By George Thomas, Faculty of Arts Research Events and Communications Coordinator
The Autumn Art Lectures are here again and this year we are on the move!
2023 marks the 118th anniversary of the Autumn Art Lecture series. Conceived as a platform for Art and Art History in what was then University College Bristol, the series has remained a highlight in Bristol’s cultural calendar. Over the course of its lifetime, the series has explored themes ranging from the monstruous to the celestial, and hosted such luminaries as Kenneth Clarke, EH Gombrich, Toshio Watanabe, Laura Mulvey and David Olusoga. More recently, a commitment to making space for artists to discuss their own practice has added Paul Gough, Richard Long and 2022 Turner Prize shortlisted-artist Ingrid Pollard to the series’ list of prestigious alumni.
Last year to mark the centenary of modernism’s annus mirabilis, the series sought to challenge the concept of modernism as a monolithic entity. By paying particular attention to Blackness, Asian-ness, difference, and decolonisation, the series toppled the notion of a Euro-American Modernism which leaves the non-Western world out in the cold. Talks by Professor Simon Shaw-Miller, Professor Kenneth David Jackson, Jane Alison and Hammad Nasar from the 2022 series are available to listen back to on the University of Bristol’s SoundCloud.
Our theme this year coincides with Bristol 650, the year-long celebration that marks the anniversary of the 1373 royal charter, and will focus on some of the historical, cultural and conceptual spaces of Bristol. AAL2023 will be an opportunity not just to talk about Bristol and its (in)visible histories, but also to step into the city itself. Events will be hosted in venues that span Bristol – from the Cathedral at its heart on College Green, to Spike Island in the midst of the river that defines the city’s cosmopolitan past and present. Our speakers include curators, artists, and academics, who together will take us on a journey through both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the city’s history, including its place in the wider world.
The event series is open to all, and we look forward to welcoming you to the University of Bristol for these engaging talks.
By Ash Bond, PhD Creative Writing student, School of Humanities
As the first proofs of her debut novel arrive in bookshops, PhD Creative Writing student Ash Bond introduces us to the wonderful world of Peregrine Quinn and explains how her time at Bristol has influenced her writing.
My debut novel Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm is the first in a fantasy series, aimed at – primarily – an audience of nine to twelve-year-olds, what those in the publishing sphere refer to as ‘Middle Grade’. Middle Grade is where you will find The Chronicles of Narnia, Artemis Fowl, and Percy Jackson. It is also where you used to find Harry Potter, but now of course he gets his very own section (with matching rucksacks and light-up pens).
The idea that a magical world is just a wardrobe or a train platform away is commonplace on these shelves. In Middle Grade books if you say the right spells, tap the right rock, or mess with the wrong fairy, you could end up – quite literally – anywhere. In Peregrine Quinn, the entrance to the Cosmic Realm lies behind a bookshelf in a library (I am a writer with a vivid imagination, but I am also an academic and, as the adage goes, write what you know). It is in one of these libraries where the first book begins, with Peregrine and her godfather Daedalus breaking into Portal Number Nine in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
One of my greatest joys in writing fantasy books for children is in framing these opportunities for the reader to look at this world, a world that can often appear so devoid of wonder, with renewed curiosity. Is that person on the Tube looking at a map of the London Underground, or the Under-Underground? Check next time, you just never know.
“The weaving of myth and imagination, of research and creativity, is a skill that the Creative Writing PhD at Bristol offers much practice in”
As I transition into the second year of my PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol, I am also moving onto write the second in the Peregrine series. In this second book, the library door is opened wider, and the reader is invited further into the Cosmic Realm. As the world expands, I find myself drawing more and more upon the mythology that forms the basis of much of Peregrine’s universe, a universe that is at once both familiar, and deeply strange. Hekate for example, the classical goddess of witchcraft, in Peregrine’s world runs HekTek Laboratories and specialises in poisons. Daedalus, the architect who designed Minos’s famous labyrinth, in this novel has designed the portal system that connects the Terran Realm (Earth) with that of the Cosmic Realm (Olympus).
