Bristol Historical Association Pamphlets

The table below provides links to the Bristol Historical Association pamphlets published from 1960-2007. All of these are ‘secondary works’. They have been given their own page on the website because there are 120 of them and they form a coherent series. For further information on the history of the pamphlets and the digitisation process, see notes below.

No..	Author	Title	Published
1	Vincent Waite	The Bristol Hotwell	1960
2	P. T. Underdown	Bristol and Burke	1961
3	Kathleen Barker	The Theatre Royal: The First Seventy Years	1961
4	Eleanor M. Carus Wilson	The Merchant Venturers of Bristol in the Fifteenth Century	1962
5	Walter Minchinton	The Port of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century	1962
6	Basil Cottle	Thomas Chatterton	1963
7	C. M. MacInnes	Bristol and the Slave Trade	1963
8	Grahame Farr	The Steamship Great Western	1963
9	Ruby J. Saywell	Mary Carpenter of Bristol	1964
10	John Cannon	The Chartists in Bristol	1965
11	Grahame Farr	The Steamship Great Britain	1965
12	C. M. MacInnes	Ferdinando Gorges and New England	1965
13	James Sherborne	The Port of Bristol in the Middle Ages	1965
14	Kathleen Barker	The Theatre Royal, Bristol: Decline and Rebirth, 1834-1943	1966
15	Herbert Byard	The Bristol Madrigal Society	1966
16	Peter T. Marcy	Eighteenth Century Views of Bristol and Bristolians	1966
17	Russell Mortimer	Early Bristol Quakerism: The Society of Friends in the City, 1654-1700	1967
18	R. A. Buchanan	The Industrial Archaeology of Bristol	1967
19	C. M. MacInnes	Captain Thomas James and the North West Passage	1967
20	Peter Marshall	The Anti-Slave Trade Movement in Bristol	1968
21	David B. Quinn	Sebastian Cabot and Bristol Exploration (revised edition, 1997)	1968
22	K. Branigan	The Romans in the Bristol Area	1969
23	Leslie V. Grinsell	Prehistoric Bristol: The Prehistory of the Lower Bristol Avon	1969
24	M. Q. Smith	The Medieval Churches of Bristol	1970
25	Patrick McGrath	John Whitson and the Merchant Community of Bristol	1970
26	R. A. Buchanan	Nineteenth Century Engineers in the Port of Bristol	1971
27	Grahame E. Farr	Bristol Shipbuilding in the Nineteenth Century	1971
28	David Walker	Bristol in the Early Middle Ages	1971
29	E. E. Butcher	Bristol Corporation of the Poor 1696-1898	1972
30	L.V. Grinsell	The Bristol Mint: An Historical Outline	1972
31	K. G. Powell	The Marian Martyrs of Bristol	1972
32	David Large and Robert Whitfield	The Bristol Trades Council, 1873-1973	1973
33	Kathleen Barker	Entertainment in the Nineties	1973
34	Susan Thomas	The Bristol Riots	1974
35	David Large and Frances Round	Public Health in mid-Victorian Bristol	1974
36	Roderick Walters	The Establishment of the Bristol Police Force	1975
37	Peter Marshall	Bristol and the Abolition of Slavery: The Politics of Emancipation	1975
38	Jon Press	The Merchant Seamen of Bristol, 1745-1789	1976
39	Jean Vanes	The Port of Bristol in the Sixteenth Century	1977
40	James W. Sherborne	University College, Bristol, 1876-1909	1977
41	Peter Marshall	Bristol and the American War of Independence	1977
42	Michael Liversidge	The Bristol High Cross	1978
43	Joseph H. Bettey	The Rise of a Gentry Family: The Smyth’s of Ashton Court, c. 1500-1642	1978
44	Kathleen Barker	Early Music Hall in Bristol	1979
45	Joseph H. Bettey	Bristol Parish Churches During the Reformation, c1530-1560	1979
46	M. J. H. Liversidge	William Hogarth’s Bristol Altar-Piece	1980
47	Basil Cottle	Robert Southey and Bristol	1980
48	Peter G. Lamb	Electricity in Bristol 1863-1948	1981
49	Elizabeth Ralph	The Streets of Bristol	1981
50	Patrick McGrath	Bristol and the Civil War	1981
51	Brian Atkinson	Trade Unions in Bristol, c. 1860-1914	1981
52	Jean Vanes	Education and Apprenticeship in Sixteenth Century Bristol	1982
53	Charles Tomlinson	Isaac Rosenberg of Bristol	1982
54	Daniel Briggs	The Bristol Post Office in the Age of Rowland Hill 1837-1864	1983
55	Don Carleton	The Prince’s of Park Row	1983
56	C. Bruce Perry	The Voluntary Medical Institutions of Bristol	1984
57	Anne Crawford	Bristol and the Wine Trade	1984
58	C Bruce Perry	The Bristol Medical School	1984
59	James Sherborne	William Canynges (1402-1474), Mayor of Bristol and Dean of Westbury College	1985
60	David Richardson	The Bristol Slave Traders: A Collective Portrait	1985
61	Roland Mayo	The Huguenots in Bristol	1985
