Bristol
Times
TUE
17 SEP 2013
Celebrating our proud history and keeping your memories alive
Page 5 Have you heard any good Gromit legends?
Volume 2 From exile in Twerton to the Rovers’ return
● The Eastville boathouse burned by Suffragettes
Picture courtesy of Bristol Record Office
The Bristol Suffragettes who fought fire with fire
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HERE is a tendency to regard the years immediately before the First World War as a mythical golden age, an endless summer of innocence when people took tea on the lawn and had no idea of the horrors to come. In truth, it was a time of great anger and political instability. Britain had been taught what Kipling called “no end of a lesson” in the Boer War. Trade Unions were becoming organised and more powerful, agitating against the appalling conditions the working classes lived under. The United Kingdom itself was under threat from the independence movement in Ireland, and a Unionist community that was equally militant, and had the overt support of several army officers. And then there were the suffra-
● Annie Kenney, photographed at about the time she was working in Bristol
gettes. These were not upper class ladies in big hats making the occasional nuisance of themselves in the struggle for votes for women. One hundred years ago, by the autumn of 1913, the suffragette campaign was bitter, angry and violent. In the year before the outbreak of War, Bristol experienced destruction on a scale which dwarfed any political rioting or terrorist attack the city has seen ever seen since. And it was all carried out by women. Bristol, with a long history of activism and social reform by women, had been one of the early cradles of the women’s suffrage movement. Many Bristol women had campaigned for the Married Women’s Property Act of 1874, for instance. Until
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Page 8 So, Marion, what’s for dinner?
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By the autumn of 1913, women campaigning for the right to vote had put up with years of violence and repression from street thugs and the state alike. But now they had had enough, and were fighting fire with fire – literally. And as Eugene Byrne explains, Bristol was one of the main centres of militant Suffragette activity
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Bitter and violent | The fight for women’s rights
Suffragettes found plenty of supporters in the Bristol area
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From page 1 then, a married woman’s property belonged, in the eyes of the law, to her husband. Others were active in lobbying against the Contagious Diseases Acts, under which women could be arrested, forcibly examined and confined if they were suspected of prostitution. The Bristol & Clifton branch of the National Society for Women’s Suffrage had been formed in 1868. Until the late Victorian period, though, the majority of these female activists were from wealthy backgrounds, with the time, education and money to get involved in social refor m. This was now beginning to change. With the rise of trade unions and the Labour movement, women from more modest homes were also becoming politically active. The National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) was founded by Millicent Fawcett, who brought together various other campaign groups in the late 1890s. The more militant Women’s Social & Political Union (WSPU) was formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. In 1907 one of her lieutenants, Annie Kenney, arrived to set up a Bristol branch. Kenney, pictured below, was a remarkable woman, and the most senior figure in the movement to have come from a working class background. Born in Yorkshire to a family with nine siblings, she had worked in a cotton mill from the age of ten. She became a trade union organiser and educated herself at night despite working 12-hour shifts. She joined the WSPU after attending a meeting addressed by Christabel Pankhurst (one of Emmeline’s daughters) in 1905. In Bristol, she found plenty of supporters. Two of her earliest helpers were the Quaker sisters Anna Maria and Mary Priestman, both now in their 70s and veteran campaigners for women’s rights. Other supporters included Mary Blathwayt and her parents Emily and Colonel Linley Blathwayt, who owned Eagle House in Batheaston. At his suggestion, suffrage campaigners who stayed at the House should each plant a tree as part of what became called “Annie’s Arboretum”. The WSPU’s Bristol branch grew rapidly. By 1909 they had a shop and offices at no. 37 Queens Road. They held fundraising drives, chalked slogans on pavements and held open air public meetings in places on the Horsefair or Blackboy Hill as well as
in surrounding towns like Portishead, Clevedon and Weston-superMare. These were not always, or even usually, genteel affairs. Public meetings were heckled and harassed by men who didn’t like the idea of women getting the vote, or by men who were simply looking to stir up trouble. Speakers were pelted with rocks, vegetables and rotten bananas. There were some decent chaps, of course; a big meeting on the Downs in 1908 where the speakers were Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
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I think I would have stayed with the WSPU through the stone-throwing, but I would not have supported personal assaults on other people
Author Lucienne Boyce
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(who had grown up in Bristol and Weston) was set to be disrupted by men, but they were seen off by a group of “fine, athletic-looking fellows” wearing the WSPU’s green, white and purple colours. On another occasion, the WSPU hired half a dozen professional boxers to protect a meeting at the Victoria Rooms. Bristol was a particular target for suffrage campaigners because of its four MPs, three were Liberals, and the Liberal Party was then in power. Of these three MPs, two were cabinet ministers. One was Augustine Birrell (1850-1933) the member for North Bristol, and Chief Secretary for Ireland at the time. The other was Sir Charles Hobhouse (1862-1941), representing East Bristol and a particularly outspoken opponent of votes for women. One of the curious ironies of the Liberal government before the First World War was that it was one of the most radical Britain had ever seen. It was trying to promote a peaceful transformation to Home Rule in Ireland, and through its social and financial legislation was committed to improving the lot of ordinary people. When, in 1909, Liberal speakers in Bristol were trying to promote the gover nment’s “people’s budget”, they found themselves facing angry women. When Augustine Birrell addressed a meeting at the Colston Hall,
● The WSPU shop on Queens Road, after being wrecked by students Picture courtesy of Bristol Record Office he was heckled by Elsie Howey and Vera Holme who had evaded the meeting’s security by sneaking in hours previously and hiding in the hall’s organ. Astonishingly, the same thing happened in 1912 when the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage – yes, there was indeed such an organisation! – held a rally at the Colston Hall. Despite even tighter
security than ever, the speeches by Hobhouse and the novelist Mrs Humphry Ward, were heckled from the organ loft. When Winston Churchill (then a Liberal) visited in November 1909 he was struck by Theresa Garnett at Temple Meads. “Take that you brute,” she said as she hit him (or tried to hit him – accounts differ) with a dog-whip. “Votes for women!”