The weaving of myth and imagination, of research and creativity, is a skill that the Creative Writing PhD at Bristol offers much practice in. The Creative Writing PhD itself is made up of two strands: one creative and one critical, and is designed so that both strands complement and elevate each other. Like all PhD students, I am lucky enough to have two supervisors; one in Creative Writing, Dr Joanna Nadin, and one in Myth, Dr Vanda Zajko. Both of my supervisors are incredibly generous with their support and rigorous in their feedback, offering me the opportunity to grow as both a writer and as an academic.
The second book is only half written, and with at least one more book to write in this series I am beyond grateful for the consistent opportunities for inspiration – mythological and otherwise – that are offered by the dynamic, interdisciplinary academic environment provided by the university. And while I am very much at the beginning of both my PhD and my publication journey, I look forward to working with Bristol University as Peregrine’s adventure continues.
Ash Bond is a PhD Creative Writing student who recently secured a three-book deal with Piccadilly Press to bring her Peregrine Quinn series to life. The first book, Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm, will be published in April 2024 by Piccadilly Press which you can pre-order now. To find out more about Ash’s research, please email xn22400@bristol.ac.uk.
By Dr Sebastiaan Verweij, Senior Lecturer in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature, and Amy Smith, PhD History candidate
To continue our Faculty Research Centre and Group catch-ups, Dr Sebastiaan Verweij and PhD History candidate Amy Smith tell us about the highly innovative and interdisciplinary May workshop put on by the Early Modern Studies research group.
On 10 May, the Early Modern Studies(EMS) research group ran a workshop: ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’. Place and Space studies, including attention to landscape and environment, cuts through the research activities of EMS members in many different disciplines (including English, History, History of Art, Modern Languages, Theatre, Philosophy, Archaeology), and the workshop was organised as a way to share research methods, materials, and findings. Among our c. 40 delegates were also five colleagues from the Universities of Exeter and Cardiff, in part because EMS is keen to develop research collaboration with members of GW4, a research alliance group made up of the universities of Bristol, Bath, Cardiff and Exeter. We were also joined by PhD students in the Faculty currently on the South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWWDTP)scholarships (with thanks for some additional funding from SWWDTP!).
Dr Sebastiaan Verweij opens the ‘Place and Space in the Early Modern World’ workshop
Most of the workshop took the form of five-minute flashpapers, delivered by 17 colleagues in short panels. Forany academic researcher to stop talking at the five-minute mark is no easy feat.However, all speakers deliver punchy, thought-provoking, and cutting-edgepapers on diverse topics that felt nonetheless connected and in immediate conversationwith others on the day. Topics included sea board spaces, Arthurian landscapes, castle gardens as women’s spaces, portable places and soil in cemeteries, British cathedral precincts, recreating the perambulation of Bristol’s city boundaries, flood lands, Italian urban space, dramatic space in the early modern theatre, the spaces of city comedy, urban space in Manilla, the philosophical precepts of space in time from Aristotle to Newton, the space of tragedy, and what urban planners refer to as ‘Space Left Over After Planning’. The day was concluded with aninterdisciplinary and wide-ranging keynote address by Professor Nicola Whyte, a social and landscape historian at Exeter, on ‘Sacred landscapes and the subterranean imagination’, which took in Renaissance Italian painting, contemporary art, the seventeenth-century travel journals of Celia Fiennes, and heritage studies, as a way to understand premodern and contemporary response and approach to the landscapes that lie beneath our feet.
The workshop left us feeling like there was a great deal more to discuss, and so EMS has resolved to work out a way in which conversations can continue: perhaps in the form of future meetings, and through exploration of funding opportunities such as those offered by GW4, in order to organise more ambitious events (conferences, symposia, or collaborations beyond the university).
