Bristol Radical History Group
Since 2006 BRHG have organised over 250 events; staging walks, talks, gigs, recreations, films, exhibitions, trips through the archives and fireside story telling. We have several active research projects, publish a range of books and pamphlets and host an archive on this website.
BRHG projects and events are organised by local people from Bristol and are NOT funded by universities, political parties, business or local government. To break even we rely on members giving their labour for free, donations from the audiences and the sale of publications.
BRHG are associated with several other history groups in Bristol including Remembering the Real World War One, Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group and the Countering-Colston Group. BRHG have also recently become a member of the International History From Below Network.
Bristol Radical History Festival May 2018
BRHG are excited to be hosting Bristol Radical History Festival 2018 at M Shed on Sunday May 6th 2018. We are marking the anniversaries of two of the most significant historical moments in the 20th Century with talks, walks, performance and stalls. 2018 is the 100th anniversary of First World War ending and 50 years since the tumultuous events of May 1968. Find out more...
Have you a Conchie in the family?
Dozens of men from Bristol were imprisoned as conscientious objectors during World War 1. Are you related to any of them? Read more...
100 Fishponds Road
100 Fishponds Rd. Life and Death in a Victorian Workhouse. The research that found out about the 4000 people buried in unmarked graves at the Eastville Workhouse burial ground. The second edition is now available. Order yours now.
Recent Books
The Gallows Pole
The Gallows Pole is a wonderful novel set in 18th Century Yorkshire. It is based on a true story about the Craggs Vale Coiners. Coiners clipped coins. If you look at your £1 coin, […] More
Socialist History (51)
Journal Review: “Left Intellectuals after 1956” may not sound like the most exciting of titles but the latest edition of Socialist History (no 51) contains a lot of fascinating […] More
Bristol from Below
Within the Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG), we are constantly pressing for more history from below. Researching, writing and celebrating our history. The history of those who […] More
No Is Not Enough
When a new Naomi Klein book comes along it is certain to be a part of the zeitgeist. So the recent publication of No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics is no […] More
Army of Shadows
My partner brought me this book for Xmas. It was priced at 2/6, about 12p in today’s prices. I hoped she paid more than that, but this classic is priceless. This copy was […] More
54
What does the Italian/ American mafia, the Italian Communist Party, Cary Grant, Field Marshal Tito, the KGB, and a McGriffin TV have in common? Well read this book and you will […] More
Eric Hobsbawn: Socialist Historian
This publication by The Socialist History Society is a record of a special event in 2013 to celebrate and assess the work of the late Marxist and historian, Professor Eric […] More
Angela Remembered
Rosie MacGregor remembers Angela, that is Angela Gradwell Tuckett (1906-1994); a stalwart Communist, an all-round radical and something of a Renaissance woman. I’ll call her simply […] More
A Girl Among the Anarchists
From its advent as a modern worldview anarchism was always too pure a faith to be properly judged by the conduct of its adherents and practitioners. Or so it would seem from A Girl […] More
City Under Fire
From Dreadnought Books The riots of 1831 gripped the city of Bristol for three days at the end of October. Most general histories of the city include some reference to this […] More
Central Labour College
Written by William Craik a railway guard who got kicked out of Ruskin College, Oxford and was then the principal of the CLC in the early 1920s The Central Labour College schooled a […] More
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare
G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday not only draws upon the historic stigmatisation of anarchists but also self-consciously explores and develops the caricature. The novel […] More
Recent Articles
Two rebel women
I interviewed Florence Exten-Hann in March 1973 and this article appeared in the socialist feminist magazine Red Rag (no.3 1973). It draws also on notes she wrote about her life […] More
Joshua Fitch and Colston’s Girls’ School
Introduction On 11th November 2017 Colston's Girls’ School (CGS) announced that they would not be changing the name of the school, despite its associations with Edward Colston, the […] More
Edward Colston Research Paper #2
Introduction This research article is an examination of the Royal African Company (RAC) and the role of Edward Colston (b. 1636 d. 1721) within the organisation as both an investor […] More
Davis Day
When Thomas Davis and his wife Annis and their family from Pillowell in the Forest of Dean decided to emigrate to Canada in 1890 they could not have known that their choice would […] More
Edward Colston Research Paper #1
Introduction Edward Colston was an investor, official and eventually deputy governor of the Royal African Company (RAC) from 1680-92. Over this period the RAC purchased and […] More
The Eastville Workhouse Memorials
Where am I? You are on the site of Eastville Workhouse, which opened its doors in 1847. In the 1930s it became an old people's home and was finally demolished in 1972. This page is […] More
Walter Ayles
If I believed in the efficacy of slaughter to remedy evils, I would long ago have advocated the killing of those who, year after year, have been responsible for the sweated, the […] More
100 Fishponds Road
In 2015, the Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group unveiled a memorial for the 4,084 paupers buried in a mass grave at Rosemary Green. We follow them and the Bristol Radical History […] More
What we did on our summer holidays…#1
The annual Fete d'Humanitie originally began in 1930 as a fund raiser for the Communist newspaper L'Humanitie. It was the idea of the editor of the paper in Paris and attracted […] More
The Rosemary Green Memorial
On this site over 4000 men, women and children who died in Eastville Workhouse, known as 100 Fishponds Road, were buried in unmarked graves. A further 118 were given to the medical […] More
Eastville Workhouse memorial unveiling programme
This is a copy of the programme handed out at the Eastville Workhouse burail ground memorial unveiling 16/11/2015. Download the programme here... More
Colston and slavery still obscured?
