Bristol History – Celebrating the lives of ordinary people

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Hello I’m DP Lindegaard and I’ve been researching social history in the West for nearly 50 years

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Warts and all - my family history: Honours; Pillingers; Frays & Lindegaards

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Concealed/Reveal exhibiton poster

Concealed/Reveal – exhibition at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

I am late in drawing attention to the above exhibition, “Concealed/Reveal”, currently running at Bristol Museum and Art Gallery until 21 April 2024. I have been to see it twice, first because I was involved in a minor way in the original concept, “Curating for Change” and secondly because I have a personal interest in disability. The display is summed up by the following paragraph: Disability is often seen as a dirty word, an insult or something to conceal instead of what...

“Married Emigrants in steerage, 1844.” Drawing from Illustrated London News.

Home Thoughts From Abroad

The two letters partially reproduced for this article were sent in 1859 by a Brislington man, Richard Turner, to his widowed mother, Mary, and the family back home. He and his wife Liz had...

A “shaggy heifer” tale, or “One thing leads to another”

Going off in tangents, so I’ve been told, is a symptom of ADHD. A few days ago, (January 2024) I was merrily researching steamships to complete another project, “The Life and Sea-Faring Times of...

Faces of 39 Voietnamese people who died in a trafficking incident in Essex in 2019.

Connections – Sappho and Jonathan Dove’s Odyssey

I told my son, “I’d like to go to a concert one of these days.”  He pounced at once. My Dad would have said, “like a dog on a rabbit.”  He, my son, is...

Sappho a steamship belonging to Bristol Steam Navigation Company

The Master of the last Sappho

“The Master of the last Sappho” is a sequel to “Sappho and her sisters” about the little steamships with the fancy classical (recycled) names which belonged to the Bristol Steam Navigation Company. In a...

A bunch of bananas being offered to a girl from a sailor on a boat at Bristol Harbour

The Life & Sea-faring Times of Richard Hendy, Mariner

Richard Hendy is a Bristol man who spent much of his life at sea, starting as a galley boy (aged 14) in Atlantic Convoys (oil tankers) with the Norwegian Merchant Fleet. After the war...

Royal Baking Powder and Schilling Food Coloring, early to mid 20th century, photographed at Edmonds Historical Museum, Edmonds, Washington, USA.

HENRY JONES of Bristol, Baker & Biscuit maker, 36-37 Broadmead – Can you help?

HENRY JONES of Bristol, Baker & Biscuit maker, 36-37 Broadmead, On 27 Sept 1845 Bristol Times contains this advert re Letters Patent for making bread with the addition of water only. Dear Bristol History,...

Norman and Doreen Lindegaard smiling

The Linden Tree – The Lindegaard Family History

I wrote this a long time ago and refer to it as “my juvenelia”! I need to revisit it and improve it. It charts the story of how my husband’s family (by the name...

People looking through the drawers to see artefacts in the Museum of Totterdown

Futurology at the Museum of Totterdown

We are a family of fossil collectors, and though out of habit I look down at the ground if I go for a walk, I have never thought much of the detritus the filthy...

A picture of Maori's performing a Haka painted by Joseph Jenner Merrett, 1816-54

Bristol and The Haka – 1917

I hazard a guess the first time any Bristolian had ever seen the Haka was on Saturday the 29 December 1917. The Haka is synonymous as a precursor to rugby matches involving the New...