Would any of this have happened if we hadn’t come to Brislington to live? Perhaps, perhaps not. I never had anything to do with Brislington before and although I knew vaguely that it was...
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...
Mary Kennedy of Baptists Mills in Bristol is one of an elite group of people who made landfall at Sydney Cove in January 1788. They numbered approximately 1,373 persons, consisting of convicts, male and...
A Man of War is a most miserable place,” so says 14 year-old sailor James Harding from St George, in 1810, as if we didn’t know from numerous films and TV. In the later...
The Story of the street in Kingswood where I was brought up. For thirty years of my life, give or take the few when I went travelling, I lived at no. 33 Victoria Park,...
This article was written in Spring 1981 and published in Avon Past issue No 4 (the journal of the Avon Archaeological Council and the Avon Local History Association (ALHA). This article was very much...
This candlestick belonged to Robert King 1837-1918, a Kingswood coalminer who first went down the mine aged seven “in a bucket, sitting on a miner’s lap”. Because of the narrowness of the Kingswood seams,...
The Bristol Mercury of 22nd July 1854 carries the following announcement: “Birth, July 15th at Limekiln Lane, to the wife of Mr George Underhill, varnish maker, a son. This makes the 30th child that Mr Underhill has...
On 6 November 1957 at about midday on the morning shift at Downend Garage with my oppo, Bert Blackley, a veteran of World War One, we heard the din of an overhead aircraft flying...
“The solitary survivor of the wreck of the ‘Royal George’ is now living at St George’s, Gloucestershire. His name is Abel Hibbs aged 91. Until lately he was a hale old man but is...
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.
Richard Hendy, mariner, 1926-2024
12 December 2024
The dashing, young Charles Rose Perrett!
20 October 2024
Gleson/Glisson Family of Brislington
06 October 2024
