People’s History

Illustration of a grey factory building with a reflection of it in green underneath

Edition 43

The workers who tried to make ‘swords into ploughshares’

Andy Danford spent decades in Bristol’s aerospace and arms sectors, navigating industrial battles, political upheaval, and bold ideas for transforming weapons factories into socially useful workplaces

Adam Quarshie
Adam Quarshie

Edition 41

Bristol: City of Sanctuary?

Colin Thomas

Music

Blazing the fire: Sound system culture through the generations

Adam Quarshie
Adam Quarshie
19th century photograph of Bristol Harbour, with large boats on the River Frome in the foreground.

People's History

Blockade runners: The grim history of the Bristol ships that helped US slave states

The American Civil War ended 160 years ago with the victory of the Union and the abolition of slavery. But many Bristolians supported the losing side and indirectly profited from enslaved labour.

Eugene Byrne
Eugene Byrne
A red brick corner building on a city street with large windows and white panels

People's History

Celebrating 30 years of the Base for Anarchy and Solidarity in Easton (BASE)

Tom Anderson
Tom Anderson
A photograph of terraced housing and a harbour from photograph of Bristol in 1880.

People's History

How a 19th-century journalist revealed the extent of poverty in Victorian Bristol

Eugene Byrne
Eugene Byrne

People's History

An 19th-century illlustration showing a group of people, imagined to be in Elizabethan England, throwing objectss at a cockerel.

Cock-throwing, dog-tossing and bare-knuckle boxing: the brutal history of Pancake Day in Bristol

Shrove Tuesday is a minor holiday at best these days. But turn the clock back, and both animals and humans in Bristol would have had a lot more than pancakes to worry about as Lent approached.

Eugene Byrne
Eugene Byrne

People's History

A women sitting on a wooden stage beside a quilt and a framed historic photograph.

‘There’s a price to be paid’: one woman’s mission to highlight historic buildings’ slave trade links

Gloria Daniel has spent years tracing the connections between the UK’s built environment and its colonial trade in humans. An exhibition at Ashton Court and a new memorial in Bristol Cathedral are pushing back on hidden injustice.

Adam Quarshie
Adam Quarshie

People's History

A black and white photo of the River Avon with a steam boat listing to the left framed by the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

‘A disgraceful orgy of robbery’: when the Ettrick got stuck in the Avon

In 1924, a steamship ran aground near Sea Mills. When its cargo of cigarettes, chocolate and other desirable goods was thrown overboard, who could blame local people for helping themselves to the booty?

David Hewitt
David Hewitt

People's History

From dubious mermaids to harsh prison conditions: how Fred Little documented Bristol a century ago

The Easton-born photographer’s work provides a unique, and sometimes vividly reimagined, perspective on how our city looked during the early years of the 20th century.

Michal Grant
Michal Grant

Area in Focus

A woman and a man stand smiling in the hall of a community centre

How St Paul’s residents fought to make the Malcolm X Centre a space for the community

The Malcolm X Centre on Ashley Road is one of Bristol’s most well-known and treasured community venues. What’s less well remembered is the struggle local people went through to lay the foundations for that status.

Isaac Kneebone-Hopkins

People's History

Before the Second World War, Castle Street, where Mary Burridge took from Woolworth’s was one of Bristol’s main shopping streets

How a media backlash led to a St Paul’s woman’s dramatic release from prison

In 1933 Mary Burridge, a poor mother of five, was sentenced to a month’s hard labour after stealing a few items of food at Easter. But after a national outcry over her treatment, a wealthy lawyer flew to Cardiff to free her from prison.

David Hewitt
David Hewitt
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