Subject Index: Workhouses & Poverty Laws

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Eastville Workhouse, the mentally ill and systemic murder mysteries

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act aimed to prevent the mentally afflicted from being incarcerated in workhouses for long periods. However, studies across the country have demonstrated that large numbers of people with mental health issues were being held in these institutions, sometimes in appalling conditions, throughout the Victorian period and even into the twentieth century. Data for Eastville workhouse (constructed in 1847) in east Bristol supports this trend, despite the fact that after 1845 […]

The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire: Bedminster Union Workhouse and Victorian social attitudes to Epilepsy

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
In 1855 rumours of murder and a cover up were circulating in the small north Somerset village of Walton-in-Gordano. An epileptic destitute country girl, Hannah Wiltshire, had died in the Bedminster Union Workhouse at Flax Bourton. The Board of Guardians were suspected of concealing the true magnitude of neglect at the workhouse, leading to accusations of medical negligence. Wiltshire’s death caused public outrage after letters were written to the local newspapers, sparking a campaign for […]

Opening the Archives

Reference Library makes available documents for the Bristol Radical History Festival

Colourful poster listing dates, times and themes
  We are thrilled to be collaborating with the Bristol Reference Library for an opening the archives event on Saturday 13th April. There will be a choice selection of books and documents on display to view and peruse, complementing the themes of the forthcoming Bristol Radical History Festival. As the public library service built up its international affairs collection during the mid-1930s, interest in the Spanish Civil War was foremost. Historic items reflecting perspectives from both […]

Bedminster Union Workhouse – The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire

transparent fiddle Not A BRHG Event
'The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire' Accusations of murder and cover up in the Bedminster Union Workhouse were reported in the press during 1855 Thursday, 7th March 2024 at 19:30 This talk by Rosemary Caldicott is based on her popular booklet which delves into the treatment of the mentally ill and other vulnerable patients resident in the former Bedminster workhouse during the mid-19th century. Situated in Flax Burton, North Somerset, just outside Bristol, this workhouse played a pivotal […]

No Cure, No Fee, Boarding Excepted: Mason’s Madhouses In Old Fishponds

transparent fiddle Not A BRHG Event
People's University of Fishponds - Sun 28 Jan 2024 - 7:00om - The Nissen Hut, Eastville Park, Bristol. Journalist, Fishponds Voice History columnist and Bristol Radical History Group author Mike Jempson will reveal some of the fascinating facts his research dug up about the old private madhouse which dominated Fishponds in its day. His talk includes some of the institution’s more startling treatments, the sensational public inquiry and the shameful end of the Mason dynasty - the family firm that […]

Pauper burials in Greenbank Cemetery – new research

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Monday 16 October – 7.30pm-9.00pm - Friends of Eastville Park Community Hub (Nissen Hut), Eastville Park, Near Park Avenue car park, Bristol BS5 6QG In 2015, to great public interest, Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group released details of more than 4,000 paupers who were buried in unmarked graves in Rosemary Green. These were inmates from Eastville Workhouse which was situated on the present-day East Park housing estate on Fishponds Road. The burials in Rosemary Green covered the period […]

‘No Cure, no Pay, Boarding excepted’

‘Mason’s Madhouses’ in old Fishponds

Front cover shownig a head with a plan of the mad house projected onto it.
Long before the NHS, those who did not fit ‘the norm’ were consigned to workhouses or to private lunatic asylums. The latter provided a profitable business opportunity, as the wealthy were only too keen to offload family members whose behaviour was inconvenient. It was a system open to abuses that Daniel Defoe and others were keen to expose. In the Fishponds area of Bristol, one family lived off the proceeds for more than a century. The revealing tale of ‘Mason’s Madhouses’ explains what life […]

Bedminster Poor Law Union Workhouse

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Pill Library and Children's Centre, Crockerne House, Underbanks, Pill BS20 0AT For more details and booking see here. North Somerset Libraries are excited to host a series of talks by Bristol Radical History pamphleteers. Visit www.brh.org.uk to find out more about their publications and events. The talks are informal and accessible and would appeal to adults and older teens. Self-service kiosks will be on and there will time to borrow books from our local history display, so bring your library […]

Clevedon Literary Festival

Bedminster Workhouse and Pill Pilots

transparent fiddle Not A BRHG Event
A Celebration of the Book - Sat 11th June St Andrews Church Centre, Old Church Rd, Clevedon BS21 7UE Funded by Clevedon Community Bookshop Cooperative, Bookbinders, book artists, paper-makers, book makers, independent publishers and pamphleteers come together to celebrate the ‘book’ with exhibition stalls and sales. Bristol Radical History Group will have a bookstall at the event and are giving two talks: 12.15pm – 1.00pm Rosemary Caldicott - 'The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire: A Case study […]

Bath Workhouse Burial Ground Project

Trees will grow and a wildflower meadow bloom at Bath’s Union Workhouse Burial Ground. A place of memory and reflection is emerging thanks to the work of local residents, artists and descendants of those buried there, unmemorialised, in unmarked graves. As the official memorial to a slave trader was toppled in Bristol, people in Bath sought to memorialise those officially forgotten. Bath Workhouse burial grounds do not exist on any modern map, there is no signage or plaque. Following a long […]

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