After 20 years of research, the Filton Community History Group closed in 2018. Some notable contributions included the BAC 100 (Bristol Aeroplane Company) oral history project, the Millennium Schools Project, and the ‘Inspiring Women’ exhibition for South Gloucestershire Council. All these successful projects have connected the local community of Filton to their rich and proud history. Jane Tozer, Treasurer of Filton Community History Group looks back on the group's achievements.
Tag: community
History or just story-telling?
In 2007, local author John Payne published his own account of 'the rise and fall of a Bath company', a personal history of the city's engineering firm, Stothert and Pitt. We reviewed the book in RH18 and invited John to reflect upon the process of writing 'industrial history' or 'business history' as 'community history'. For, as he suggests here, there would seem a world of difference between most academic accounts of commercial change, and the sort of approaches taken to the subject by people for whom working for the firm had been formative. What is the relative value, he wonders, of personal histories of the workplace?