Events Archive - Page 13 of 56 - Bristol Radical History Group

Hartcliffe: the estate born out of conflict

7.00pm, Wednesday 30 November, Hartcliffe Community Centre, Hareclive Rd, Bristol BS13 0JW The talk will cover the conflicts around the building of Hartcliffe on the outskirts of Bristol. The promise of the original plans and the comparison with what was finally built. The talk will draw upon council documents, media reports and comments of local residents at the time. Paul Smith grew up and lived in Hartcliffe for over 30 years. He represented the area as a councillor from 1988-1999 and […]

The battle of Melvin Square – Knowle West and anti-fascism in the 1930s

7.00pm, Tuesday 29th November, Filwood Library, Filwood Broadway, Bristol BS4 1JN During the 1930’s militant antifascism against Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts was ingrained and established amongst the Bristolian working-class. Discontented by their many defeats in the inner-city, industrial working-class districts of Bristol the British Union of Fascists (BUF) turned their attention to the new garden suburbs springing up on the outskirts of the city. Unfortunately for the BUF, working-class […]

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 […]

South Bristol’s Garden Suburbs and Swimming Pools

7.00pm, Tuesday 22nd November, Filwood Library, Filwood Broadway, Bristol BS4 1JN The garden-city movement has had a significant impact on the development of Bristol as we know it. It aimed to create new neighbourhoods based on high-quality planning and housing design. This would transform the prospects for their residents by combining the best features of urban and rural life. BRHG member Steve Hunt will survey the influence of garden-suburb style planning upon Bristol’s spatial geography, from […]

Nicotiana Brittanica – tobacco and forced labour

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 […]

The Gas Girls – a hidden history of World War One

In a tribute to the community theatre group acta based in Gladstone Street, Bedminster and their 2014 play Gas Girls, Christine Townsend examines the exposure of a piece of lost Bristolian history that has international repercussions to this day. Acta's research helped to publicise the top secret production of mustard gas in Avonmouth factories during World War 1, and the lives of the women who carried out this dangerous work. Come and hear about the brilliant research conducted by Acta and the […]

‘Girls, Wives, Factory Lives’ – looking back to Churchmans after fifty years

I entered the shop floor of the small Bristol tobacco factory, Churchmans, in 1972. I wanted see, hear and smell the work and to talk to women manual workers about their work, their lives and their views. They were called ‘semi-skilled’ workers. What they did, weighing and cutting and rolling tobacco awed me with its speed and skill. Yet they could talk above the overwhelming rattle of machinery. Amazingly, I could interview them too. I had approached several larger factories in Bristol to do […]

Mining in Bedminster and the Dean Lane pit disaster

Many of those who crowd the streets of Bedminster during Upfest or for the Winter Lantern Parade are probably oblivious that they are actually deep in mining country. For many residents, the idea that this was once an area where several coalmines existed and men emerging from pits covered in coaldust was a feature of the working day, has long been forgotten. Above ground, there are no surviving reminders of that history except a single noticeboard in Dame Emily Park. But below the nearby […]

Exhibition: Facing up to the Fascists

Resisting the National Front in Bristol in the 1970s

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1st October to 17th November 2022: 1st Floor, Bristol Central Reference Library, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TL (now extended to 17th November). Launch event: 4.00pm, Monday 3rd October, Bristol Room, Bristol Central Reference Library Bristol Radical History Group presents an innovative exhibition of resistance to fascism in the city in the 1970s, through a collection of rare contemporary posters, badges, pamphlets, photographs and film. This visually powerful exhibition considers the role that […]

Taking a Holiday – a film about war resistance in Bedminster during World War 1

The amazing story of the secret beneath a Bedminster bike shop. A tale of struggle in wartime – full of intrigue, escapes, comradeship…and bikes. What does it mean to be a refugee and on the run in your own country? Who will give you a bed for the night, a job… or a means of escape? Puppetry, documentary material and songs combine in a narrative based on the true stories of Bristolians during 1914-1917, and the hidden history of resistance to the war machine. Following the screening the makers […]