City of Sanctuary?

Bristol has been host to refugees for centuries—but just how welcoming has the city been?

The events of the first week of August 2024 follow a pattern that stretches back centuries—refugees and asylum seekers seeking refuge in Bristol and encountering hostility from some, but a welcome from others.

Colin Thomas’s short history charts the reception given to those fleeing war and persecution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first, outlines the stories of organisations that have developed to support these refugees in Bristol and, finally, poses some difficult questions we have to ask.