Killed in a Coalpit II – Lives of the Somerset Miners
This book has been written as a companion volume to ‘Killed in a Coalpit – Lives of the Kingswood Miners’. It was scheduled for publication in 2020 but became a victim of Covid 19...
Alas, poor Pretty One
In the summer of 1788 Henry Watts sued William Luton in respect of Rights of Common on Rodway Hill, Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire. The court heard that in 1754 the estate was let to Luton’s father...
Bristol and Lubeck
The people of medieval Bristol were so closely linked to a German port in the Baltic Sea that the two populations shared a unique type of worm living in their guts. The bizarre discovery...
Remarkable Women: Following the Drum. Biddy Skiddy – Hannah Scuse
I became interested in the Peninsular War period through the TV series “Sharpe”. This is predominately a male tale of derring-do but when visiting the National Army Museum in London (www.nam.ac.uk) I discovered the...
Diverted by the Bristol “L” – a tale of the Keynsham Workhouse
My great great grandfather Henry FRAY was so afraid of being incarcerated in Keynsham Workhouse that he fatally cut his throat with a razor in 1900. “The Workhouse” cast a terrible shadow over the...
King Cholera in Bristol, 1832
Bristol was still reeling from the aftermath of the Reform Riots of 1831 with the condemned rioters in gaol awaiting their tragic fate, when a new peril appeared over the horizon: the Cholera Morbus,...
The Budgetts of Kingswood Hill
“The Budgetts”, originally written about forty years ago, was my first attempt at the story of a family and therefore I call it part of my “Juvenilia”. It arose out of a conversation with...
The Fray Family
Find me a scientist was a challenge issued by my late brother Colin Pillinger. At Christmas I would send him a story about our numerous ancestors but the nearest approximation to science I came...
Mary Dafter and her great trouble
Thomas Dafter, yeoman of “Wollen” (ie Oldland) Glos, yeoman, took out a marriage licence on 8 Nov 1684 to marry Mary Pollen, of St Augustine, Bristol, with the wedding to be at the bride’s...
The Bristol Magdalens
Mary Magdalen (Maudlin) is traditionally, though unproven, the New Testament’s “fallen woman”, who Jesus saved through her repentance, but it was probably by accident rather than design that Bristol’s Female Penitentiary was situated at...
About Me
I have been researching the social history of the West Country for 45 years. During this time I have collated information on a wide range of people living and working in the West Country including miners, ethnic minorities, petty criminals, sailors, tommies, benefactors, brassmakers and many more. The thing that I find amazing is that ordinary people always lived extraordinary lives. I hope you like my blog that brings together my lifetime of research.
