News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

Riot charges…why Bristol and Swansea?… and why now?

The recent use of riot charges against a protest and a wake

By Roger Ball

The following article was compiled over 2022 in response to the exceptional use of riot charges against defendants in Bristol and Swansea in the spring of 2021. Introduction The introduction of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (the Police Bill hereafter) in March 2021 was widely seen as an attempt by the Conservative government to clamp down on legitimate protest, particularly actions taken by climate protestors and the Black Lives Matter movement.[1] There was widespread […]

Voyage of Despair

The Hannibal, its captain and all who sailed in her, 1693–1695

By Rosemary L Caldicott

Front cover with picture of a slave ship off Africa, colourised in blue, purple and pink

The brutality of the slave trade. In 1693, Captain Thomas Phillips embarked on a voyage from London to Guinea, where he purchased enslaved Africans on behalf of the Royal African Company. The subsequent journey across the Atlantic witnessed a tragic toll, with hundreds of the enslaved captives, and many of the crew, losing their lives before the ship reached the shores of Barbados. Three centuries later, in 2010, Brecon Town Council made a startling and controversial decision—to honour Captain […]

Trouble on the Trams

By Rob Whitfield

The fight for union rights. In the early twentieth century, workers could be sacked by their employer with impunity simply because they had joined a trade union. Such was the situation for those who worked on Bristol’s trams. In Trouble on the Trams, Rob Whitfield recounts how the drivers and conductors fought back when nearly one hundred of their number were dismissed in 1901. Using contemporary newspaper reports and the company’s own records, he details this dispute and those that were to […]

Bedminster Union Workhouse – The Life and Death of Hannah Wiltshire

'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 […]

Bristol Radical History Festival 2024

Saturday 13th April to Sunday 21st April, 2024

Any movement which is ignorant of its own history is a prisoner of other people’s history. We can’t possibly win the future unless we keep our hands on our own past. (Gwyn Alf Williams) We are delighted to announce the 6th annual Bristol Radical History Festival. This year, due to popular demand, the festival has expanded to two days over the weekend of 20-21 April. The festival is hosted by two excellent Bristol venues, M Shed, the social history museum on the city’s historic harbourside and […]

Fighting Women: Interviews with veterans of the Spanish Civil War

BRHG are very pleased to invite Isabella Lorusso to speak about her book at International Women's Day in Bristol. Saturday March 2nd - 15:30-16:15 - Lady Mayor's Parlour, City Hall Fighting women is a choral book, a set of interviews conducted with Spanish women who took part in the civil war. Some took up arms and fought on the front, others joined the POUM, Free Women or different anarchist groups. They all fought against Francoism and for the emancipation of women, and together they achieved […]

City Pit

Memoirs of a Speedwell miner

By Fred Moss

This 70-page booklet, City Pit: memoirs of a Speedwell miner, tells the story of Fred Moss who lived and worked in east Bristol as a collier in several different pits. Fred starts his story as a boy, telling of a strong community, living difficult hard lives but with sturdy solidarity in the face of adversity. He describes the benefits of mutual aid and respect in an area dominated by mining and associated trades, in a community which has largely passed and is now a historical memory. He […]

Bristol With Myanmar Presents: The Way

Benefit Film Screening and Discussion at Cube Cinema on 8th February

The Bristol #WithMyanmar group presents a fundraising evening of film and discussion to mark the 3rd anniversary of the Military Coup in Myanmar on 1st February 2021. Proceeds from the event will go to groups in Myanmar providing medical support and support for internally displaced people. See Cube Cinema and Headfirst for more info and tickets - please pay a minimum of £5 to support this fundraiser. Thanks. The event programme is: Doors at 7pm - a chance to buy Myanmar street food and raise […]

Winston Trew statement on the quashing of the convictions of Saliah Mehmet and Basil Peterkin

By Winston Trew

In 2022 Winston Trew of the Oval Four gave a talk at the Bristol Radical History Festival detailing his lifelong campaign for justice for the victims of racist and corrupt police officer Detective Sergeant Derek Ridgewell. Winston’s devastating story is detailed in his books Black for a Cause… and Rot at the Core: The Serious crimes of a Detective Sergeant . A young Black Power activist in 1973, Winston and three friends were accosted in the Oval tube station by plain clothes police, arrested, […]

Bristol Allotmenteers Resist! campaign as the eternal struggle for land continues

By Tim

Image consists of small pictures of veg, plants and seedlings. Plus the text Bristol Allotmenteers Resist and brief explainer of the campaign, plus important links for people to check out. THese are in the article below too.

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 […]