Not A BRHG Event
Rosemary Caldicott and Mark Steeds will be speaking at the Colonialism and Memory in Bristol. Join us for a public workshop on colonialism and memory in Bristol. Moving between the museum, the city, and space for discussion and reflection, we’ll be asking what decolonisation means, what it might look like in practice, as well as the challenges facing these efforts. Join us at the M Shed in Bristol on 1st July, The workshop is free and refreshments and lunch will be provided, but space is limited […]
Slavery Wealth and the Beginnings of Bristol’s Diocesan Board of Education
Following the money generated from slavery, transferred and transmuted into UK spending, is usually difficult. Yet sometimes unmistakable glimpses appear. When they do, where the money goes can sometimes be surprising. Almost 80 years ago, Eric Williams’s claim that wealth from slavery helped fund Britain’s industrial revolution was considered controversial. Today it is widely accepted, and now the debate is more about estimating how significant was the extent. Slavery wealth is also known to […]
Not A BRHG Event
A day of events featuring history talks from two Bristol Radical History Group members. In the Lord Mayor’s Reception Room: 13:30–14:15 Ann Yearsley: Milkmaid & Poet Sennen Cork leads an introduction to the life and works of Ann Yearsley, the 18th century milkmaid and poet. An early abolitionist, Ann is known for her controversial and contentious working relationship with Hannah More. 14:30–15:15 Nautical Women Author of Nautical Women: women sailors and the women of sailortowns: A forgotten […]
Warning – Due to the nature of the topic this article is not suitable for children The stench of the hold…was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous to remain there for any time…but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential.[1] Let me begin by saying that there was nothing unique about the utterly appalling conditions that existed on the Hannibal slave ship: All merchant slave ships were floating prisons of cruelty and depravity. For the […]
7.00pm, Tues 13th December, Bishopsworth Library, Bishopsworth Rd, Bristol BS13 7LN In November 2014 the Bishop of Bristol, preaching to school students, claimed that ‘speculation’ about the ‘business roots’ of the city’s philanthropic icon, Edward Colston, was merely ‘speculation’. These incendiary words inspired new historical research into Colston’s slave-trading activities and the origins of his role as a ‘City Father.’ They also led to the formation of the campaign group Countering Colston […]
Not A BRHG Event
In June 2020, the statue of Edward Colston in central Bristol was removed from its plinth by Black Lives Matter protestors and rolled into the waters of the Harbourside. Some saw this as an isolated event – in fact it was the culmination of a century of protest against what was dubbed “the cult of Colston” in the city. Roger and Mark will be talking about the foundations of opposition to Colston as a trader of enslaved persons and his reinvention as a Victorian icon. They will explore the […]
Not A BRHG Event
Register for this online talk here. In November 2014 the Bishop of Bristol, preaching to school students, claimed that ‘speculation’ about the ‘business roots’ of the city’s philanthropic icon, Edward Colston, was merely ‘speculation’. These incendiary words inspired new historical research into Colston’s slave-trading activities and the origins of his role as a ‘City Father.’ They also led to the formation of the campaign group Countering Colston which challenged both the physical commemoration […]
England, tobacco and forced labour Roger Ball will outline the symbiotic relationship between the colonisation of the Americas in the seventeenth Century and the production of tobacco as a commodity. The talk will consider the economic mechanisms that encouraged the expansion of landholdings and the introduction of forced labour, leading to the domination of chattel slavery based upon the use of enslaved West Africans. Nicotiana Brittanica Will Simpson tells the story of the illicit […]
This article first appeared on the BRHG Facebook page in October 2019. It is published here as a tribute to Steve Philbey who passed away in August 2022. The connection between indentured labourers in the Chinese city of Amoy (now called Xiamen) in the 1840s having the letter C burnt into their ears and a Somerset man who was for a time the richest merchant in England illuminates a story that has been overshadowed by Bristol’s involvement in the slave trade and the fortunes made by the likes of […]
Not In An Event Series
The Red Lodge Museum, Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LJ. Booking details here. Bristol Radical History Group member Mark Steeds, author of Cry Freedom, Cry Seven Stars and co-author of From Wulfstan to Colston, is giving a talk animated by archive poetry readings to tell the international story of the movement towards abolition during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The lecture will begin with some history on African agency, starting with Nanny of the Maroons and followed by the 1736 […]
