During the English Civil War and Commonwealth period between 1653 – 1660, births, marriages and deaths were poorly kept and those recorded by civil officers, confusingly called Parish Registers, in place of the dispossessed...
Pem, tell me about when you were a little girl..….” This was me, as soon as I learned to talk. So, take one excessively inquisitive child, who wanted to know everything about everything; ‘a...
I was born a Pillinger. This is the story of my Father’s family. Click the links below to download: From Little Acorns Great Oaks Grow part 1 From Little Acorns Great Oaks Grow part...
The following article was originally printed in the September 2016 edition of the South Bristol Voice. “This may seem a silly question,” one of the mums said at the Grand Opening of the playground...
Bristol and other local Men at Trafalgar, 1805. Royal Navy (of Bristol unless otherwise stated) John Alden, 20, Landsman, HMS Naiad, 1804 William Alden, 35, AB, HMS Thunderer, 1805 John Allen, 20, Landsman, Bath,...
If you attend church on Remembrance Sunday it is quite likely you will hear the names of the local War Dead read aloud by a member of the congregation. St Luke’s, Brislington is no...
The Annals of Kingswood consist of four volumes of day-to- day events, 1725-95, concerning the people who lived in an area outside Bristol in the so-called “lawless” places to the east of the City,...
Brislington Bulletins 1066-1600 began as “something mediaeval” an idea for my BA dissertation, but when the project became top-heavy, sparse for the early period, and too much at the end, it was unworkable. So...
My book, “Black Bristolians” was written in 1986 and I added a supplement a few years later. As with much of my output it took the form of lists in name order. The book...
In the mid-1950s, at the impressionable age of 18, I remember reading “The Sun is My Undoing” by Marguerite Steen, a popular historical novelist of the time, which alluded to a “Bristol slave market”....
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.
The War of 1812 – Bristol’s American POWs
13 March 2025
Richard Hendy, mariner, 1926-2024
12 December 2024