Matters took an increasingly ugly turn as meetings in London were disrupted by thugs, who would attack and sexually assault suffragettes. Finally, following one meeting, a couple of women had had enough and threw stones through the windows of 10 Downing Street. Stone-throwing quickly became a WSPU tactic. These women were, of course, arrested and given short prison sentences where they went on hunger strike. Prison authorities responded by force-feeding them. This was a painful and distressing process. A rubber tube was inserted into stomach through the mouth, or sometimes via the nose and food in liquid form was poured down. It happened in gaols around the country, including Bristol’s own Horfield prison. As far as the WSPU was concerned, this amounted to state-sponsored torture of political prisoners. After attempts to find an acceptable political compromise in Parliament failed, the WSPU increased the stakes. By the end of 1912 the WSPU
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013
● Begbrook Mansion following an arson attack Picture courtesy of The Loxton Collection, Bristol Central Library ● Burned out Bristol University sports pavilion. The work of “wild women”, according to the Daily Mirror, 26 October 1913 University of Bristol Library, Special Collections ● Cartoon of the students’ attack on the WSPU headquarters, from a 1913 edition of university magazine Nonesuch University of Bristol Library, Special Collections, reproduced by Bristol Central Library was engaged in a massive campaign of destruction. Across the country, telephone wires were cut, post boxes and works of art were vandalised, sports pavilions were set alight. The government responded with arrests and the WSPU was banned from holding meetings and its newspaper prohibited from publishing. Things were fairly quiet in Bristol until the autumn of 1913. Then, on October 23, the Bristol University
sports pavilion at Coombe Dingle was burnt down and suffragette literature was found nearby, along with a note demanding the release from prison of a suffragette who had been arrested in London. Two days later the students exacted revenge by marching on the WSPU shop in Queens Road. At 5pm a crowd of about 300 students trashed the place. Making a pile of books, newspapers and leaflets in
the street outside, they set it on fire. As they danced around the flames, onlookers applauded. The police did nothing and the Lord Mayor privately declared his approval of the students’ action. On November 11 Begbrook Mansion in Frenchay was destroyed by fire. Once more, suffragette literature was found nearby, and a note saying “Birrell is coming. Rachel Pease is being tortured.” Rachel Pease had been arrested for burning a house at Henley-on-Thames and was presumably being force fed by now. Augustine Birrell arrived two days later. While he was here a number of postboxes were vandalised, and the municipal boathouse at Eastville Park was burnt down. And so it went on. A house in Stoke Bishop was burned, as was another near Lansdown in Bath. Imperial Tobacco’s timber yard at Ashton Gate was torched in March, and the clubhouse at Failand Golf Club in April. An attempt to set fire to Clevedon Parish Church failed. There seemed no end to the violence, no prospect of a peaceful resolution. A demonstration outside Buckingham Palace, where King George V refused to meet a delegation from the WSPU, ended in near riot. Yet it did come to an end, very suddenly and unexpectedly. On August 4 1914 Britain declared war on Germany. Mrs Pankhurst immediately suspended all WSPU activities and a week later all suffragette prisoners were released. Some suffrage campaigners were pacifists, but most were not. Soon they would turn their energies and organisational skills to supporting the war effort. All of this story, and much more, is to be found in an excellent book published a few months ago. The Bristol Suffragettes by Lucienne Boyce is a clear and readable account of the national and local struggle. It also includes a walk, with map, around some places in Bristol connected with suffragette history. “My interest in suffragettes goes back many years, to when I was living in London,” she says. “And like a lot of people I assumed it was all Londonbased, that everything happened in London, because that’s where the seat of government is. “Then I moved to Bristol in the eighties and discovered that there were things going on here. I started finding out more about the militant and non-militant campaigns in Bris-
