Our first meeting this term was a really lively interpretation of Britain’s interwar history by Dr Alwyn Turner.  Using the dance craze around the Lambeth Walk, hit tune from the show Me and My Gal, Alwyn explored why Britain was different from so much of Europe where dictatorships ruled by the 1930s.  This upbeat cheerful tune started a worldwide dance craze and was very different from many of the usual images of the 1930s.

He argued that losses of the First World War, the 1926 General Strike and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists while significant were not comparable to events in Europe.  The most important politician of the period was Stanley Baldwin not Mosely.  Mosley’s BUF was a target of satire for writers like John Buchan, Richmal Compton, Evelyn Waugh and most of all PG Wodehouse. 

Britain’s monarchy already had the spectacle and iconography that dictators would replicate in the 1930s. 

Alwyn introduced us to possible groups and events in 1919 that might have threatened the stability of Britain.  As well as the events in Ireland there was violent rioting in Cardiff, Liverpool and Glasgow.  The NUX (the National Union of Ex-servicemen) were a popular group with a radical agenda and 300,000 members in the early 1920s.  However, the British Legion founded by General Haig was one of the key voluntary organizations that took Britain along a more moderate path.  Others included Working Men’s Clubs and the Women’s Institute.  These voluntary democratic societies had hundreds of thousands of members and were one of three strands of British society that Alwyn argued helped to shape a very different culture in Britain than much of Europe.  The other two were the BBC and the British Board of Film Censorship.    Lord Reith’s BBC produced a non-sectarian Christian culture with wide appeal and a mission to educate as well as entertain. By 1939 there were 9 million wireless licenses issued in Britain. The BBFC in 1920 set itself criteria that included banning the depiction of ‘indecorous dancing’ and ‘free love’ but also ‘scenes to inflame racial hatred’ or ‘inferiority of the coloured races.’ Its President Lord Tyrell was proud that ‘not a single film in London [dealt] with any of the burning issues of the day.’   The British media and most politicians attitude to the dictatorships was one of satire and disbelief.  Alwyn illustrated this with cartoons from the Daily Herald and a quote from the much-loved author of Lost Horizon, James Hilton. This partially explained why Britain clung for so long to the policy of appeasement.  

The end of the Lambeth Walk lecture showed how in wartime Charles Ridley devised a satire on Nazi Germany using speeded up film of a Hitler and his followers in 1941 to the tune of the Lambeth Walk. Alwyn produced not only an excellent lecture but a brilliant use of film, radio and music to illustrate his PowerPoint. 

Our audience were heartily entertained and a great Q&A followed.  Our audience numbered over 75.  

This year, the University of Bristol marks the 150th Anniversary of the founding of its predecessor, University College, Bristol, in 1876. This anniversary also marks the beginning of the teaching and study of the subject History at the University. On the anniversary day itself,10 October, our doors are open, and there will be anniversary events and displays across our campuses. Come join us as we mark this important moment for Bristol History with a key note address from the department’s Senior Lecturer in Chinese History, Dr Vivian Kong. A historian of identities and migration of colonial Hong Kong, Dr Kong is the author of Multiracial Britishness: Global Networks in Hong Kong 1910-45. Drawing on her new research on a Hong Kong-born interracial woman and her journeys in Cornwall, London, and Singapore, her talk answers the questions asked 100 years ago at the lecture that marked the beginning of University of Bristol – why is History studied, and why should it be part of a liberal education? 

Fuller details and booking here: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/150-years/events/

Membership for 2026-2026 still only costs £15.

If you would like to renew your membership or join for the first time please pay £15 to our account through a bank transfer.
Bristol Historical Association. Sort code: 60 02 38.
Account number: 72628723. Please put your name on the transfer.

If you are a new member please send a postal address to us.

bristolhistassoc@gmail.co

You may be interested in these two films (this is not a Bristol Historical Association event).

The first is a screening of Brief Encounter at the Redgrave Theatre on Tuesday 16^th September. 

