{"id":10707,"date":"2020-02-23T21:05:23","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T21:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/?p=10707"},"modified":"2020-02-23T21:05:23","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T21:05:23","slug":"john-o-reiley-man-of-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/2020\/02\/john-o-reiley-man-of-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"John \u2018O\u2019 Reiley – \u2018Man of Fire\u2019."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Men<\/a><\/p>\n

For Christmas 2019 I bought my father a copy of BRHG\u2019s pamphlet \u2018Men of Fire -Work, Resistance and Organisation of Bristol Gasworkers in the Nineteenth Century’.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Since his retirement he has been researching family history and I remembered that there was an ancestor who worked as a gas stoker in Bristol. We assumed Eastville as, in his youth, my father supported Bristol Rovers and we didn\u2019t know there were two other coal gas production sites in Bristol.<\/p>\n

After both reading \u2018Men of Fire\u2019 we agreed that from the census records he was most likely to have been employed at Avon Street works. In 1891 he is listed as having the occupation \u2018Gas Stoker\u2019 and previously (1881) \u2018Mason\u2019s Clerk\u2019. In line with the authors\u2019 analysis by 1901 he is a lowly \u2018labourer\u2019 at the gas works.<\/p>\n

My 3* great grandfather was born during the Irish famine. Surviving this he eventually fled to Bristol with his wife and in laws after many hundreds of thousands of acres of land were converted for profit from arable to pasture and so homelessness and starvation loomed again in the early 1860\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u2018\u2026Ireland is at present only an agricultural district of England, marked off by a wide channel from the country to which it yields corn, wool, cattle, industrial and military recruits\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

So wrote Marx at the time.<\/p>\n

As a Trade Union shop steward I\u2019ve been massively emboldened by the revelation that my ancestor, very likely, participated in the 1889 strike.<\/p>\n

Please keep up the good work BRHG.<\/p>\n

Paul K (30-01-2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Christmas 2019 I bought my father a copy of BRHG\u2019s pamphlet \u2018Men of Fire -Work, Resistance and Organisation of Bristol Gasworkers in the Nineteenth Century’. Since his retirement he has been researching family history and I remembered that there was an ancestor who worked as a gas stoker in Bristol. We assumed Eastville as, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[1050,1281,1280,572],"class_list":["post-10707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-workers-organisations-strikes","tag-gas-workers","tag-gas-works","tag-men-of-fire","tag-strike-wave-1889-90"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn \u2018O\u2019 Reiley - \u2018Man of Fire\u2019. - Bristol Radical History Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brh.org.uk\/site\/2020\/02\/john-o-reiley-man-of-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John \u2018O\u2019 Reiley - \u2018Man of Fire\u2019. - Bristol Radical History Group\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For Christmas 2019 I bought my father a copy of BRHG\u2019s pamphlet \u2018Men of Fire -Work, Resistance and Organisation of Bristol Gasworkers in the Nineteenth Century’. 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