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tol. I kept coming across women’s names, and of course there’s so much focus on the big names, the Pankhursts, yet there were many women involved in this campaign, and men, too. “I wanted to memorialise the ordinary women, the ones who ran the jumble sales, ran the shops, turned up to meetings that went on demonstrations.” She has been building up information on people and events in Bristol over many years to produce the book, though she freely admits there are gaps in our knowledge which she hopes other researchers will try to fill in the future. In Bristol, as in many other places, the violence of the WSPU campaigns alienated a number of women. Many resigned, preferring the more peaceable lobbying of the older NUWSS. Which side would Lucienne Boyce have been on? “I don’t approve of violence. I would probably have been one of the people who hovered between the non-militants and the militants … Many women in NUWSS moved into the WSPU or kept joint membership. Women found their allegiances torn, but when the more destructive militancy started around 1908-1909, you have women moving out of the WSPU and back into the NUWSS. “I think I would have stayed with the WSPU through the stone-throwing, but I would not have supported personal assaults on other people.” The WSPU’s line was that while violence was being done to women by street thugs, and by prison authorities force-feeding hunger-strikers, they had a right to respond in kind. “We’re talking about anger here, real feelings, real pain, real people,” she says. So what does she say to women nowadays who don’t vote? “I’m very sad that many women don’t vote, I think it’s a shame, but I don’t like that self-righteous line ‘Women died for you so you should vote’. But if you don’t vote, and if you’re apathetic about what’s going on then what right have you got to complain. “If you’re not going vote, are you doing something else? If you think the voting system is in a mess, well it is, we all know that, but what else are we going to do?” ‘The Bristol Suffragettes’ by Lucienne Boyce is published by Silverwood Books at £11.99.
Suffrage movement | Amusement of the press
Martial arts instructor helped prevent arrests movement and later went on to train a 30-strong elite corps – “Amazons”, the papers called them – known as the “Body Guard”. The Body Guard’s role was to protect prominent suffragette members and speakers to prevent them from being arrested. Edith Garrud trained them at secret locations in unarmed combat and in the use of Indian clubs. Using guile and their new fighting skills, these ladies succeeded in preventing the arrest of fellow suffragettes on a number of occasions, to the evident amusement of the press.
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EDITH Garrud (1872-1971) is one of the greatest unsung heroines of the women’s suffrage movement. Though she has no Bristol connections at all, she was born in Bath, so we can tentatively claim her as sort-of local. She grew up in Wales and married William Garrud a gym instructor in 1893 and the couple moved to London. Here they became the first teachers of the Japanese martial art of jujutsu, with Edith taking charge of classes for women and children. In 1908 she started teaching classes for members of the women’s suffrage
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Book launch | The Bristol Rovers Archive Vol 2
From Twerton exile to Rovers’ return to Bristol – it’s all in here A new book looking at Bristol Rovers’ fortunes through the 1990s, from exile at Twerton to their return to Bristol, has just been published. Here Bristol Times takes a look at how the book covered the team’s first home game back in Bristol.
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RISTOL Rovers programme editor Keith Brookman has released the second in a series of books about the club’s history with Tangent Books, whose publisher Richard Jones is a lifelong Rovers fan. The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume 2: 1991-2001 was launched at the Memorial Stadium before the game against Northampton Town on August 31 with a signing by Rovers legends Harold Jarman, Phil Bater, Frankie Bennett, Peter Aitken, Ian Alexander, Vaughan Jones and Andy Tillson. The new book is a collaboration with former club photographer Alan Marshall who has delved into his archive to provide a wealth of photographs, some of them never before published. It covers the eventful decade 1991-2001 that began with the departure of manager Gerry Francis and included a trip to Wembley, the return to Bristol after 10 years playing at Twerton Park in Bath and the appointment and eventual departure of manager Ian Holloway. Here we reproduce Keith’s account of Rovers’ first game in Bristol after 10 years at Twerton Park: In 1996 Rovers moved back to Bristol following a 10-year exile in Bath. The photo to the right, therefore, is of some historical importance as it was taken on 31st August 1996 and marked the occasion of the first league game at the Memorial Stadium against Stockport County. Rovers skipper Andy Tillson is on the right, with County captain Michael Flynn on the left. William Holloway and Mark Twentyman, sons of manager Ian Hollway and assistant manager Geoff Twentyman respectively, were among the four mascots on duty that day. In the background, the empty shell
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I thought we did pretty well in the first half, although they put us under pressure in the second and we found it difficult. In the end we had a lot of youngsters out there and deserved credit for the way we stuck at it.
