Articles

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Bread or Batons?: The Old Market ‘riots’

By Roger Ball
The pictures on this page were found in Bristol Central Reference Library, to reproduce please email refandinfo@bristol.gov.uk The April and August 'riots' of 2011 in Bristol, along with those of the 1980s, have been characterised as being exceptional events in the city's history. However, Bristol has a long history of violent disturbances from the food and price 'riots' of the 18th Century, through the reform uprisings of 1831 to 'Black Friday' in 1892. One period which has received less […]
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Why have you come to Mourmansk?

By GBT The original copy of this leaflet was in the possion of Jack Cooper from 1917/18 until, following his death, it was found in his sideboard and passed to his grandaughter. It is now preserved, framed behind glass, in the condition in which you see it. Jack (1886-1973) was born in Ebbw Vale where he worked as an engineer in the steel industry from the age of 14 -21yrs. He later went to sea in the merchant marine, working below as 4th Engineer, until he came ashore in 1917 upon marrying. It […]
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Theresa Garnette Vrs. Winston Churchill

By Anny Cullum
The campaign for female suffrage began in 1865 with the introduction of the first private members bill for an amendment for female enfranchisement. Suffrage groups first campaigned democratically and using constitutional means, lobbying, petitioning etc and won some small victories in terms of women becoming more involved in public life; sitting on school boards and becoming poor law guardians. However, nearly 40 years later women were still disenfranchised and in 1903 a group called the Women's […]
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Tolpuddle and Swing: The Flea and the Elephant

By Roger Ball
‘One and all, one and all, we’ll stand by one another’ Chant of a Sussex Swing mob (1830) ‘We will destroy the constables and threshing machines this year, next year we will have a turn with the parsons, and the third we will make war upon the statesmen’ Kent Swing activist (1830) Introduction In February this year a couple of members of Bristol Radical History Group travelled to Salisbury Guild Hall to witness the unveiling of a Trade Union plaque to commemorate the people who had passed […]
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Nettle Beer

By Steve Stuffit
Bottles filled, labelled and ready to go.
Or How To Brew a Different Social Relationship Based on Commoning Rather Than Alienation (including a br ief exploration of 800 years of history including both the use of Structural Adjustment Policies by the IMF and of the use of sugar in making alcohol) Until recently I had no experience of brewing beer, but I did have a interesting revelation / discovery courtesy of Peter Linebaugh, the US based radical historian. The revelation occurred during an event organised by Bristol Radical History […]
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A poem about Charles Bishop’s quest to re-open a right of way through St Anne’s Wood in 1884.

By Julie Boston Bristol 1884 CHARLES BISHOP BATTLED ON Bristol 1884 'Who's that walking through my woods? Who's that fishing In my stream? Who's that drinking from my well? Who's that trampling on my dream? 'Last month I bought St Anne's Estate – The woods, the ferry and the Well – Put a lock on every gate Trespassers can go to Hell. How dear little Angelina dotes On her piebald pony and pedigree goats' James Sinnott, the villain of this tale, thought his plan couldn't fail if the ferryboat […]
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English Abolition: The Movie

By Adam Hochschild
Amazing Grace, a film directed by Michael Apted. First Published In The New York Review Of Books Volume 52, Number 10, June 14, 2007. Reproduced by kind permission of the author. Two hundred years ago this spring, Britain ended its Atlantic slave trade, an event of immense importance, because the country then dominated the traffic in human beings. From the mid-1700s on, roughly half the captive Africans taken to the Americas had been transported in British ships. Ever since, Parliament's vote to […]
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