Boston King was one of the first black men to be appointed into the Methodist connexion. His missions in Sierra Leone attracted the attention of the Superintendent Thomas Coke, who was interested in the ‘salvation’ of enslaved people. Coke took King to Kingswood School in 1794. Here, King studied the Bible and developed his literacy, to further his ambitions of preaching in West Africa. Ryan Hanley explores King’s journey to Kingswood and provides an insight into his life in the school.
Tag: eighteenth century
William Gilbert in Bristol: from Asylum to Hurricane
William Gilbert was a Romantic poet best known for writing ‘The Hurricane’ in 1795. The motivations behind writing the visionary poem can be traced back to Gilbert’s time in an asylum in Hanham, South Gloucestershire. John Henderson, son of the asylum proprietor Richard Henderson, introduced Gilbert to the study of astrology and provided care. Paul Cheshire's article provides an insight into Gilbert’s life in Bristol and his time in the asylum.
Material evidence and slavery in Bristol: The Deverell Leg Iron
Dr. Johnathan Harlow, Professor Johnathan Barry and Dr Michael Whitfield have been investigating what is believed to be a leg iron, on display at the Yale Center for British Art. The iron is engraved with the words ‘Deverall, Cornstreet Bristoll, 1733’. This article explores the provenance of the leg iron to shed light on the activities of the Deverall family, and the presence of enslaved Africans in Bristol.
Elmington Manor Farm: 1584-1911
"Elmington Manor Farm is the best-documented farm in the Lower Severn Vale Levels, which is why James Powell chose as his topic 'The Estate Management of Elmington Manor Farm and environs 1066-1950'". From sources in "public archives, planning departments, libraries and museums" Powell looks at the earliest records of the farm, and how it survived to be surveyed by the "Second World War Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries".
Charles Houlden Walker, 1776-1844, Attorney and Publicist
"John Lyes considers the career of an overlooked Bristol lawyer and finds him to have been a feisty and prolific criminal justice campaigner... Walker was also a regular writer of letters to the local press". Walker protested injustices wherever he could, whether they happened to him or others he saw it as his duty to try and make changes to the system.
A Missing Nave and the Development of Private Housing at Bristol Cathedral (PART TWO)
"In RH 26, Joyce Moss outlined some of the difficulties surrounding the development of secular housing in and around the sacred ground of Bristol Cathedral between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here she concludes her study with a further examination of the surviving evidence and some further thoughts about the conflicting interests of ecclesiastical morality and financial stability as many of the houses became dilapidated and were demolished in the 1830s".
‘The Public Ways of the City were become like so many Dunghills’: Collecting Nightsoil in Eighteenth Century Bath
"In 1644 a visitor to Bath wrote ‘the public ways of the city were become like so many dunghills’. As both the popularity of Bath and the population itself increased, less land became available for the disposal of waste in communal middens or cesspits and households resorted to disposing of their sewage into the street. The City’s runnels and ditches were little more than open sewers, awash with household, and in particular, human waste. Whose job was it to clean up the mess? Kay Ross explores the world of the Nightsoil Collector".
Property Crime in Georgian Bath: Evidence from the Guardian Society, 1783-1800
"Though we have long boasted of having fewer robberies committed here than in any place of equal size, yet it is impossible to be entirely exempted from lawless plunderers’, according to a sober assessment from 1786. Indeed, by the later eighteenth century, there were few places so full of temptations and opportunities as Bath,with all its well-to-do residents and visitors,opulent shops, fine houses and well-stocked gardens. In this article,Trevor Fawcett examines the record of the city’s prosecution society in the constant fight against property crime".
Imagining ‘Silbury and Parnassus the same’: Edward Drax and the Batheaston Vase Adventure
"Despite assuring readers of his Ancient History of Wiltshire in 1812 that, 'We speak facts not theories', the Stourhead antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) found the facts about Silbury Hill hard to come by. 'This stupendous artificial mound of earth cannot fail to arrest the attention of every passenger from Marlborough to Bath,' he wrote. 'An attempt was made to open it some years ago by a Dorsetshire gentleman, Colonel Drax'... But who was Drax, and what was his interest in Silbury?"
A Missing Nave and the Development of Private Housing at Bristol Cathedral (PART ONE)
Part 1 of 2 - Joyce Moss looks at the development of the housing around Bristol Cathedral through from the 16th Century, as well as looking at the history of the buildings and whatever events occurred over the years of its construction. Furthermore, the article includes people who were involved with the monastic properties of the city, and what impact they had on proceedings.