Rovers skipper Andy Tillson
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of the West Stand can be clearly seen. The players changed in a ‘double decker’ Portakabin in the far corner of the ground, and spectators were only allowed on the open Blackthorn Terrace, on the Centenary Terrace and in the Centenary Stand (more recently known as the Dribuild Terrace and Stand). The match went ahead after some 250 supporters had cleared the Memorial Ground of builder’s rubble, which saw the venue pass a second safety inspection just 24 hours before kick off. Unfortunately, the game didn’t quite live up to all the hype generated by the pre-match publicity. A crowd of 6,380 witnessed Rovers’ return to Bristol and saw a 1-1 draw. Lee Archer opened the scoring for Rovers after 12 minutes and John Jeffers equalised for County on 73 minutes. Both goals were scored at the ‘South Stand’ end of the ground, though the after match discussions centred on the fact that both goalkeepers thought that the crossbar was too high. Stockport keeper Paul Jones said; ‘I’m a good 6’ 3” and normally the bar is about wrist level when I stretch my arms up. I could only just touch this one. I’m not complaining, because it was the same for both sides. If the bar
● Rovers legends joined Keith Brookman and Richard Jones for the launch of Keith’s book at the Memorial Stadium. Keith Brookman, Peter Aitken, Phil Bater, Andy Tillson. Front row: Frankie Bennett, Harold Jarman, Ian Alexander,
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013
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Latimer’s Diary
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REETINGS, pop-pickers! (That’s me trying to be young and “with it” and appeal to youngsters who are only in their 50s and 60s. How am I doing?)
Housing problems are nothing new dep’t:
From left (back row): Richard Jones, Vaughan Jones (Photo: Neil Brookman)
Now this was back when men were men and every Dad in the land was a DIY wiz who thought nothing of building a house extension in six weeks. But nowadays? Well, anything is worth a try, Your Mayorship.
Big skirts are good for you … ISN’T it great how all those old newspapers are becoming available online? Not only can you read the goings-on from your home town back in the day, but you can search papers for key words and names. For anyone researching their family history, for instance, it’s fiendishly useful and can save literally years of work. But one of the other joys of old newspapers is you can just read through them for interesting, amusing or just plain weird stories. Though (take it from me) Victorian newspapers offer precious little in the way of smut. (Actually, that’s not quite true. But we’ll save the sex and scandal in Victorian Bristol for another time.) Meanwhile, people are now making books of funny/strange Victorian newspaper stories. Here’s one entitled The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton and Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press. It’s compiled by Jeremy Clay and published by Icon Books at £12.99. There are stories from all over the country, including a few from Bristol. You know that story about the woman who jumps off the Suspension Bridge and is saved by her voluminous skirts acting as a parachute (it’s true, though the soft mud helped break her fall, too. Her name was Sarah-Ann Henley and she lived to be right old)? Well that’s not in it, but an
interesting skirt variant is: At Bristol the other day, a woman either jumped or fell into the Float at the Stone Bridge, and it was some time before any person came to her assistance. She remained on the surface of the water, however, during that period, by means of her crinoline. She was eventually rescued with grappling irons. Two men who saw her in the water plunged in to save her, but being unable to swim, they narrowly escaped drowning. So there you have it. Victorian skirts – not just parachutes but buoyancy aids as well.
Heard any Gromit legends? AND so farewell then to the Gromits who have been all over Bristol and thereabouts over the summer. Haven’t they been grand? Haven’t they been astonishingly popular? On my peregrinations around the city I have been asked by everyone from elderly spinsters to super-cool and
Get in touch: E-mail Bristol.Times@b-nm.co.uk, or write to Bristol Times, Bristol Post, Temple Way, Bristol, BS2 0BY.
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had been the right height, their goal wouldn’t have gone in... but you could say the same about ours, too.’ Tillson decided against commenting on the height of the crossbar, but said this about the game. ‘It’s a super surface if there’s a bit of moisture on top, because the ball zips along, but it was holding up a bit in the grass. ‘I thought we did pretty well in the first half, although they put us under pressure in the second and we found it difficult. In the end we had a lot of youngsters out there and deserved credit for the way we stuck at it.’ It wasn’t a particularly successful first season back in Rovers’ home city as they finished in 17th position in the old Second Division with 56 points, while Stockport were second, behind champions Bury and were promoted to the old First Division. Rovers: Collett, Martin, Clark, Tillson, Lockwood, Gurney, French, Holloway, Archer, Miller (Parmenter), Beadle (Low). Substitute: Higgs. Stockport: Jones, Flynn, Gannon, Bound (Jeffers), Connelly, Bennett, Ware, Searle, Mutch, Cavaco (Todd), Angell (Armstrong). The Bristol Rovers Archive Volume 2: 1991-2001 is available from Tangent Books at www.tangentbooks.co.uk for £9.99. Bristol Times readers will get a 25 per cent discount if they use the code supporter at the checkout.
