News Feed - Bristol Radical History Group

Bristol Radical History Festival 2025

Saturday 26th April to Sunday 27th April, 2025

We are delighted to announce the 7th annual Bristol Radical History Festival The festival is held over two days at two main venues: Saturday 26th April at Bristol's social history museum on the city’s historic harbourside, M Shed; and, Sunday 27th April at the volunteer-run arts centre and cinema the Cube Microplex. Across two days and four themes, we can promise history talks, walks, exhibitions, stalls, two film screenings and a pre-festival trip to the Bristol Archives. We warmly invite you […]

Blowing up the Fire Engine Colliery

By Ian Wright

Forest of Dean Women Take The Lead

By Phil Jones

Beating the Blackshirts: Militant anti-fascism in south Bristol in the 1930s

During the 1930’s militant anti-fascist responses to Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts were established amongst the Bristolian working-class. Discouraged by their defeats in the inner-city districts of Bristol, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) turned their attention to south Bristol, Bedminster and the new garden suburbs springing up on the outskirts of the city. This illustrated talk traces the migration of pre WWII physical resistance to fascism in Bristol from the smoky and overcrowded slums to […]

Film screening: Cyrchfan Cyfiawnder – Newport Rising

A very special screening of Cyrchfan Cyfiawnder, the 1988 S4C drama-documentary commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Newport Rising. This remarkable production included a large-scale community opera featuring schools and choirs from across the South East Wales Valleys. It was directed by Colin Thomas and presented by the late Professor Gwyn Alf Williams, a key figure in the groundbreaking television history of Wales. We’re delighted to announce that Colin Thomas and members of the […]

Poor Law Relief and Miners’ Lockouts in the Forest of Dean

By Ian Wright

‘I fear there will be blood spilt this evening’: The Blandford Forum riots of 1831

By Steve Poole, Roger Ball

In October 1831, the refusal of the House of Lords to pass new legislation for the reform of parliament plunged the whole country into a deep political crisis. Rioting broke out in a number of towns, leaving local authorities hard pressed to restore order. One such town was Blandford Forum in Dorset. Here, protesting crowds attacked the property of anti-reformers, defied the orders of local magistrates to disperse, and fought with an armed cavalry regiment sent out to tackle them. In the […]

Bristol (mini) Anarchist Bookfair

At The Exchange on Sunday 24th November

The Bristol Anarchist Bookfair Collective (BABC) has been reformed after a hiatus of several years. They return with this mini-Bookfair event at The Exchange, 72-73 Old Market Street, Bristol BS2 0EJ, from 10.30 to 3.30pm...and are promising a mega-Bookfair in 2025. BRHG's book stall will be out and about at The Exchange - so come by and say hello! From the FB Event, the Collective state: Inspired by Active Distro's Radical Bookfairs we're hosting an event at Exchange this winter. A chance to […]

Book launch: City of Swimmers

A radical history of Bristol’s pools, lidos and wild swimming

In the 1930s, the Bristol Baths Committee announced its aspiration “Every Bristolian a swimmer”, setting a target that every home should have a swimming facility within a mile. City of Swimmers is a verrucas-and-all history of swimming in Bristol, from the eighteenth-century Rennison’s Baths in Montpelier to the beautiful historic Jacob’s Wells and Bristol South baths, and the mostly overlooked pools in more recent leisure centres. Readers may have memories of a world of award patches, metal […]

Pamphlet launch: Parent Power

The fight against school closures in south Bristol, 2000–2001

At the beginning of this century, residents of Hartcliffe and Withywood in Bristol were shocked to hear that the city council planned to close two of their local primary schools. Children, parents and teachers, including Mike Richardson, the author of this pamphlet, mobilised to oppose these closures. The ensuing campaign organised public meetings, wrote petitions and held demonstrations in the city centre, as well as adopting some less orthodox direct action in their bitter determination to […]