News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

The Real Conspiracy

The Shrewsbury 24 Campaign’s Fight for Justice

It is 44 years since the first-ever national building workers strike in Britain. Five months after the strike ended, 24 pickets were picked up and charged with over 200 offences, including unlawful assembly, intimidation and affray. Six of the pickets were also charged with ‘conspiracy to intimidate’. None of the pickets had been cautioned or arrested during the strike. There were no police complaints laid against the pickets at the time. At the first Shrewsbury trial, beginning in October 1973, […]

Dave Wise and Stuart Wise

Veteran Situationists behind King Mob and ‘Revolt Against Plenty’ in a panel discussion with members of the Bristol Radical History Group

Dave and Stuart Wise were the unrepentant core of 1960’s revolutionary group King Mob, part of the English section of the Situationist International (an ephemeral affiliation; the notoriously fractious SI expelled them). This will be a rare opportunity to hear them in conversation with members of the Bristol Radical History Group (and whoever wants to chip in!). In a kind of open mic radical history session, we seek to revisit the (anti-)work of his majesty King Mob where it belongs; unmediated, […]

James Acland and The Bristolian

Keeping it Spikey since 1827

The Bristolian local broadsheet is well known in this city for exposing corruption, lies and duplicity amongst Bristol’s ‘high and mighty’ of all shades of political persuasion. What is less well known is that the paper was originally founded by James Acland, a radical agitator, who first wrote, financed and published a daily version in 1827. Its pages contained scathing attacks on the Corporation, Magistracy and wealthy Merchants who made up the oligarchy that controlled the city. Acland […]

The Maltreated and the Malcontents

Working in the Great Western Cotton Factory 1838-1914

The history of Bristol’s Great Western Cotton Works in Barton Hill, which opened in 1838, is little known. The story of its workforce — mainly low-paid women and children — has never been told. From the 1830s to the early twentieth century, Barton Hill workers endured long working hours, high rates of industrial accidents and ill-health from the cotton dust and humidity. Moreover, they were subjected to wage cuts and fines by a series of unrelenting managers. Divided along age and gender lines […]

Bristol Anarchist Bookfair 2016

Saturday 30th April, 2016

The Radical History Zone is back at Hydra Books, 34 Old Market, BS2 0EZ, as part of Bristol Anarchist Bookfair 2016. The main bookfair is once again at The Trinity Centre on Trinity Road. Bristol Radical History Group will also have a stall at the bookfair stocking our full range of pamphlets. We are celebrating two anniversaries this year! 2016 marks the 10th birthday of the Bristol Radical History Group. This year we have also organised the 5th Radical History Zone (RHZ). The RHZ is an […]

Unveiling of a Blue Plaque to Walter Ayles

Venue: 12 Station Road, Ashley Down, Bristol, BS7 9LA A blue plaque for Walter Ayles will be unveiled on Sunday April 17th – the centenary of the date that Ayles was first arrested. Please put this date in your diary. The unveiling will take place from 3.30pm at the house where lived with his wife Bertha in Station Road, Ashley Down. Generous donations have enabled us to raise over £600 to pay for the plaque. Full details will be circulated nearer the date. Come along and help us honour all […]

Revolution in Rojava: Strengths and Challenges

Syria, The Kurds,ISIS and the West

With Since the descent into civil war in Syria, revolutionary forces have seized control of the Kurdish region of Rojava. This talk aims to assess the strengths,challenges and vulnerabilities of the revolutionary project under way there. In terms of strengths, I will focus principally on four: (1) revolutionary discipline and the power of ideology; (2) consciousness-raising, collective mobilization, and assembly democracy; (3) gender emancipation; and (4) attempts to accommodate ethnic and […]

History is the new punk

By Randell Brantley

History From Below networking and new visions of how to research and communicate radical history Transcription and slides from a multimedia talk by Roger Ball and Peter Box at Manchester Metropolitan University, 11 May, 2015 This talk covers: The recent history of movements studying History From Below: History Workshop Movement (UK), Dig Where You Stand (Sweden) and ‘Geschichtswerkstätten’ (Germany) The growth, diversity of approaches and activities in the current international History From […]

Hesitant Comrades

Hesitant Comrades is the first book to explore the actions and attitudes of the British working class towards the Irish Revolution of 1916–21.With sources ranging from newly discovered writings to reports of police spies, Geoffrey Bell brings to light new evidence. He shows how the leaders of British trade unions were complicit in Belfast loyalist sectarianism and he explores the troubled nature of the Labour Party's relations with its Irish community, and how the Bolsheviks criticised British […]

100 Fishponds Road

Eastville Workhouse's Paupers Remembered