There was a fascinating little thing in the Post the other day about how Mayor Ferguson (may his tribe increase!) and Bristol City Council are looking to the possibility of solving some of the city’s severe housing shortage by building pre-fabs. Throughout Bristol’s history, there’s never been enough housing. The last time nobody was complaining about Bristol’s housing shortage was back in the 14th century, shortly after half the available accommodation in the city had come onto the market following the Black Death. Pre-fabs are one answer. Most of Bristol’s postwar prefabs are now gone, but they have a splendid example of one at the St Fagan’s Museum near Cardiff. I was there a couple of weeks ago, and me and the (very knowledgeable) attendant there were both 98% certain it’s a Bristol-built ‘Airoh’ turned out after the War at Filton when they’d stopped making military aircraft and were making themselves useful in other ways. History suggests other housing solutions, too. In Bristol in 1946 there weren’t enough pre-fabs or new council houses to go round, so around 1,000 Bristolians simply moved into all the empty army huts all over the place. They put by money each week for rent, and when the government caved in they became, in effect, council tenants. There’s another idea I recently came across. Now this one is either brilliant, or it’s so insane it can only have made sense after several gin and Its at the bar of Failand golf club. In the 1970s, the Conservative group on Bristol City Council suggested building “shell houses”. The Council, or a private contractor, would build houses in their basic essentials quickly and cheaply. Walls, roof, floorboards, connections to sewerage and mains – and that’s it. These houses would then be sold cheaply to young couples who don’t mind finishing them themselves. You know, you put in the windows and the wiring and central heating and so on.
sharply-dressed young men to take photos of them posing by a Gromit. Some of them pressed very expensive looking cameras into my hands to do so. But of course it was the kids who loved them best, and they will now grow up with dozens of pictures of themselves when they were little, grinning broadly as they stood under one of the dog’s sheltering ears. The Gromits are local history/nostalgia in the making. The children of today will bore their own children and grandchildren about Great Gromit Summer in years to come. And whoever’s running Bristol Times in 30, 50 or 100 years time will occasionally call up the Post’s vast collection of 2013 Gromit photos and write a big article about how all of Bristol went crazy for the Gromits in 2013. Because they’ve had such a huge emotional impact, there will be myths and urban legends about them, too. Maybe some have started already – true stories that get elaborated, rumours and hearsay spread. I bet you a couple of pints that at some point soon there will be weird Gromit tales – maybe one that moved mysteriously in the night, maybe another that cured a friend of a friend’s headache after s/he touched it … If you’ve heard any Gromit stories which you suspect – or know – aren’t true, do give us a shout. Because after all, the stories we tell one another about our town which aren’t true are actually just as important and interesting as the ones which are true. Cheers then!
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Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Restored portrait | A businessman of great consequence
Don’t mess with Alderman Thomas A portrait of one of Bristol’s early city fathers, dating back to the time of James I, has recently been restored. And as Eugene Byrne found out, Alderman Thomas James was not someone to be messed around with.
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O what did the well-dressed City Father look like 400 years ago? Like this geezer here, is what. This is Alderman Thomas James, businessman and person of great consequence back in the day. James was Master of the Society of Merchant Venturers in 1607, and again in 1615, and this is the oldest painting, dated 1617, in the Venturers’ collection. If you’re ever visiting the Lord Mayor’s Chapel, you can also admire James’s monument, which shows him kneeling piously at prayer. Which is all very well, though early on during his mercantile career he killed at least one man. In the 1580s, Bristol merchants had a monopoly on the export of calf skins, which were then much in demand for the making of fashionable shoes in France. But it seems that some people in the Forest of Dean regarded the Bristol merchants’ privilege as unfair. A group of them led by a tanner named Whitson loaded a boat with hides on the Wye and sought to take it out to a French ship waiting just beyond the mouth of the Avon at Kingroad. Someone talked, though, and James and some other Bristol men who regarded the calf-skin business as their own armed themselves and went out in a boat to await the smugglers. The latter were prepared for trouble, too, and were tooled up with pikes, bows, shields and leather coats. When the two sides met it was the Forest of Dean men who kicked things off. In the ensuing scrap, Thomas James, armed with a musket, fired, killing a man named Gitton, the owner of the other boat. (How very unlike our present day business community!) What happened next is obscured in history. Thomas James was apparently tried for manslaughter in London, but since none of the Forest men showed up in court he was acquitted. The Bristol Corporation seems to have confiscated the calf skins and kept the proceeds for themselves. When they were ordered by the Privy Council to pay some of the proceeds as compensation for Gitton’s death, they ignored it.
Meanwhile a Bristol mercer by the name of Whitson, who may or may not have been related to the Forest of Dean Whitson, was arrested and left in prison for two years or more until no-one could remember what he was there for. Whitson later became a wealthy man in his own right and served a term as Mayor. Meanwhile, Thomas James did equally well for himself. He was Sheriff, later Mayor, an MP for Bristol,
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He had first been twice mayor of Bristol. For the next two hundred years this succession from mayor to master or vice versa was to be commonplace and a vital characteristic of the governance of Bristol.
