Peace with the infant republic of America was declared in August 1783. With the small detail that Britain had lost the war apparently discounted, it appears that the arrogant assumption was made that everything...
It is often the case that the very next day after you have committed something to print more information will come to light. So it is with the family of Harriet Bumford Darke. When...
Some years ago my distant cousin, the artist and author Ian Pillinger bought a bag of items in a junk shop which “looked interesting”. Being a man of many talents, he started to put...
Harriet’s Story Thomas Bumford and Amelia Evans were married on 3rd August 1828 at Abergavenny, a small Welsh market town on the river Usk about six miles from the border with England. This is...
“Overture and Beginners Please” Miss Sarah Matthews was a surprise package. I had never heard of her before. She had a life of two halves: an actress from our Theatre Royal, Bristol who was...
From the Middle Ages the penalty for the murder of a wife by a husband was to be hanged by the neck until dead, but the murder of a husband by a wife was...
On Thursday 27 September 1764, a spinster in late middle-age, Miss Jefferies, went to her sister Frances’s house on College Green where she had been invited to dine at 12 noon. It appears the...
It will be no surprise if I say I am interested in those women who in days of yore, when it was doubly or trebly difficult, managed to have a life outside the domestic...
The Bristol Mercury of 13 June 1846 tells of a recent event in Gloucester when on Tuesday night at nearly midnight, a girl of abandoned character nicknamed ‘Welsh Nan’ with her hair dishevelled, her...
My previous subject (Mary Kennedy, as far as we know) wrote only one line about her voyage to the other side of the World and back. By contrast Anna Maria Falconbridge is her direct...
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.
Wanton Wenches/Incorrigible Rogues Chapt.3 The Bristol First Fleeters. Now posted. Anyone out there related to these 'Founders of a Nation'? https://www.bristolhistory.co.uk/2022/05/04/wanton-wenches-
Another Bristol Life: 'Uncle Norman'. Norman Mounter, was park keeper at Perrett Park, Knowle, but aged 19 was a POW of the Chinese in Korea, 'The Forgotten War. https://www.bristolhistory.co.uk/2022/02/20/uncle-norman-