Bristol Record Society Collection: Internet Archive
On 20 September the Internet Archive agreed to our request to create a Collection of the works we have electronically published on the site since 2020. This has no impact on the accessibility of individual items, but it makes it easier for users to keep track of our recent activity. It also lets the Society monitor usage of the items we have digitised and uploaded – both individually and collectively. That, in turn, can be used to inform our decisions about future digitisation. The collection is currently receiving c. 1,300 views per month – a ‘view’ being counted as at least one ‘interaction’ (e.g. turning a page / downloading a pdf) for an item on a given day from a given device.
New Website
In October we launched the new website at a new address: bristolrecordsociety.org. This is currently receiving about 1,100 views per month from c. 350 individual visitors. In November, redirects were created from the old website, hosted by the University of Bristol. The old website will be taken down in the New Year once we have moved all useful files from it.
Books epublished since September 2023
E. E. Butcher, Clifton Hill House: the first phase 1909-1959 (University of Bristol, 1961), 18 pp.
A short pamphlet about the early history of the University of Bristol’s first ladies hall of residence, Clifton Hill House. Written by Emily Elizabeth Butcher (1896-1987), a Lecturer in the History Department (1932-63) and a long-standing Secretary of the Bristol Record Society.
Anne Crawford, A History of the Vintners’ Company (Constable, London, 1977), 319 pp.
An official history of the Vintners’ Company of London, from its inception in the fourteenth century. Written by the historian Anne Crawford, who was at the time working as an archivist at the Bristol Record Office (Bristol Archives). It was digitised by the BRS because the wine was Bristol’s chief import from the thirteenth-seventeenth centuries.
‘A report and survey of features surviving in August 1984’, undertaken by the Temple Local History Group.
Patrick McGrath (ed.), The Marchants Avizo by I[ohn] B[rowne,] Marchant, 1589 (Harvard, 1957)
Previously available on the old BRS website, this important work was rescanned and placed on the Internet Archive.
Previously available on the old BRS website, this annal was rescanned and placed on the Internet Archive.
Elizabeth Ralph, Guide to the Bristol Archives Office (Bristol City Corporation, 1971)
A guide to the archives of the city and county of Bristol written by the City Archivist and published by the Corporation. Epublished with the enthusiastic support of Bristol Archives.
A biography of the Bristol philanthropist, Rev Thomas White (c.1550-1624), which includes his will and details of his legacies. Written by a well-known local historian, who wrote a number of books about the history of Bristol institutions.
Transcription of a calendar and chronicle compiled by the Town Clerk of Bristol, c.1479, then continued with later additions up to the early seventeenth century. Although there were already copies of this important work on the Internet Archive, these were of poor quality.
Bristol Historical Association Pamphlets
As noted in September, the 120 pamphlets in this series were digitised and put online by the Bristol Record Society and the Bristol Historical Association in 2019. In many cases we used copies lent by Bristol Reference Library. To ensure long term accessibility in a proper e-repository, the pamphlets are being placed on the Internet Archive, where they can be found in the Bristol Record Society Collection. Since September, 80 pamphlets have been edited and placed in the collection, so that 92/120 are now available – some items having been rescanned first. The description section of each item includes information about the authors, many of whom were leading scholars. In some cases further notes have been added to recognise the contribution of those who supported or sponsored the electronic publication.
Wikimedia / Wikipedia
We have continued to add high resolution out-of-copyright images relating to Bristol’s history to Wikimedia. As Creative Commons items, these are then available to both Wikipedia editors and to anyone else who wishes to use an image online or in print, without having to worry about obtaining copyright permissions.
We have also continued to update Wikimedia pages relating to Bristol history, in particular to provide links to the items we have epublished.
Bristol 650 and the Bristol Perambulation
On 30 September, Dr Evan Jones (General Editor: digitisation) guided a civic perambulation of the medieval boundary of the county of Bristol, to mark the 650th anniversary of the first perambulation in 1373. A party of twenty-five people were led by Deputy Lord Mayor, Paula O’Rorke and Deputy High Sheriff, Royston Griffey, following the route identified on Evan Jones’ google map. This was the first civic perambulation of this route since the early nineteenth century. For more on this event, see Perambulating Bristol 650.
Professor Peter Fleming’s book
This is now in press and is scheduled for publication in February by the Yorkist History Trust:
Peter Fleming, Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power (forthcoming, February 2024)
Bristol Record Society 