Sappho & Her Sisters: Steamships and Mariners of the Bristol Channel Ports in the Age of Steam
I wrote the above book, “Sappho & her Sisters” following a chance discovery of the seamen belonging to Bristol Steam Navigation Company’s ship “Sappho” who had the misfortune to be “Bottled Up” in Hamburg...
Kingswood Index
Beware Family History! In the early stages of my research, nearly fifty years ago, long, long before computers, even before the majority of parish registers found their way into archives offices, when appointments had...
Monumental Inscriptions: Whitfield Tabernacle, Kingswood
The following names were inscribed on gravestones at Whitfield Tabernacle, Kingswood. As sent to me, provenance and date unknown. These are the known people whose gravestones are set to be relocated” THOMAS BRITTON 1893...
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...
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.
Popular Post
The Great Laxey Wheel & the Miners of Laxey and Snaefell
18 August 2025
An Irish Odyssey – Part 1: The Lusitania
25 June 2025
