This talk considers, from a Bristol perspective, the huge wave of strikes involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands of personnel in the British Armed forces at the end of World War One. Mass insubordination, refusals and in some cases mutiny swept through army, navy and air force personnel in January 1919. Driven by the desire for immediate demobilisation and fears that politicians and military leaders might commit them to the ongoing invasion of revolutionary Russia and other colonial […]
Meet: 2.00pm Ropewalk pub - 5 Nelson Parade, Bedminster, Bristol BS3 4JA Come with us on a journey through time and space in Bedminster, Victoria Park and Windmill Hill... This two hour history walk uncovers the radical political groups and individuals active in Bedminster in the pre-WWI and post-war periods, the strikes and trade union actions of the growing labour movement and how these networks of activists combined to resist the war. We also look at the changing nature of the area and the […]
Hurray! Bristol has a new road named Mabel Tothill Place in the Barton Hill area. This is great news as it is well deserved and highlights a local activist who did so much for the area. There are remarkably few roads named after women anywhere in the country. Mabel Tothill who lived from 1869 to 1964 was a peace campaigner, a Quaker, a socialist and Bristol's first woman councillor (for Easton ward). She was a committed social activist who was part of campaigns and organizations that worked to […]
Emma Byron and Trevor Houghton present the story of a network of neighbours, workmates, families and comrades who stood together and refused to take their part in the war machine. Steps Against War is an innovative micro-history of resistance to war in a working-class district of south Bristol. The book grew out of a community project to create a history walk with puppets, and the talk will be illustrated with short videos and images of puppetry, as well as pictures from Bedminster in the […]
An excellent new book Communities of Resistance has just been published which takes a systematic look at the networks of war resisters connected to conscientious objectors in World War One. Based upon a nationwide survey of COs it appears Bristol was a hot spot of war resistance as the author, Cyril Pearce, explains: The work which has resulted in this new book, Communities of Resistance, began almost twenty years ago in a study of the 1914-1918 anti-war movement in Cyril Pearce's home town of […]
Earlier this year, a group of local people worked with Otherstory and Remembering the Real WW1 to discover untold stories of Bedminster people in the First World War. Together we created Steps Against War, a history walk with puppets to tell these stories: The 40 Bedminster men who refused to fight: who went to jail, or who took to the hills; the local detective always on their tracks; the women running networks of resistance - and the secret hideaway at the heart of Cannon Street... Come and […]
Graham Bottrill will talk about his novel ‘The Sword & the Sickle’ and the research that led him to write it. The novel explores the emerging political consciousness of a working class soldier, Harry Wood, returning from the First World War to confront an archaic society in serious need of change.
Bedminster Library, 4 Bedminster Parade, Bristol BS3 4AQ Earlier this year, a group of local people worked with Otherstory and Remembering the Real WW1 to discover untold stories of Bedminster people in the First World War. Together we created Steps Against War, a history walk with puppets to tell these stories: The 40 Bedminster men who refused to fight: who went to jail, or who took to the hills; the local detective always on their tracks; the women running networks of resistance - and the […]
At the start of World War One Bridport was essentially a one industry town: rope and net making. The war brought opportunities to the town but also challenged paternalist employers with a revival of trade unionism and state pressure to improve low wages. With the Armistice, the sense of a collective national interest on the home front began to ebb away revealing long-standing as well as new tensions in the town. This talk explores the origins of these tensions in the war years and the range of […]
This new powerful dramatic performance looks at the real lives of 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, later to be a Stroud doctor, who worked with sufferers at the Front and prevented many men being shot for desertion through his testimonies. Violet Hall, a wife and mother from a Gloucestershire village who lost […]
