People’s History

Edition 41

Bristol: City of Sanctuary?

Bristol became a City of Sanctuary in 2012 — a promise to welcome those fleeing persecution. But has it lived up to that pledge? Historian Colin Thomas looks back

Colin Thomas

Music

Blazing the fire: Sound system culture through the generations

Adam Quarshie
Adam Quarshie

People's History

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

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

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)

As the Easton-based social centre reaches its thirtieth birthday, we explore the history of the much-loved volunteer-run community space, which began life as a squat back in the mid-1990s

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

People's History

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

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

People's History

A young man in a Scouts hat and scarf, shown in an archive photo

The ‘Red Scout’: how a boy from Brislington became caught up in anti-communist hysteria

Seventy years ago this month, Paul Garland was kicked out of the Scout movement over his links to the British Communist Party, with his case making the pages of Time magazine and sparking debate in the House of Lords.

David Hewitt
David Hewitt
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