62	Geoffrey Channon	Bristol and the Promotion of the Great Western Railway	1985
63	A. P. Woolrich	Printing in Bristol	1986
64	Kenneth Morgan	Country Carriers in the Bristol Region in the Late Nineteenth Century	1986
65	Basil Cottle	Joseph Cottle of Bristol	1987
66	Peter Harris	Bristol’s ‘Railway Mania’ 1862-1864	1987
67	Harold Nabb	The Bristol Gas Industry, 1815-1949	1987
68	Peter G. Cobb	The Oxford Movement in Nineteenth Century Bristol	1988
69	Jean Vanes	Bristol at the time of the Spanish Armada	1988
70	Rohit Barot	Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement	1988
71	Brian Howell	The Police in Late Victorian Bristol	1989
72	Charles E. Harvey and Jon Press	Sir George White of Bristol 1854-1916	1989
73	Kathleen Barker	Bristol’s Lost Empires: The Decline and Fall of the Music Hall in Bristol	1990
74	Joseph Bettey	The Suppression of the Religious Houses in Bristol	1990
75	Kenneth Morgan	John Wesley and Bristol	1990
76	Elizabeth Ralph and Peter G. Cobb	New Anglican Churches in Nineteenth Century Bristol	1991
77	Derek Winterbottom	A Season’s Fame: how A.E.J. Collins of Clifton College in 1899 made Cricket’s Highest Individual Score	1991
78	Jeannie Shorey	The Open Air Schools of Bristol 1913-1957	1992
79	Donald Jones	Captain Woodes Rogers’ Voyage Round the World 1708-1711	1992
80	Clive Burgess	The Parish Church and the Laity in Late Medieval Bristol	1992
81	Derek Winterbottom	John Percival: the Great Educator	1993
82	Joseph Bettey	Bristol Cathedral: the Rebuilding of the Nave	1993
83	Harold Nabb	The Bristol Gas Light Company; the Breillat Dynasty of Engineers	1993
84	Pip Jones and Rita Youseph	The Black Population of Bristol in the Eighteenth Century	1994
85	John Penny	Luftwaffe Operations over Bristol 1940/44	1995
86	David Large	Bristol and the New Poor Law	1995
87	Mary Wright	Elizabeth Blackwell of Bristol: The First Woman Doctor	1995
88	Joseph Bettey	St. Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol	1996
89	Donald Jones	Bristol’s Sugar Trade and Refining Industry	1996
90	John Penny	The Air Defence of the Bristol Area 1937-44	1997
91	Patrick McGrath	Bristol and America, 1480-1631	1997
92	Joseph Bettey	The Royal Fort and Tyndall’s Park: the Development of a Bristol Landscape	1997
93	Cyril Gibson	The Bristol School Board 1871-1903	1997
94	James Dreaper	Bristol’s Forgotten Victor: Lieutenant-General Sir William Draper K.B. (1721-1787)	1998
95	John Penny	Bristol’s Civil Defence during World War Two	1998
96	Kenneth Morgan	Edward Colston and Bristol	1999
97	John Penny	Up, Up and Away! An account of ballooning in and around Bristol and Bath 1784 to 1999	1999
98	John Lyes	‘A Strong Smell of Brimstone’: the solicitors and attorneys of Bristol, 1740 to 1840	1999
99	M. J. Crossley Evans	Hannah More	1999
100	M. J. Crossley Evans, Paul Elkin, Martin Forrest, Mike Jenner, David Large and Gerry Nichols	Post War Bristol 1945-1965: Twenty Years that Changed the City [A six-article ‘centenary’ edition, 144pp.]	2000
101	John Penny	All the News that’s Fit to Print: A Short History of Bristol’s Newspapers since 1702	2001
102	John Penny	On the Air: A Short History of Broadcasting in the Bristol Area	2001
103	Peter Fleming	Women in Late Medieval Bristol	2001
104	John Lyes	Bristol 1901-1913	2002
105	Cyril Gibson	Bristol’s Merchants and the Great Western Railway	2002
106	Keith Ramsey	The Bristol Coal Industry	2003
107	John Lyes	Bristol 1914-1919	2003
108	Joseph Bettey	The First Historians of Bristol: William Barrett and Samuel Seyer	2003
109	John Lyes	Bristol 1920-1926	2003
110	Peter Fleming	Bristol Castle: a Political History	2004
111	John Lyes	Bristol 1927-1933	2004
112	John Lyes	Bristol 1934-1939	2004
113	Peter Fleming	Bristol and the Wars of the Roses, 1451-1471	2005
114	Sue Hardiman	The 1832 Cholera Epidemic and its Impact on the City of Bristol	2005
115	David Higgins	The History of the Bristol Region in the Roman Period	2005
116	Gerry Nichols	To Keep Open and Unenclosed’: The Management of Durdham Down since 1861	2005
117	John Lyes	Bristol’s Courts of Law	2006
118	David Higgins	The Bristol Region in the Sub-Roman and Early Anglo-Saxon Periods	2006
119	Gerry Nichols	Clifton and Durdham Downs: A Place of Public Resort and Recreation	2006
120	David Higgins	Saint Jordan of Bristol: From the Catacombs of Rome to College Green at Bristol	2007