Francis Greenacre, a Merchant Venturer and former museum curator
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served two terms as Master of the Society of Merchant Venturers and was an Alderman from 1604 until he died in 1619. The painting, on wood, has recently been restored, with all the grime of the centuries carefully removed to reveal the vivid colours beneath. So here he is in his best gear, including a magnificent fur-trimmed coat dyed Bristol Red. Francis Greenacre, a Merchant
Venturer and former museum curator said: “He had first been twice mayor of Bristol. For the next two hundred years this succession from mayor to master or vice versa was to be commonplace and a vital characteristic of the governance of Bristol.” This was at a time when the Merchant Venturers pretty much controlled the port of Bristol, and thus the lion’s share of Bristol’s economy. “Only with the creation and opening of the Floating Harbour in 1809, a project promoted by the Society but far beyond its means, did most of the Society’s responsibilities for the port cease,” said Mr Greenacre. “The Society continued to manage and licence the pilots until 1861. Even in that year the Master of the Merchant Venturers and the Chairman of the Docks Committee were one and the same. Thomas James was also around at a time when Bristol merchants were busy engaged in exploring the new world in search of new business opportunities. In 1603 James helped finance Martin Pring’s voyage along the New England coast. “When the Pilgrim Fathers landed from the Mayflower in 1620 it was in Whitson Bay, which had been named by Pring after John Whitson – another Merchant Venturer, who was also twice mayor and master. “Alderman Thomas James probably also supported John Guy and his settlement in Newfoundland in 1610. The Society’s most direct support of exploration ended in inevitable failure – the heroic voyage of Captain Thomas James (no relation) in 1631/2 in search of a North-West Passage.”
Memories of Castle Street
Difficult to recall
● Re Carol Dyer’s letter (Bristol Times, September 3). I, too, can remember the Co-Op in Castle Street, and as children we visited Father Christmas in his fairy grotto. I can’t remember the choir boys, but I can well remember the lovely display of Christmas lights. However, once Christmas was over, Castle Street was a really depressing place. When I started work, ten years after the War, I used to trudge up Castle Street to Small Street. I can recall a few shops left standing at the bottom end – F. Hinds (jeweller), a clothes shop, a David Greigs food shop and maybe one or two more. Then it was devastation until you came to the Co-Op on the opposite side, which always had lovely window displays. Opposite was either a British Home Stores or a Woolworths. This store was set back slightly from the road and extended out over the river. I can particularly remember the wooden floorings as you could see the river flowing past through the cracks. I believe upstairs was a snooker hall. Following on were the remains of a bombed-out and boarded-up cinema, alongside which was a shoe shop. Opposite was a men’s outfitters (“Fifty Shilling Tailors”?). Cross the road and the News Theatre was still open for news and short films. I’m not sure if the Civic Restaurant was still open but I can recall visiting Father Christmas in the Co-Op, then going on to the Civic Restaurant for something to eat afterwards – a rare treat! On my way to work I passed the bombed-out St Peter’s Church,
● Bristol’s Castle Street Co-Op, crossed Dolphin Street and walked along St Mary-le-Port Street, where at either side were two giant craters, one of which was used as a car park. At the end of Mary le Port Street was Caroline’s cake shop and a Stead & Simpson’s shoe shop. From here it was only a short walk down into Small Street. If anything in our home needed
Can any readers help?
There really should be a wealth of memories of lost Basque children ● AS a History student at University of the West of England, I get particularly excited when I find a gap in our history, particularly Bristol’s local history. I have recently found one of those gaps; In fact, it’s more of a gaping black hole than an academic overlook. In 1937, 4,000 children from the Basque region of Spain were bought to the shores of Southampton to escape the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. They were then sent to different “colonies” across England and Wales to be taken care of entirely voluntarily by the people of the United Kingdom. Forty of these ‘niños’ (as they have come to be known), all girls, were housed in Kingswood Training
Centre to be taken care of purely by the kindness of the local people and fed through donations. Apart from that we know nothing of the incredible story of the girls. Though trawling through local newspapers of the time, I have found very few details of their time here. The most interesting part, for me at least, is that 450 of these children never went home. Due to the outbreak of WWII and the conditions left behind after the savage civil war many children decided to make their own way in Britain, especially those who had no family left to return to. That means some of these girls may have lived full lives in the UK and if their story
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the havoc of war
● Merrywood Year 4 girls in Paris in April 1960 on a return trip from a Bordeaux exchange
Photo taken as a token of friendship ● I WAS amazed to see the photograph of Merrywood pupils in Marion’s Memories (Bristol Times, August 27). I was in this fifth form class photo, which was taken as a token of our friendship before we left school in 1954, either to go on to sixth form, to work, or to secretarial college. Some years ago a reunion group was formed and we have met each year since. The latest was held on August 7. I have followed Marion’s
Memories over the years, as my life seems to have followed hers in some ways. I was brought up in Knowle West, went to Connaught Road school, infants and juniors. Then after the Eleven-Plus exam I was offered a place at Merrywood Grammar School, starting in 1948 (followed ten and 11 years later by both my sisters). I was ten and three-quarters years old. The photograph printed brought back many memories 59 years after it was taken. I can still name all the
girls on the photo, even though some are not with us any more. My copy has been signed on the back by everyone shown. I really enjoyed my time at Merrywood and went on to have a long career as a nurse at Frenchay Hospital (so soon to be closed). We do still have contact with a couple of teachers from our time at Merrywood. They are of course in their 90s now. Margaret Nigh Kingswood
My mistake
Mantra was actually written by George Harrison!
