A group of local people who are interested in the history of our area - just North of Bristol, England. Membership, events, and resources available on their website.
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Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society
From the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society website: "The founders of BGAS back in 1876 wanted to create a learned society where interested individuals from any walk of life could share knowledge and discoveries about all aspects of the past, in Bristol and Gloucestershire. Today, while we tend to divide ‘the past’ into either history or archaeology, the two disciplines have always overlapped and we still aim to welcome anyone with a deep interest in either field." News, […]
Sodbury and District Historical Society
A local history group that meets the second Friday of each month, 7.30pm at the Masonic Hall, Hatters Lane, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol BS37 6AA. Annual fee is £15, no monthly fee. Join at any meeting, reduced annual fee after December for new members. E-mail: chippingsodburyhistoricalsocie @gmail.com
The real story of the Countering Colston campaign
On 7th June 2020, hundreds of Black Lives Matter demonstrators pulled down the 125-year-old statue of slave trader Edward Colston, who had been put in a place of prominence in Bristol City Centre; sending shockwaves around the world. Commentators at the time thought that the act had happened in a vacuum, but the truth was that many knew that the statue was inappropriate, and that the authorities had failed them for the preceding century. The first to uncover the slavers true story was the […]
Listen Up! How to do a successful oral history project
Oral history creates space for the voices of ordinary people and overlooked communities to make a contribution to the historical record. It creates new primary sources which, although always subjective, provide rich and compelling narratives. What’s more, oral history offers new and exciting interpretive opportunities, from embedded QR codes that make exhibitions speak via your smartphone to the ever growing history podcast market. This panel discussion on the pleasures and pitfalls of oral […]
Choose your own adventure: digital play and history from below
How can digital technologies help us to think more creatively about making radical histories from below? This talk considers the use of immersive ‘real world’ digital tools, not only in the reconstruction of radical pasts, but in challenging the conservatism of the ‘authoritative voice’ in mainstream ‘top-down’ history. Historically-based games with open-ended outcomes, it is suggested, invite audiences to think more critically about the ways in which evidence might be pieced together in the […]
The Fight For Reform: RIOT1831! guided walk
Join Satsymph host Ralph Hoyte and Prof. Steve Poole on a located audio walk which reimagines the 1831 reform riots in which the people of Bristol rose up and demanded electoral and social reform, burning the Bishop’s Palace to the ground (it used to be part of Bristol Cathedral), as well as sacking and liberating the New Gaol (it’s now a new development behind M Shed) and destroying much of Queen Square. We will meet up outside the front of M Shed where your hosts will explain the background to […]
Bristol and the Zapatistas
Just over thirty years ago the world woke up to the news that in Chiapas, South East Mexico a revolution had occurred. The Zapatistas rose up in January 1994 against 500 years of injustice and oppression of indigenous peoples, against neo-liberal economics and specifically the Mexican government’s recent signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) entered the largest city in the state, San Cristobal, and briefly took another six […]
Six Points
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 […]
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, […]