What could be more up the Bristol Radical History Group’s street than to time-travel through radical history with Acts of Resistance? We’re therefore overjoyed to dress up and get down to this new Avant-Folk Punk-Opera. Acts of Resistance features a redoubtable trio made up of Steve Lake (self-described “chief show off” with legendary anarcho-punk band Zounds, first appearing on Crass Records and nexus for all kinds of musical troublemakers), Bristolian Emo-folkster Aether Valentine, and Carl […]
Subject Index: Commons, Customary Rights & Enclosures
The content on this site is put into subject categories. These pages list content filed under each subject. You can also use the Tag Index to see a full list of keywords used on the site.
Warren James Day
Not A BRHG Event
Bristol Allotmenteers Resist! campaign as the eternal struggle for land continues
On a wet and windy night on the 4th January 2024, upto 200 people attended the first Bristol Allotmenteers Resist! public campaign meeting, at St Werburgh's community centre. By 7.05pm it was standing room only. By 7.20pm I was up at the front, with old pal Mike Feingold, the respected local food grower and permaculture teacher. We had 10 minutes max between us, and Mike was going to talk on his 30yrs of allotment experience in Bristol. We'd agreed that I would, quite literally, do '1000 years […]
From Pirates to Proletarians
The Experience of the Pilots and Watermen of Crockerne Pill in the Nineteenth Century
Not A BRHG Event
Wednesday 17 January - 3.00-4.00pm - Portishead Senior Forum, Folkhouse, High Street, Portishead BS20 6PR Mike Richardson charts the experiences, in the nineteenth century, of Bristol’s pilots, and their assistants, in their struggle to defend their jobs and their traditional way of working, particularly as steam power emerged to replace sail. Their relationship with the shipowners, masters and city authorities was a complex one, and broke down periodically into open conflict. They lived almost […]
Pirates to Proletarians: The Experience of the Pilots and Watermen of Crockerne Pill in the 19th Century
Not A BRHG Event
Venue: Pill Library and Children's Centre, Crockerne House, Underbanks, Pill BS20 0AT From the earliest days of recorded history river pilots have navigated ships through the dangerous waters of the Bristol Channel and up the river Avon, with its twisting bends, shifting sand banks and strong currents. In the early nineteenth century, Bristol was granted rights to compulsory pilotage over the whole of the Channel. Mike charts the experiences, in the nineteenth century, of Bristol’s pilots, and […]
The Fight for Monad
Raymond Williams’s novel, The Fight for Manod was first published in 1979. As we know, 1979 was an important year, seemingly a watershed year. In this year Margaret Thatcher was elected, and Ronald Regan launched what was to be his successful presidential campaign. Yet the social forces that pushed them into prominence and the form of capitalism on stilts now commonly known as Neoliberalism didn’t of course suddenly emerge overnight from nowhere. Like deadly toadstools, the mycelium that brought […]
The Book of Trespass
…the fences that divide England are not just symbols of the partition of people but the very cause of it. Bristol Radical History Group subscribers will find inspiration in Nick Hayes’s book. He sets out to trespass on a range of properties and rivers throughout England, defiantly ignoring the fact that he – and we - are excluded from 92% of the land in England and 97% of its waterways. In the course of his walk descriptions, Nick Hayes reveals some surprising historical heroes – […]
The Forest of Dean Miners’ Riot of 1831
The Forest of Dean uprising of 1831 received scant attention from historians before 1975 when Chris Fisher started researching the subject as part of his MA in history studies at the University of Warwick. His MA dissertation was the first thorough study of the riot and is up to now unpublished. BRHG decided to publish it in its original form as we believe that it provides an alternative and critical insight into the events surrounding 1831. Fisher argues that the Forest of Dean Riot of […]
The Moral Economy
The transition from rural economy to the free market, and the resistance
The phrase “the moral economy” was first used by E. P. Thompson, within the essay of the same name. He explained it as was part of a long change in economic and community relations. As Britain industrialised at speed, there was a change from a paternalistic rural economy, to a free market guided by the ideology of Adam Smith. The moral economy related to part of the resistance from the labouring poor during these economic and social upheavals. This was community based, with a crowd of people […]
Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons
Talk and panel discussion
Not A BRHG Event
David Bollier will give an overview of the latest thinking on the commons, based on his new book Free, Fair, and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons, which presents a foundational re-thinking of the commons – the self-organized social system that humans have used for millennia to meet their needs. It offers a compelling vision of a future beyond the dead-end binary of capitalism versus socialism that has almost brought the world to its knees. The talk will be followed by a Q&A and […]