photographed in 1954 replacing or we actually bought something new, like our very first television, my parents first tried the good old Co-Op, as my mother used to say you could always rely on them for good quality ‘utility’ goods. And of course you always get the “divi” which was, as I recall, paid out at the Co-Op’s offices in Castle Green, which was behind
Canynge Square
I understand the logic of the map ● IT was very interesting to read Latimer’s Diary regarding the Bristol A-Z map and Canynge Square, with a road off it called Lye Close. I was born in Canynge Square in 1937, so I can understand the logic of the map. Canynge Square is not actually a square, and there is a cul-de-sac which covered a couple of houses, namely numbers 27 & 26. A teacher at Clifton College did some research on Canynge Square and where I was born it was called Albert Place, or it could have been called Albert Villas. I must find a copy of that book – it was so interesting! Margaret Donald Warmley
● I REFER to the artlce by Richard Hope-Hawkins in Bristol Times (Sept 3) on the subject of the Hare Krishnas. Last February I was walking through Broadmead when I was stopped by a bearded Hare Krishna monk. He was appropriately dressed for the weather, and not in
the familiar robes. He told me that his Ashram – temple – was in Cardiff, so what he was doing in Bristol wasn’t clear. He seemed to be collecting for some charity. I recited what I believed to be a Hindu mantra: From Bombay to Bangalore Hindus know the score
If you want to live for evermore Hare! Hare! Krishna! The monk informed me that this was the work of George Harrison. So Hare Krishnas are still about – in Cardiff anyway! Hare! Hare! Paul Thomas Easton in Gordano
Postcard of the Week ● All aboard! This one comes from September of 1957 and might stir some memories for a few readers. It’s the model railway that used to be at Canford Park, and that locomotive looks to be an especially fine work of engineering. Know anyone in the picture? If so, drop us a line!
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is not heard soon it may be lost for good. I am hoping that by bringing this story to the attention of Bristolians, I may be able to get in contact with individuals who were living in Bristol during this period and who may know anything about these girls. Even if they didn’t have personal experience with these niños, there may be people who remember the debate over them coming, or over their staying here. Any information would be gratefully received and may aid in the preservation of this aspect of our city’s history. If this is the case please contact me via email or letter. Hopefully there’s a wealth of memories to be unearthed regarding the lost Basque children. Beth Middleton 856 Fishponds Rd Fishponds BS16 3XA BethMiddleton1991@hotmail.co.uk
their building in Castle Street. When I visit tranquil Castle Park nowadays it is difficult to recall the havoc and destruction of the war in the 1940s, and the eventual rebuilding of the 50s and 60s. I often wonder where all the years went! Christine Taylor Redfield
8
So, Marion, what’s for dinner?
W
ELL, I said promptly, it would have to be Stargazey pie without a doubt! We were chatting with friends, when Derek admitted he couldn’t bear to watch I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! because it would make him feel ill to see so called intelligent people eating disgusting things. This led to all of us naming the worst meal they ever had put in front of them. For me it was Stargazey pie – a most peculiar dish my first husband’s auntie Lil used to cook. If you have been lucky enough to have never come across it I must explain it was a pie crust placed around a dish of pilchards standing up, with their heads sticking out of the top, so that the fish oil, supposedly very good to take, would run down the pilchards and be absorbed into the pie. Personally I prefer a halibut oil pill. We all have our particular dislikes when it comes to food – especially Derek! As I have said before I am a pretty good cook – and of course Derek agrees. Well why wouldn’t he? Unless he wants to go hungry. He is a very funny fella as regards food. He eats clockwise around the plate, never mixing flavours. Even jelly and blancmange has to go in separate dishes. Oddly enough, my eldest grandson, Daniel, although no relation to Derek, apart from step-granddad, eats the same way as Derek. I tell you my friends – it is lovely to witness Derek’s confusion when I give him stew or soup. But we have grown accustomed to our different ways. When I was young, and fell in love with my first and only boyfriend, George, who later became my first husband, I used to fret if I didn’t get a letter every couple of days. Mum used to say: “Don’t worry so – if you are meant to be together, you
This week in Marion’s Memories – what’s for dinner? will be.” When I married Derek it was more a case of for every old shoe there’s an old sock! Aren’t those old sayings lovely? However when it comes to eating on holiday when we are abroad I am definitely more adventurous than Derek, but at home I tend to cook ‘English’ the way my mum taught me, although I am sure she would have loved my microwave and fan oven as much as I do. Do you know, my friends, one thing I really get fed up with is the number of cookery shows ‘rammed down our throats’ on television. I counted at least 50 one week before I went on holiday and Come Dine With Me seems to have more repeats, accord-
● Fanny and Johnny Craddock – doing the cooking in evening wear ing to Derek, than faggots and peas. One cookery programme I did love years ago was Fanny and Johnny Craddock, not so much for their cookery as for their showmanship and entertainment. In those days I never had an evening dress let alone cooked in one. I think I would have to say I was more Oxo mum – the Oxo family seemed much more down to earth and I could relate to them more.
