

Leslie Huson May 1938 Pneumonia, died in hospital.

Terence Edward Stephens July 1938 Died in hospital from blood poisoning.

Buchanan Sharp

In Contempt of All Authority

Rural Artisans and Riot in the West of England, 1586-1660

Two of the most common types of popular disorders in late Tudor and early Stuart England were the food riots and the anti-enclosure riots in royal forests. Of particular interest are the forest riots known collectively as the Western Rising of 1626-1632, and the lesser known disorders in the Western forests which took place during the English Civil War. The central aims of this volume are to establish the social status of the people who engaged in those riots and to determine the social and economic conditions which produced the disorders.

The leaders and most active participants in riot were rural artisans — skilled men working in non-agricultural employments. These artisans, particularly those in the major industries of seventeenth-century England located in the forested West, were largely wage-earners. Virtually landless cottagers who relied on the market for food, clothworkers and other artisans frequently engaged in food riots and attempted insurrections during times of depression or harvest failure. These artisans exploited the common waste of the royal forests. Enclosure of the forests by the Crown threatened the livelihood of those workers who depended on the forests for raw material and pasturage. The result was the Western Rising, a series of massive anti-enclosure riots which took place in Gillingham Forest on the Wiltshire-Dorset border, Braydon Forest in Wiltshire and the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. There were also concurrent riots in Leicester Forest, and Feckenham Forest, Worcestershire. A similar series of riots followed in the 1640s.

These conclusions challenge the dominant modern view that work in rural industry was merely the by-employment of members of peasant households. Contrary to the prevailing interpretation that disaffected men of standing were generally behind disorders such as the Western Rising, manipulating popular grievances for their own ends, In Contempt of All Authority concludes that in times of economic and social distress or political dislocation (such as the Civil War) the “lower orders” of Tudor and Stuart England were provoked into self-organised direct action by very basic issues of food supply, employment, and common rights. In the course of such actions they manifested an intense hatred of the gentry and the well-to-do, whom they held responsible for existing conditions.

Buchanan Sharp is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Find out more at Breviary Stuff Publications

All this will be at the Boat House, Redcliffe Wharf on Saturday 20th February, 1-4pm.

At 7pm on Sunday 14th February our friend Paul Tickell has his latest documentary shown on Channel 4. This is Episode 4 in the series The Bible: A History and is titled The Daughters of Eve.

18/01/2010 Bristol Feminist Network Present: Women And The Media – Representation, Misrepresentation, No Representation.

01/02/2010 Bristol Anarchist Bookfair Presents: J18 & Seattle 10 Years On – Histories and reflections on these movements and the strategies for today’s acrivists.

22/02/2010 Cop 15 – What Now? – Short films and discussions on what the outcome of Copenhagen Climate Summit means for the World and activists.

01/03/2010 Bristol Radical History Group Present: The 43 Group – Talk from a member of the anti-fascist group that helped keep fascism at bay after WWII. Find out more >>

05/04/2010 Bristol Radical History Group Presents: Democracy? – With an election upon us we ask what is the nature of democracy and are there any better alternatives.

03/05/2010 Constantine’s Sword -  Why are intolerance, violence & war so deeply ingrained in religion? Can war ever be holy? See this film to find out.

07/06/2010 The Gleaners And I – Agnes Vardas classic film looks at The Gleaners, those who live on the margins and waste of our capitalist society.