The film’s star, Trevor Howard, was an alumnus of Clifton College and retained links to the school and city throughout his life; last summer, the Festival was delighted to be involved in the unveiling of a blue plaque dedicated to him on the Theatre itself. 

The screening will be preceded by a talk from Festival Director Owen Franklin, reflecting on Howard’s connection to the city and illustrious career. 

The second is a screening of Suffragette on Wednesday 30^th September at 1532 Theatre. 

The event includes a talk from local historian and women’s suffrage expert Lucienne Boyd, entitled ‘The Bristol Suffragettes’. 

The evening is designed to be a reflection on this fascinating period of history, linking local activism to wider national movements, with the film itself providing a fascinating overview of the movement’s most radical period. 

If these events are of interested I’d be delighted if you’d consider sharing details. 

Tickets can be purchased via our website, bristolfilmfestival.com

10^th June 2026

Our final lecture of 2025-26 began with a friendly drink for members, guests and local students.  Mary gave some details of next year’s programme and we had a strong audience of 107 in the beautiful Reception Room at the Wills Building.

Professor Doyle began by explaining how much the word ‘revolution’ had itself changed its meaning after 1789 from a political change to something much more profound.  According to Robespierre ‘The French Revolution is the first to have been founded on the theory of the rights of humanity, and on the principles of justice’ So was the American Revolution about home rule, or who should rule at home? However, the statement of the American Declaration of Independence suggested a similar profound change. The Founding Fathers  statement that they  ‘that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ predated the French revolution by over a decade. 

Professor Doyle traced the new American State’s relationship with France.  We learnt how the French foreign secretary (Vergennes) sought to humiliate England by supporting the Americans in the War of Independence which put a great strain on the French economy.  Meanwhile Benjamin Franklin, America’s first Ambassador in Paris (1778-85)  , charmed and cultivated French Society and his successor Jefferson continued the propaganda since the French ‘know nothing about us here.’ This America Mania unsettled French politics and ultimately wrecked the French economy while bringing few benefits in terms of trade. Its military intervention cost France around three times its annual tax revenue.  The financial crisis led the Ancien Regime to bankruptcy in 1788 and forced the government to call the Estates General in 1789 which led to the Revolution!

So if the French Government’s support for the American Revolutionaries had had unintended consequences for the French State, what about the influences of American Revolution on the French Revolution?  In Tom Paine’s view ‘That the principles of America opened the Bastille …[was] not to be doubted.’ Key similarities were the emphasis on Liberty and Equality, no taxation without representation and the need for a written constitution with checks and balances.  The French Declaration of Rights devised by Lafayette was advised on by Thomas Jefferson.

But there were also key differences.  While America was a republic from the start France initially tried to reform its monarchy and only became a republic after three years of revolution.  But in many ways the French thought Americans timid and conservative.  The most significant difference is that America had no Terror and religion was never attacked. While Tom Paine praised the French Revolution a more typical supporter of America’s Revolution Edmund Burke was horrified by the chaos and bloodshed of the Terror.   

In the 1790s these two revolutionary powers began to diverge.  While France abolished slavery in 1794 America avoided the issue for almost 70 years longer. America now welcomed émigrés, with their horror stories of the Terror. French ambassadors attempted to interfere in American politics. Tom Paine the author of  The Age of Reason (1796) who had supported both revolutions were now ostracised in America. The Americans  tagged a Bill of Rights on to their constitution when it was finally written. However, the American Revolutionary government soon reestablished their relationship with Britain in 1796.   

With so much food for thought we had an excellent set of questions and answers from our audience and Professor Doyle.  Many of the audience were already asking how to renew their membership or join before the meeting had ended.

