Bristol

Bristol became the third UK city in which SCT has promoted a Speakers’ Corner after local people, impressed by the Nottingham initiative, suggested that its diverse communities, rich heritage and burgeoning cultural life would make Bristol an ideal candidate for a project. The City Council was equally supportive and, in summer 2009, SCT undertook a successful consultation among potential stakeholders.

Bristol – One of the UK’s Great Cities

Bristol has for centuries played a key role in Britain’s history, as as a great seafaring and trading city, a place of technological and industrial innovation and as a home to artists, thinkers and politicians.

Originally known by the Saxon name of Brigstowe or ‘Place of the Bridge’, Bristol was perfectly situated eight miles inland in a well-drained and easily defended spot on a navigable waterway, the river Avon. Founded as a medieval trading centre, primarily dealing in cloth and wine, Bristol received a Royal Charter in 1155 and became an independent city and county in 1373. It continued to grow steadily, gaining renown not only for its trade links around the world but also for the quality of its shipbuilding.

By the fifteenth century, many of Bristol’s merchants had become wealthy and influential figures, replacing the old barons in controlling the life of the city. They invested part of their fortunes in speculative ventures to find new markets of which the most famous was John Cabot’s Atlantic expedition of 1497. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries vast fortunes were made in the city from the infamous triangular trade between Bristol, Africa and the Caribbean and American colonies. Trinkets, cloth and other goods were traded for enslaved African people who were in turn traded for rum, sugar and tobacco.

Bristol also played a prominent role in the industrial revolution as testified by the work of the great engineer Kingdom Isambard Brunel who designed the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London’’s Paddington station, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the two great steamships, the SS Great Britain and SS Great Western, both built in Bristol.

For five hundred years Bristol had been, with Norwich and York, one of the largest and most important cities outside London. But, though it continued to expand with the coming of industry, its economic importance was diminished in the nineteenth century by the rise of Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. In the early twentieth century Bristol went into further decline as a trading port as the city-centre docks were too small for large cargo ships and the city then suffered serious damage from the blitzes of World War Two.

But  more recently, Bristol has enjoyed an impressive renaissance. Though some post-war reconstruction programmes have been condemned for their lack of sympathy for the historic origins of the city, more recent regeneration has helped make Bristol one of the most creative and attractive places in the UK. Today, with a population of over 400,000, Bristol is the UK’s eighth and England’s sixth largest city, designated one of the UK’s Centres of Culture as well as one of six English Science Cities with a flourishing creative economy and a reputation for innovation in transport, technology and environmental initiatives. It is also home to stunning architecture, a vibrant waterfront and a rich cultural life.

A City of Great Men and Women Bristol has a great tradition of religious, political and artistic freethinking – and piracy. Blackbeard was a Bristol privateer, John Wesley founded the first Methodist Chapel, the New Room, in the city in 1739, Edmund Burke was Bristol’s MP from 1774 t0 1780 and Tony Benn represented Bristol South East between 1950 and 1983. The writer Hannah More, a leading abolitionist, and the women’s rights activist Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence were born in the city. But it is not only the famous who have contributed to the UK’s social and political progress. In 1963 the Bristol Omnibus Co’s refusal to employ black people triggered a boycott which influenced the introduction of the Race Relations Act of 1965.   The St. Paul’s riot of April 1980 was the first of several throughout the country which focused attention on the grievances of young black people and led to a review of the policing of Britain’s inner cities. More recently, Bristol was one of the first UK cities to be awarded Fairtrade City status. In 2009, graffiti artist Banksy’s exhibition packed out Bristol Museum. Bristol’s famous sons, daughters and adoptees include: Blackbeard Woodes Rogers (c 1679-1732), privateer and colonial governor of the Bahamas John Wesley Edward Teach (died 1718), better known as Blackbeard the pirate Hannah More (1745-1833), writer, educationalist and abolitionist Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), the boy-poet and faker of antiquarian documents who came to a tragic early end Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), Cornish chemist and inventor Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), designer of transatlantic steamships, the Great Western Railway and Clifton Suspension Bridge Hannah More Sir Michael Redgrave (1908-1985), actor Dorothy Hodgkin (1910–1994), Nobel prize winning chemist Tony Benn, Labour MP and Minister Robin Cousins, Olympic Gold figure skater Jo Durie, tennis player Helen Dunmore, Orange Prize-winning novelist

Towards a Speakers’ Corner

SCT’s consultation with a wide cross section of Bristol’s public, voluntary, arts and business sectors led to the founding of a Speakers’ Corner Founding Committee in September which met again in October to discuss plans for a project model adapted to reflect the city’s distinctive characteristics and meet its particular needs.It was agreed to begin the process of shortlisting potential Speakers Corner sites and designing a launch in the new year.

When the Committee met in January, half a dozen potential sites were discussed and it was agreed to work with the Bristol Old Vic on an imaginative proposal to test-drive aeach location. The idea is for actors and perhaps representatives of voluntary groups to perform at each site to see how they work in terms of gathering and holding audiences and how they relate to the other uses around them.