At last year’s Merchant Venturers Charter Day service at the cathedral the Bishop of Bristol, stated that Edward Colston had: lived a life of significance... [and there]... may be […] More
Recent Pamphlets
Ring Out the Thousand Wars of Old
During World War One, 28 men from the Forest of Dean sought recognition as conscientious objectors rather than be called up to fight. This is the story of these men, the options […] More
Turbulence
Turbulence describes how the expanding armaments industry of the First World war drew thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled workers – women as well as men- into Bristol’s […] More
The War after the War
“Every intelligent person now admits that the antagonism among the nations of Europe that led to competition of armaments and the present world war was fundamentally due to a […] More
Lady Blackshirts
During the 1930’s a small group of ultra-nationalistic women, who considered themselves feminists, joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Surprisingly some of these […] More
The Smoke-Dragon and How to Destroy it
Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was one of the most progressive thinkers and writers and activists of the late-19th, early 20th centuries. He was an early supporter of the Bristol […] More
The Enigma of Hugh Holmes Gore
The Anglo – Catholic convert to the left, Hugh Holmes Gore, was a key figure in Bristol’s labour movement during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Gore linked Clifton […] More
The Maltreated and the Malcontents
The history of Bristol’s Great Western Cotton Works in Barton Hill, which opened in 1838, is little known. The story of its workforce — mainly low-paid women and children — has […] More
Slaughter No Remedy
Walter Ayles was a fighter – but a fighter who didn’t believe in killing. He fought against unemployment and ruthless employers but also against the pro-war fever that led to the […] More
The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire
During the year of 1855 rumours of murder and cover up were circulating in the small north Somerset village of Walton-in-Gordano. An epileptic destitute country girl had died in […] More
100 Fishponds Rd.
2nd Edition. Revised and substantially expanded. In 2012 some radical historians poring over old maps of East Bristol came across a disused burial ground at Rosemary Green close to […] More
The Bristol Deserter
The years leading up to 1914 saw a wave of strike action across Britain; at the same time there were fears of war with Germany whipped up by the press and in popular culture. Some […] More
Class Cohesion versus Spurious Patriotism
With a new afterword by Kevin Morgan. A 2015 reprint of a 1915 pamphlet, originally published at the height of reaction during World War One. Proposing class struggle and […] More
Recent Events
Kurdish ecology initiatives: screening of film about […]
Screening of short film, ‘Water’s Date with Death’ (Directed by Ali Ergül, 2017) about the threat the construction of the Ilisu Dam poses to people, archaeological heritage and […] More
Refusing to Kill – Bristol’s WW1 […]
Over 350 men from the Bristol area refused to fight in World War 1. They claimed the status of conscientious objector for moral, religious or political reasons. Some agreed to take […] More
Who Refused To Kill?
An opportunity to do your own research into Conscientious Objectors and resistance to war during World War 1 Bristol Central Library staff and members of Remembering the Real World […] More
Otherstory puppet show: On the Run
Otherstory presents - A puppet drama documentary about men on the run from conscription during World War 1. Using table top puppetry, photographs and posters from the period, the […] More
Film Showing: Spiridonova – Armed Love
In Russia in October 1917 the Bolsheviks could rule only in coalition with LEFT SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARIES who's charismatic leader MARIA SPIRIDONOVA was the equal of Lenin. Till […] More
The ‘Goddess’ and the ‘Leader’ […]
Part of Bristol Women’s Voice, International Women’s Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, at City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A creche with two hour slots is available at […] More
Hidden Voices: Black and Asian Women and the Suffrage […]
Part of Bristol Women’s Voice, International Women’s Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A crèche with two hour slots is available at […] More
Lady Blackshirts: Suffragettes who became fascists
Part of Bristol Women's Voice, International Women's Day Celebrations in Room 1P04, City Hall, College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR. Note: A crèche with two hour slots is available at […] More
Film: Tony Benn’s Defining Moments
Tony Benn was a great chronicler of his times and in this final chronicle of his life he reflects on the moments that defined his political and personal life experiences. This […] More
A Conscientious Concert
Two performances at 13.15 & 15.30 Venue: Bristol Cathedral, College Green, BS1 5TJ Pianist: Steven Kings Soprano: Heather Ashford No booking required and no admission charge […] More
Talk and film night on the revolution in Rojava
Members of Plan C, who have just returned from volunteering on civil projects in Rojava (the Democratic Confederation of Northern Syria) will be reporting back on Rojava and the […] More
Remembering my father: From the Bavarian workers rising […]
My talk will draw on my father’s remarkable life in Germany up till 1933. I will use it to illustrate how the Nazis first built on the defeat of the 1918/19 Bavarian workers (and […] More