News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire

Episode 3: End Game

This BBC series uses original research in German military archives to interrogate long-standing assumptions and prevailing myths about the what happened in the most iconic battle of the First World War. The final programme, End Game questions the broadly accepted idea that the Somme campaign was the ‘decisive victory’, British Commander in Chief Douglas Haig claimed it to be. To do this, it examines the revealingly different military cultures of the British and Germany armies, not just in terms […]

A ‘night of infamy’: Black Friday, 1892

History Walk

Bristol was rocked by two major strike waves in the late 19th Century, the first (1889-90) marked the emergence of ‘new unionism’ representing male and (significantly) female unskilled and semi-skilled labourers. Victory in these strikes improved pay and conditions for workers but led to an organised counter-offensive by employers in the autumn of 1892. The response of workers was a second strike wave which united miners, dockers and female confectionary workers, culminating in 'Black Friday' on […]

New WEA Course: History of the Women’s Movement (1968–1988)

By Randell Brantley

Dr Debi Withers is running a new WEA course in Bristol entitled History of the Women’s Movement (1968 – 1988): An introduction. Details below:

Film showing: The White Ribbon

Dir. Michael Haneke

This film showing kicks off a series of events this year from the Remembering the Real World War One group looking at WW1 from a German historical perspective. Film Summary: In the run-up to the outbreak of WW1 in August 1914, the peace and quiet of a small Prussian village is upset by a series of disturbing events that seem to involve local children. As the villagers vacillate between exposing and concealing the perpetrators of the crimes, the wider question of culpability becomes […]

Kurdish/Syria Solidarity night

Films and Speakers

Tonight is an evening to find out more about the situation in Northern Syria and the region that the Kurdish groups and those that support them call Rojava. We are going to show two films and have some speakers discussing and facilitating a discussion about supporting the situation in Rojava and what we can do in Bristol and the wider UK to raise awareness and support the struggle for an autonomous and secular region in Northern Syria. We will try and encourage a space for all those interested […]

Renaming the Colston Hall: An opportunity to rediscover the hidden history of Bristol

By Randell Brantley

A close up of Colston's face from his statue in Bristol's centre

The following statement by BRHG historians was published in the Bristol Post last week in response to Councillor Richard Eddy's article the week before entitled: Prominent Tory: Renaming Bristol's Colston Hall 'panders to tiny minority'. Almost a century ago in 1920 the Reverend H. J. Wilkins of Westbury-on Trym penned a biography of Edward Colston which began to expose the troubling history surrounding Bristol’s so-called ‘moral saint’ and ‘great philanthropist’. Wilkins was astounded at the […]

Women and Conscientious Objection to Military Service

missing thumb

Quaker Meeting House, 126 Hampton Road, Redland, Bristol BS6 6JE A free event on women and conscientious objection to military service. Note: Registration is required for this event, details here. Speakers will include:- Professor Lois Bibbings, University of Bristol, author of Telling Tales About Men: Conceptions of Conscientious Objectors to Military Service During the First World War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009) will look at how World War 1 Conscientious Objectors were […]

Lady Blackshirts

The Perils of Perception – suffragettes who became fascists

By Rosemary L Caldicott

During the 1930s a small group of ultra-nationalistic women, who considered themselves feminists, joined Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Surprisingly some of these women were former high ranking members of the suffragette movement. Over 50 regional branches of the British Union of Fascists, with Women’s Sections, opened across the United Kingdom. The branches were established to promote and normalise the ultra-right and to position fascism as an acceptable political choice within […]

The Smoke-Dragon and How to Destroy it

Published with an introduction by Stephen E. Hunt

By Stephen E. Hunt, Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) was one of the most progressive thinkers, writers and activists of the late19th and early 20th century. He was an early supporter of the Bristol Socialist Society and paid regular visits to the city. Now remembered and celebrated mostly for his support for libertarian socialism and gay politics, he also took up ‘green’ causes. Carpenter’s campaigns for smoke abatement have rarely been revisited. His serialised essay on the subject, The Smoke-Dragon and How to Destroy […]

The 1831 Bristol rising

Solidarity in South Wales

After the defeat of the first reform bill in early October 1831 violent protests exploded in many British cities. The rising in Bristol was the most spectacular and suffered the harshest repression by the military. This talk considers this revolt and, using new research, solidarity actions in South Wales to aid the Bristol ‘rioters’. A workshop at Cardiff Anarchist Bookfair, Room 1, Cathays Community Centre, 36-38 Cathays Terrace, Cardiff CF24 4HX