History of the Bristol Historical Association pamphlet series

From 1960-2007, the Bristol Branch of the Historical Association (BHA) issued a series of 120 pamphlets aimed at making Bristol’s history available to a wider audience. No other town or city in the UK published as many. For most of the period the pamphlet series was produced by the Department of History, University of Bristol. In its later years this endeavour was led by the Regional History Centre, UWE. Many of the contributors were academics or local scholars, who regarded these publications as a vital part of their efforts to engage with and contribute to their city. Every pamphlet was subject to peer review by academics from the Bristol branch.

In 2007, the Bristol Historical Association went into suspension and the pamphlet series ceased. Since that time the Avon Local History and Archaeology Association have published a very similar series of ‘booklets‘.

Following the reconstitution of the Bristol branch of the Historical Association in 2017, the BRS, in collaboration with the BHA, started making digitized copies of its former pamphlets available on their websites. This process began in 2019, under Dr Evan Jones – the Digitisation Officer for both the BRS and the BHA. All copies have been subject to Optical Character Recognition. This makes it possible to search them, copy text and use screen reading software.

In all cases the copyright of the pamphlets remains with the original authors, or their heirs – albeit no fees or royalties were ever paid to the authors. Where possible, we sought to contact copyright owners of these pamphlets – all of whom were pleased to see their pamphlets reproduced this way. If you are the copyright owner of any title and wish to confirm your willingness for us to e-publish it this way, or to say that you would rather not have the item made available, please email Dr Evan Jones.

In 2023 the BRS/BHA started placing copies of the pamphlets, in an edited format, on The Internet Archive, in the Bristol Record Society Collection. This was done to improve the reader experience, provide for downloads in multiple formats, allow for the generation of links to individual pages and to ensure the long-term accessibility of the digitised versions of the pamphlets, in a formal e-repository. The process was completed in January 2024. The original scans of the pamphlets are being retained on the BHA website, to ensure accessibility in case The Internet Archive website is unavailable.

The digitisation of the BHA pamphlets is dedicated to Dr Joseph Bettey, formerly of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Bristol. For decades Joe was heavily involved with both the BRS and the BHA. He is the author of seven of the pamphlets and was an Editorial Advisor to the Bristol HA pamphlet series to its very end. Joe is also the author of two BRS volumes and numerous other local history publications. We admire all the authors of the pamphlets for their selfless work and also pay tribute to Peter Harris, who was central to the production and distribution of the pamphlets from the start. The BRS feel that Joe, however, deserves special recognition for his decades of dedication to Bristol scholarship and public engagement. No modern scholar has done more to bring Bristol’s history to a wider audience.

Note: Many of the pamphlets were reprinted. The digitized versions were taken from the best available copy, which may be a reprint.