Mind you, since I have downsized to one fairly small oven, one of my grandsons said he and his girlfriend have been given the same dinner so many times they now refer to it as my ‘signature dish’. I know the young ones eat lots of pasta dishes and curries – the equivalent I think to us older housewives using ‘Smash’ although to be quite honest I couldn’t abide it!
The only cookbook I own is my M&S cookbook, given to me one Christmas after I was widowed, although I don’t think I have opened it for years. Years ago recipes in magazines always featured English dishes but nowadays most cookery recipes in magazines tend to be European, Asian, and Chinese etc. The other day on holiday I was looking through my favourite magazine, The People’s Friend, and they had a cookery feature on the humble sausage, and the only English recipe was for sausage and mash! I must tell you – I don’t think I ever have – about being on a return flight from Tunisia years ago. It must be more than eight years now, and Derek and I were in separate rows. I kept an eye on him because if, as nearly often happens, he didn’t touch his dinner I would pass him my bread roll, and cheese and cracker, so at least he ate something. But he hardly touched his main course – he thought the chips were soggy. The only problem? He didn’t have chips, he had meat balls and pasta! How daughter Julie laughed when I told her. In fact, come to think of it, Julie and Derek had a lot in common. Both said their favourite meal was either a roast or steak and chips – cooked by me, of course! Years ago when my son and then daughter-in-law got burgled – in about 1987 – they didn’t even realise it until Clare went into her kitchen and found the bread pudding she had made the night before had been eaten! Then she realised her credit card and purse had been stolen – it didn’t take Inspector Clouseau to work out they were very tidy, very hungry thieves! The only thing that put me off my food when I was young was when Dad put a fly paper in our kitchen and it got covered in flies. See you next week, Love, Marion
Footsteps into history | Blackcurrant cordial
We have Frank and Vernon to thank for Ribena
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IT was announced last week that corporate giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has sold the Ribena and Lucozade drinks brands to Japanese firm Suntory in a deal worth £1.35 billion. The two drinks racked up combined sales of £500m last year but GSK said it was selling them as part of a corporate restructure which would focus on its pharmaceutical business. Lucozade and Ribena both started out as “health” drinks, though nowadays most people would regard them as soft drinks like Coke or Pepsi. Certainly, when Ribena was invented in Bristol it was not really seen as a “consumer” beverage at all. We have two people to thank for Ribena. The first is Frank Armstrong (1900-1993), who was born in Bristol, educated at Clifton College and served in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War. Armstrong trained as a chartered
accountant before joining his father in the family business, H.W. Carter and Co. Based in Wilder Street, St Pauls, Carters dealt in mineral water and lemon cordials. Armstrong was chairman by the 1930s at a time when Britain’s dairy farmers were producing large quantities of cheap milk. Meanwhile, our second hero, Dr Vernon Charley was working at Bristol University’s Long Ashton Agricultural Research Station, looking into ways of marketing this milk surplus by developing fruit cordials for milkshakes. One solution, though it used water, was a blackcurrant cordial. Armstrong heard about this and his firm began manufacturing it in 1936. The name was supposedly suggested by Armstrong’s neighbourhood pharmacist and derived from the Latin for blackcurrant – Ribes nigrum –
Ribena. Armstrong liked its doctor’s prescription-sounding name as that implied it was healthy. Ribena’s finest hour came during WW2 when the German U-Boat campaign made importing oranges and lemons all but impossible. The government encouraged cultivation of blackcurrants, and almost the entire national crop went to H W Carter, which by now had premises at Stokes Croft and Ashton Gate as well. It was turned into blackcurrant syrup which was then distributed to the nation’s kids and pregnant women for free as an important source of vitamin C. As a result, blackcurrant cultivation was encouraged and the yield of the nation’s crop increased significantly. It also led to a growing popularity of blackcurrant flavourings. Until now, blackcurrants had not been too widely cultivated. Production was moved to a new factory at Coleford in Gloucestershire in 1947, and Ribena has been made there ever since. In 1955, the business was taken over
● The boffins working at Bristol University’s Long Ashton Agricultural Research Station in the 1930s. Pondering over what to do with all the nation’s excess milk led indirectly to the invention of Ribena by Beecham Foods, now part of GlaxoSmithKline. Frank Armstrong was offered a place on the Beecham’s board until his retirement in 1960 and chaired the drinks division of their operations, selling us Corona, Lucozade and PLJ. (Remember PLJ?
“Pure Lemon Juice”?) With an assurance from GSK that the “vast majority” of employees will be offered transfers to Suntory, it seems likely that Ribena will still be made in the Forest of Dean for some time to come.