Bristol 2014 articles
This section features a range of articles and stories to entertain, to inform and to encourage debate on the themes and topics explored as part of Bristol 2014.
Image: Patrick Tomasso
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Bristol2014
Douglas Reynolds VC
You can read the full, recently revised manuscript on which it is based here. 50 years ago, I marched into Le Cateau to receive the freedom of the town with 93 Le Cateau Battery, Royal Artillery; the successors of the WW1 – 37 Howitzer Battery, Royal Field Artillery. As I speak, 93 Le Cateau Battery are […]
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Bristol2014
‘Planting Memory’ The Challenge of Remembering the Past on the Somme, Gallipoli and Melbourne
Read the full article here. Gardens have long been regarded as a ‘palliative for melancholy’ and a congenial environment for solitary contemplation. In Western Christian teaching the garden is seen as a place for spiritual reflection, a space designed to stimulate meditation, introspection and the easing of the imagination. Furthermore, gardens are liminal enclaves, withdrawn from […]
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Bristol2014
In perpetuity? Bristol’s famous war memorial The Memorial Ground
Meanwhile, moves were afoot to find a suitable home for Bristol rugby – led by Francis Cowlin, the great friend of rugby in Bristol. Buffalo Bill’s Field, which had been acquired by Frank Cowlin, was generously donated by him, and conveyed to trustees, for the use of the Bristol Rugby Club. The Memorial Ground was […]
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Bristol2014
‘That vile place’ Stanley Spencer RA, a medical orderly in Bristol
It’s not quite clear why the artist Stanley Spencer took such an exception to the inoffensive church overlooking the railway station in Bath Spa: perhaps it reminded him of his grim experience at another ‘loathsome’ building on the north-east shoulder of Bristol – the military hospital known during the war as ‘the Beaufort’. The vast […]
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Bristol2014
Two Brothers from St Philips and their First World War
But Alfred was not ‘killed in action’. He had been shot at dawn on 1 November 1916 for attempting to desert from the 6th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry by trying to catch a ferry back to England. We cannot now know why the Army reported the his death in this way; perhaps they did […]
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Bristol2014
‘Bravo, Bristol!’
The song was set to music by composer Ivor Novello. Writing to the Committee, Weatherly described the music as ‘tuneful and easy, and yet not commonplace.’ Following negotiations with the Committee, Weatherly and Novello, along with the music publisher, Boosey and Co, agreed that the entire proceeds from the sale of the song’s sheet music […]
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Bristol2014
‘Over the Top’
The whistle blows,Final for some,And the men mountLadders out ofTrampled trenches;As to the gallows,Silently pleadingFor reprieve An officer leadsBrandishing a revolver,Out of range of the enemyAnd good onlyFor the encouragementOf stragglers,Momentarily scepticalAbout the grand plan The Germans had swappedIndustrial efficiencyFor chivalry,And aligned their MaximsIn the optimum X-formation;So that the spinningEviscerating roundsNever missed Men fall,Muscle and […]
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Bristol2014
‘Dread Fascination’ Artists and War
Not far away, the Canadian polemicist and painter Wyndham Lewis had equally taut feelings about the unforeseen appeal of war. Agog at the scale of the ‘unseen orchestra’ that pounded away in his artillery lines, Lewis surveyed the awful majesty and ‘sinister expectancy’ of the Front and, with typical bravado, ‘plunged into the romance of battle’: If your mind is of […]
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Bristol2014
“Germany, Austria and Drink” Bristol’s War on Alcohol
In the decades before the First World War, alcohol had become a major social problem in the cities of industrialised countries, particularly the Anglo-Saxon ones. Modern brewing techniques produced very strong beer very cheaply. This, combined with low taxation and light regulation of public houses and the brewing industry, led to massive amounts of alcoholism […]
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Bristol2014
An Unfortunate Call of Nature Uncle Arthur Woodworth
Arthur Woodworth was born in Shepton Mallet, Somerset on 16 November 1884. He moved to Hotwells, Bristol with his family before the turn of the century as his father William had a job as a Steam Cane driver at Bristol Docks. Unfortunately at 14 years of age Arthur and his father William got into some […]
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Bristol2014
Beaufort War Hospital in the First World War
The mentally ill patients were dispatched to asylums across the South West and the building transformed into Beaufort War Hospital. The first convoy of wounded was received on May 24 1915. The greatest number of soldiers sleeping under the roof of the Hospital on one night was 1,487. Over the four years, 29,433 patients were […]
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Bristol2014
Bertha Von Suttner and Lay Down Your Arms
In those days there was no email or internet. Research was conducted by post. I got in touch with the Danish Film Museum which had a remarkable archive. I remember still the package that arrived with a letter in English and copies of brochure materials, publicity and most of all the news that a print […]
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Bristol2014
Brislington and the Great War
In 1915 a large recruiting meeting was held in Hollywood Road School, chaired by local landowner and J.P, Joseph Cooke – Hurle of Brislington Hill House, who himself served as a Captain in the Somerset Light Infantry and West Somerset Yeomanry. He hoped ‘the young men of Somerset would not be backward in the time of […]
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Bristol2014
Bristol Adopts Bethune
It pursued its objective by encouraging British cities and towns to become a ‘Godparent’ to a small town or village that had been destroyed; the village was ‘adopted’, a relationship was established with the people who had returned to their ruined homes, and various types of aid relevant to their particular needs were provided. 80 […]
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Bristol2014
Bristol Area First World War Prisoner of War Camps
Suspicions of potential ‘enemies in our midst’ had been aroused by some novels, published a few years earlier, featuring foreign spies. Any aliens, after questioning, considered a threat to British security, even if they had lived in Britain for years, or had a British-born wife or a son in the British army, were interned – […]