Not A BRHG Event
Rosemary Caldicott, a social history researcher and author will be our guest speaker on Friday 6th October at 2pm U.K. time, via zoom. She will be sharing insights from her upcoming book, shedding light on the often-overlooked aspects of history. Rosemary Caldicott is known for her dedication to uncovering hidden stories from the past. Her work brings a fresh perspective to the history of Captain Thomas Phillips and the Slave Ship Hannibal, exploring the complexities and challenges surrounding […]
As I worked on gathering pertinent words that will appear in the index of my forthcoming book: The Journal of Captain Thomas Phillips of Brecon, the Slave Ship Hannibal, and all who Sailed on Her (1693-1695) the key word ‘museum’ appears on my list. Why had a word associated with exhibition interjected itself into a narrative of events that had occurred nearly 330 years ago? To answer this question, I refer to the plaque commissioned by Brecon Town Council in 2010 to honour the life of the slave […]
As I worked on gathering pertinent words that will appear in the index of my forthcoming book: The Journal of Captain Thomas Phillips of Brecon, the Slave Ship Hannibal, and all who Sailed on Her (1693-1695) the key word ‘museum’ appears on my list. Why had a word associated with exhibition interjected itself into a narrative of events that had occurred nearly 330 years ago? To answer this question, I refer to the plaque commissioned by Brecon Town Council in 2010 to honour the life of the slave […]
Not A BRHG Event
A day of events featuring history talks from two Bristol Radical History Group members. In the Lord Mayor’s Reception Room: 13:30–14:15 Ann Yearsley: Milkmaid & Poet Sennen Cork leads an introduction to the life and works of Ann Yearsley, the 18th century milkmaid and poet. An early abolitionist, Ann is known for her controversial and contentious working relationship with Hannah More. 14:30–15:15 Nautical Women Author of Nautical Women: women sailors and the women of sailortowns: A forgotten […]
Warning – Due to the nature of the topic this article is not suitable for children The stench of the hold…was so intolerably loathsome that it was dangerous to remain there for any time…but now that the whole ship’s cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential.[1] Let me begin by saying that there was nothing unique about the utterly appalling conditions that existed on the Hannibal slave ship: All merchant slave ships were floating prisons of cruelty and depravity. For the […]
Not In An Event Series
The Red Lodge Museum, Park Row, Bristol BS1 5LJ. Booking details here. Bristol Radical History Group member Mark Steeds, author of Cry Freedom, Cry Seven Stars and co-author of From Wulfstan to Colston, is giving a talk animated by archive poetry readings to tell the international story of the movement towards abolition during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The lecture will begin with some history on African agency, starting with Nanny of the Maroons and followed by the 1736 […]
An often overlooked but essential element of a slave ship, such as the Hannibal, was the requirement for a large crew in comparison to the number of sailors usually required to man ordinary merchant shipping. Sailors who were to work on slavers would be recruited by any means possible. For example, some men were offered the option by a magistrate or judge of going to prison, transportation, or work as crew on a slave ship. John Newton, author of The Journal of a Slave Trader, described his crew […]
On Tuesday 30 November 2021, marking the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, Barbados proudly became a Republic. In 2020 the then governor-general of Barbados, Sandra Mason, now president and head of state, stated that "the time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state." The former Barbadian high commissioner to the United Kingdom Guy Hewitt, stated in an interview that many Barbadians believe that the country was due for "a […]
‘Triptych’ A poem by Marvin Thompson – Slaver Captain Phillips of Brecon (1693-1694)
On the weekend of 7-9 June 2020 the Brecon plaque to a slave trading captain was stripped from the wall on which it was erected in 2010. Poet Marvin Thompson was inspired to write the following poem: On the Anniversary of the death of George Floyd: Dear Brecon Town Council, A mouth drying to mud, tightening lungs and eyes on the edge of tears: that was the reaction of my Black British body when, on this wind-lash of a lockdown morning, I read who you class as a role model for my Welsh, Mixed […]
Not A BRHG Event
Note: this is an online event organised by M Shed. Registration and booking is required via their website. Published a few days before the fall of Edward Colston’s statue in June 2020, From Wulftsan to Colston traces a thousand-year history of the involvement in slavery of Bristol’s merchants, from Anglo-Saxon times through the era of exploration and colonisation to the transatlantic slave trade and the plantation system of the Americas. During this period, Bristol’s merchant elite seized […]
