Gloucestershire Archives - Bristol Radical History Group

General Strike Centenary Series

By Randell Brantley

To mark the centenary of the 1926 General Strike and miners’ lockout, BRHG members are involved in a project to commemorate the strike in Bristol and the surrounding area. As part of this effort, BRHG has released a series of 8 pamphlets, covering aspects of the strike in Somerset, Bristol and Gloucestershire. Buy The Series Of 8 Pamphlets General Strike Centenary Series #1 The Spirit There Is Magnificent: The General Strike in Bristol, May 1926 Rob Whitfield ISBN 978-1-911522-90-4 #2 Standfast […]

Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society

From the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society website: "The founders of BGAS back in 1876 wanted to create a learned society where interested individuals from any walk of life could share knowledge and discoveries about all aspects of the past, in Bristol and Gloucestershire. Today, while we tend to divide ‘the past’ into either history or archaeology, the two disciplines have always overlapped and we still aim to welcome anyone with a deep interest in either field." News, […]

Commemoration Through Drama

Play 1: 'War In Mind' - John Bassett, Spaniel In The Works Theatre Company This new powerful dramatic performance looks at the lives of real people affected by shell shock in the First World War. Driver William Charles Phillips, a Tetbury man who though he never actively fought at the front, died in Gloucester Asylum from paralysis in 1917. Doctor Harold Hills, a Stroud doctor, who worked with sufferers at the Front and prevented many men being shot for desertion through his testimonies. Violet […]

Level 2: Exhibition : Dennis Gould’s art and memorabilia

Stroud letterpress artist, poet and activist

Bristol Radical History Festival 2018 Poster Light

Poet and letterpress artist Dennis Gould began the early 1960s in Stafford Prison. Serving with the Royal Engineers during the 1950s, he later took up the cause of the Committee of 100, the direct-action wing of the anti-nuclear movement, carrying out acts of non-violent civil disobedience for which he was detained at her Majesty’s pleasure. In 1965 Dennis helped to organise an anarchist fringe festival of poetry at the Octagon in Bath. He continued to campaign and work with Peace News and then […]

Performance Space: Story Telling: ‘The Dispossessed’

As part of her collection of historically-based narratives which provoke questions about society today, Heather Jane will present a story set in her homeland of Gloucestershire. 'The Dispossessed' is a tale weaving poaching, 18th century criminality, and dispossession of people from the land in Berkeley and the Forest of Dean; followed by historical facts and discussion pondering the modern-day fall out of enclosures.

Nicotiana Brittanica

The Cotswolds’ Illicit Tobacco Cultivation In The 17th Century

By Will Simpson, Jim McNeill

Four centuries ago a group of farmers from the West of England decided to see if they could make a living for themselves by growing tobacco. This put them at odds with the English state and its imperial ambition to build a mercantile economy driven by indentured and slave labour. This is their story of resistance. Fair-trade home-grown tobacco? Put that in yer pipe and smoke it

‘Race War’

Black American GIs in Bristol and Gloucestershire During World War II

By Neil A. Wynn

America's entry into World War II immediately served to highlight the issue of race relations and the contradictions between America's declared position as a defender of "freedom" and "democracy," and what was actually practiced. Prior to the D-Day landings of June 1944, there were just under 1.6 million American forces personnel located in various parts of the U.K, with the largest numbers gathered in the southwest. The pubs in Bristol were segregated with some serving whites only, others, […]

Cotswold Tobacco Growing

By Jim McNeill

Not Exactly A Digger Thing? Notes from Jim McNeill's lecture during the Smugglers 1 events at Bristol Radical History Week 2007. 1598: In the House of Lords by Lord Harris, asked that English and Irish farmers might be permitted to test whether tobacco could be produced in this country at a profit. 1619: A London merchant, John Stratford, purchased spare land in and around Winchcombe and planted tobacco. See next section of these notes. 1619: Act banning Tobacco growing in England passed — just […]