Eugene Byrne 13^th May 2026

Eugene’s lecture began with a dramatic moment in the 1980s. Bristol’s own BIG BANG when Bristol Tobacco Bond Warehouses at Canon’s Marsh were blown up in May 1988. Many in the audience had witnessed the event and some had been covered in the dust that floated across the harbour. Many of the events in Eugene’s lecture were truly memorable to our audience. Eugene spanned a decade of divisions, the first half more dominated by anger, unemployment and industrial unrest. The second half seen as the period of ‘loads of money’ for some, the phenomena of the YUPPY and rising property prices. The whole decade overseen by a single prime minister Margaret Thatcher and the city’s rich history literally illustrated by the vast archive of photographs owned by the Evening Post.
The lecture covered the well-known St Paul’s ‘riots’ of April 1980 and less remembered events in St Paul’s in 1986. The Greenwich women protestors and the resurgence of CND also featured. Avon and Somerset’s police force’s contribution to policing the miner’s strike which cost £3 million was a surprise to some of our audience. Local politics also changed despite the city’s radical history the council lost most of its Labour MPs, including Tony Benn, in 1983 and the council was no longer Labour. Eugene also presented a revisionist view of Bristol showing how its biggest turnout at an open air musical event was not the appearance of the Rolling Stones in 1982 but the Mission England Christian Rally fronted by Billy Graham and Cliff Richard in 1984.
The economy of the city also went through some radical changes. 24,000 jobs in manufacturing were lost and the Council sold off a third of its council houses by 1983. The new Industrial Museum was literally rescuing machinery from factories before the employees had been issued their redundancy pay. However, a new economy was also expanding with an expansion in white collar finance jobs and the expansion of the computer sector. The dock area was redeveloped and the city was seen as linked to the creative arts. The Arnolfini was already established but was now joined by the Watershed. Aardman flourished and the BBC’s Natural History Unit continued to be a world leader in programme making.
That BOOM that opened the lecture was illustrated again by the property explosion. Queues on Buchanan’s Wharf to buy developed warehouses now turned into flats included buyers who sold them on without ever living in them. This was decade when pubs still closed in the early afternoon and stopped serving much earlier. Bristol’s Centre was dominated by taxi ranks full of ‘lager louts’ but there was another type of Bristol night life. At the Avon Gorge hotel a group of privileged Bristol University students, part of the ‘Wills at One set’, gathered to conspicuously consume and in one case the ‘Muff Club’ trashed a local restaurant. But another image of Bristol was also emerging. As early as 1985 the Arnolfini was featuring Street Art in its gallery and there were established local artists.
The final section of the lecture featured how Bristol had changed since the 1980s and how developments foreshadowed the changes that would come with the IT Revolution. The extraordinary story of BT’s experiment with ‘Talkabout’ a Bristol BT chatline that foreshadowed more recent social media was a fascinating piece of social history. Bristolians, mostly young, ran up massive phone bills addicted to these chat groups sometimes on their family or work phone lines and BT decided not roll out this Talkabout experiment across the rest of the UK.
The lecture which had begun with a BIG BANG ended with the other demolition in 1988 of Fairfax House the Co-op department store which had been built in 1962. The lecture ended not so much with our usual questions from the audience but with people sharing thoughts and memories of Bristol in the 1980s and what it tells us about where Bristol is now. It was a brilliant contribution to Local History month and far from being a nostalgia fest it was very thought provoking.

A huge thank you to Evan Jones for leading 23 of us around Millerd’s Bristol. We started on Bristol Bridge and finished on Brandon Hill. There was so much to see and hear that the walk took nearly three hours. It was well worth it. If you would like to follow our route go to the BRISTOL HISTORY RESOURCES section of our website where Evan has included a google map.

Professor R Grayson Oxford Brookes University

29^th April 2026

Our eighth lecture this year was given by Professor Richard Grayson.  His aim was show how two stories, the First World War and the Easter Rising usually given separate treatment affected each other. His military history was not about specific battles and tactics but ‘military history from the streets’. He began with his own family involvement. His grandmother Maud whose husband and three close relatives fought in the war.  His work on Belfast, the Easter Rising of 1916 and his most recent research on the Irish Revolution in Cork formed the background to the lecture.

