Eugene Byrne Wednesday 21^st February 2024

Local historian and Journalist Eugene Byrne gave a really amusing and insightful talk based on over four decades of working in Bristol. Most of his research is of course carried out in the archives but quite often he has used tales told to him by ‘a man in the pub’.

The key phrase often used when journalists come across an attention grabbing story is that it is probably ‘too good to check’.

We started with the story of Tollgate House. When this eyesore was demolished in 2006, it was claimed that a huge cannabis farm was found on the top floor. Then there was the story of the man who told his partner that he wanted to split up and could she remove her belongings whilst he was away on business. When he returned he found the telephone receiver had been left hanging loose. His partner had phoned the speaking clock in Melbourne, Australia. The telephone bill was thousands of pounds.

Many of the stories crop up all over the world. These include stories about dogs in restaurant freezers or the story of the vanishing hitchhiker. More recently archaeologists tried to find the ‘Kingswood elephant’ which had apparently died when a touring circus visited Kingswood in the nineteenth century. It was said to be buried in a local churchyard. It has never been found.

In the nineteenth century newspapers published tall tales to increase circulation. Bristol had two rival newspapers. John Latimer was the editor of the Bristol Mercury from 1858 to 1883. He was passionate about local history and as a Unitarian keen to print the truth. The rival Bristol Times was edited by the romantic Tory Irishman Joseph Leech. He certainly never let the facts get in the way of a good story (a nineteenth century Boris Johnson). Leech liked stories about the supernatural.

A big story in the Bristol Times (and told by Eugene in the Bristol Post) was the tale of Dr Frederick William Blomberg. He had been chaplain and private secretary to the Prince of Wales (later George IV). Thanks to royal influence he was appointed to many well-paid sinecures within the Church, though he did very little work in any of them. Blomberg was appointed Prebendary of Bristol in 1790, at the age of just 28. Why had this man received so much royal favour? Blomberg’s father, the story went, had been an army officer who had secretly married a young woman against the wishes of his family (or her family, or both), and together they had two children, one being young Frederick William. When his wife died, Major Blomberg had the children sent to a house in rural Dorset to be brought up discreetly. Major Blomberg was then killed fighting in the American War of Independence. The fate of his secret children would have been very uncertain, but then a very strange thing happened. Major Blomberg’s ghost appeared to a fellow officer. The ghost told him about the children, and where to find them, and how to ensure they inherited his property. When Queen Charlotte (wife of King George III) heard about this, she insisted young Frederick William be sent for, and that he should be brought up with her own children. So Blomberg’s great good fortune in ecclesiastical offices was the result of his being brought up as a virtual member of the Royal Family.

It was one of the most famous ghost stories of the age. However, the many critics of the wordliness and corruption in the Church of England preferred another version of the story… This was that Frederick William Blomberg was in fact an illegitimate son of George III, to whom he bore a strong physical resemblance.

Eugene then regaled us with the seventeenth century story of the giant spider of Baldwin Street.

During both world wars rumours led to some outlandish tales.

Apparently a young member of the Wills family was captured by the Germans in the First World War. Local gossip had it that he was released in return for a ransom of large quantities of Woodbine cigarettes.

There were the RAF night fighter pilots (in Bristol Beaufighters of course) who could see German bombers in the dark because they ate carrots. Bristolians still talk about ‘Purdown Percy’ the large calibre gun on Purdown. In 1942 when the Yanks arrived there is a story of a Stoke Bishop lady inviting GIs to tea. In the invitation to the US Army commander at a nearby camp, she wrote ‘no jews please.’ When six black American soldiers turned up for tea she said ‘Oh dear there seems to have been a mistake.’ The soldiers replied ‘Ma’am Colonel Cohen doesn’t make mistakes.’

In the 1970s and 80s when Imperial Tobacco (Wills) were worried about falling cigarette sales, stories circulated that machinery had been spotted that was going to help the Bristol factories produce marijuana cigarettes………the stories also said that the government was about to legalise marijuana.

During the First World War it was said that some ladies in Cotham chose to hide their brother in the attic so that he could avoid conscription. The story went on that he could only leave the house at night. The evidence for this was sightings of a man with very long hair and finger nails wandering the streets of Cotham.  

The most recent Bristol tale is of course the car park attendant at Bristol Zoo who collected tolls for over thirty years. It was said that the Zoo and Bristol City Council denied that he was in their employ. Eugene has investigated this story for some time and can confirm that there is no evidence at all for the existence of this entrepreneurial attendant.

Eugene finished with the story of Dr Beryl Corner the paediatrician who worked at the Childrens Hospital and Southmead from the late 1940s. Dr Corner was a pioneer in the care of premature babies. It was also said that she helped deliver baby chimpanzees and gorillas for Bristol Zoo.

Thanks to Eugene for another excellent talk. If you would like to follow his stories he is currently editor of the Bristol Post’s Bristol Times weekly local history supplement.