After a brief recap of the ‘Irish Question’ from 1801 – 1916, he took us through events in Dublin during and after the Easter Rising planned by the Irish Republican Brotherhood.  Using street maps of the city he retraced the events day by day but incorporated the number of Irish soldiers who were dying on the battlefields of the Western Front on the same days. He examined the motivation for the thousands of Irishmen who joined the British Army in 1914, when there was no conscription and Home Rule was enough for the majority of the population. The hostile attitudes of Dubliners to the defeated rebels after the Easter Rising are well known but Richard’s research had uncovered specifically how many men from the streets the rebels were led through were serving as volunteers in the British Army.  The mishandling of the defeated rebellion by the British showed how radicalised the civilian population had become by 1918.  The political landscape had completely changed and Home Rule was now not enough.

Cork’s particular place in the story was next illustrated by the role of four men from Cork; Michael Collins, Terence MacSwiney, Tomas MacCurtain and Thomas Kent who respectively took part in the Dublin Rising, died on Hunger Strike, was shot by the police and executed by the British.  Cork was regarded as the most violent county in the War of Independence.  It already had radical Gaelic and Republican groups before WW1. Its local MP DD Sheehan who had joined the British Army along with his sons was no longer welcome in Cork by 1918. His Home Rule stance was out of date.  Richard’s detailed research showed the mortality figures for the FWW compared with the internal struggle.  The myth often advanced is that more Irish killed each other in the Civil War but the figures showed a different story. 4,347 died in the FWW; 531 in the War of Independence against the British ; 53 during the Truce; 220 in the Civil War. Richard’s lecture was a mixture of myth busting, detailed data and some fascinating personalities like Emmet Dalton who fought on the Western Front with Tom Kettle. Emmet was with Michael Collins when he was assassinated.  Dalton later commented on the apparent contradiction of fighting both with and against the British Army by saying that he had fought for Ireland with the British and fought for Ireland against them.

All were energetic young men who were looking for adventure.

Our lecture had another good audience of 60 including twenty guests and four sixth form students.  Our question and answer session had at least ten questions and we could easily have gone on well past 9pm. 

Our annual free conference for teachers and students was held in the University of Bristol Humanities Building.  Our speakers were Professor Ronald Hutton of Bristol University, Dr Tracy Borman Chief Historian of Historic Royal Palaces and Dr Sean Cunningham Head of Medieval Records at the National Archives.  This conference followed on from our conferences on Modern Russian History in 2024 and African Kingdoms in 2025.  This year’s topic is one of the most popular at A level and eleven sixth forms brought their students. Our speakers were distinguished historians who each brought their individual style to their lectures.

Professor Hutton explored why none of the Tudor Rebellions had succeeded and what this told us about why they happened; the motives of rebels and how Tudor government functioned.  This key topic at A level was explored with Professor Hutton’s characteristic wit and precision and brought the topic bang up to date.  Dr Borman gave her lecture via Zoom and presented the key men who had been role models, advisors, friends, and potential enemies to Henry VIII.  The students learnt much of Henry’s personality and as well as the familiar figures of Wolsey and Cromwell. Others emerged including Will Somers his official ‘fool,’ Charles Brandon brother-in-law and his closest friend and Sir Francis Bryan who lost one eye in a jousting match.  This rich cast of characters showed how Henry’s character developed and brought his reign to life. Using Zoom Tracy tackled some interesting questions including the one about a resemblance to the current American President.    

Finally, Dr Sean Cunningham tackled the reign of Henry VII the founder of the Tudor Dynasty.  The insecurity of Henry’s claim to the throne, the short time he had lived in England before he claimed the throne and his French accent established the challenge that faced Henry VII.  The steps that Henry VII took to establish his monarchy and how his reign ended in isolation and unpopularity were illustrated with rare documents from the archives which Sean curates and which have formed the basis of his new book Henry VII: Treason and Trust.

Each lecture was followed by well informed and lively questions from students and their teachers. We are already planning our 2027 Conference.