The PGR perspective by Amy Smith, PhD History candidate
PGR students (postgraduate research students) often chat about how ‘at home’ we feel in the School of Humanities. Whether we’ve been kicking around Bristol for yearsor only just joined, we all feel welcome at higher level academic events across the department. The Place and Space workshop on May 10th was no different. With so many stimulating topics, we joined in lively Q&A sessions and indulged in the sacred landscapes explored in Nicola Whyte’s keynote.
It was especially inspiring to see recently graduated doctoral students speaking alongside academics with a long publishing record.With several of us in the latter stages of our doctorates, it was a comforting glimpse into a potential future. Next time, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a number of PGR faces on the panels as we start to develop our scholarly profiles within the University and beyond.
The workshop was made possible by Faculty of Arts research group core funding, some additional funds from the Faculty, and a travel subvention for SWWDTP students.
The Early Modern Studies Research Groupaspires to generate a sense of community for scholars from across the faculty (and beyond) who work on some aspect of the period from c.1400 to c.1800. To find out more about the Group’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact s.verweij@bristol.ac.uk or richard.stone@bristol.ac.uk.
By Dr Saima Nasar, Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, School of Humanities
With the advent of a new academic year fast approaching, we caught up with some of our Faculty Research Centres and Groups to see what they got up to last term. Here, Dr Saima Nasar tells us about the Centre for Black Humanities’s highly successful April conference.
The aim of this conference was to bring together researchers to reflect on ‘New Directions in the Black Humanities’. It sought to showcase the exciting research that is being carried out by a dynamic, interdisciplinary group of early career researchers. In doing so, one of the key ambitions of the conference was to support community building.
This was an in-person conference, hosted at the University of Bristol by the Centre for Black Humanities. Thanks to generous funding from The Social History Society’s BME Small Grants Scheme and the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Arts Fund, we were able to offer travel bursaries for our conference delegates who joined us from Royal Holloway, the University of Oxford, the University of West London, the University of Bristol, QMUL, the University of Birmingham, SOAS, and the University of Leicester.
Dr Amber Lascelles opens the conference with reflections on Black Humanities
We began the conference with an introductory talk by Dr Amber Lascelles(RHUL), who reflected on how it might be possible to create a critical mass of Black Humanities scholars in Britain. Lascelles posed the questions: how do we work with and expand the often US-centric scholarship in Black Studies? And how do we network and build, both as practice and method? In so doing, Lascelles stressed the need for community building and mentorship.
Our first panel on ‘Literatures’ started with University of Bristol MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder.Crowder’s paper (‘Fabulation, Physics and Racial Horror: The Non-local Unreality of Black Literature’)probed what ‘reality’ to a Black person is. She explored how speculative fiction by Black authors represents racialised geographies. Her paper was followed by Andrea Bullard(doctoral researcher, University of Bristol) who presented on romance representation in media and Black historical fiction. The panel concluded with Tony Jackson’s (MA Black Humanities, University of Bristol) paper on ‘The Thin Line Between Love and Obsession’.
MA Black Humanities student, Kennedy Marie Crowder, delivers her paper
PhD Creative Writing candidate, Andrea Bullard, presents her paper
Our second panel was on the theme ‘Black Lives and Activism’.Sascha-DaCosta Hinds (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) chaired the session. Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce (doctoral researcher, University of West London) started the panel with a comparative study of ‘quadruple consciousness’.Sule-Pearce examined the transatlantic experiences of Black LGBTQ+ students in Higher Education institutes in the UK, US and South Africa. Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner (doctoral researcher, University of Oxford) followed with an illuminating paper on Black anarchism and the ‘anarcho turn’ of Black British protest and thought. He argued that the Black rebellions of the 1980s was the logical conclusion of over a decade of dissident norms established by Black radicals. Dr Melsia Tomlin-Kräftner (Lecturer in Qualitative Research, University of Bristol) then presented her research on migrations of British colonial Caribbean people.
The first afternoon session focused on ‘African Studies’. We had four brilliant papers by Celine Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Henry Brefo (doctoral researcher, University of Birmingham), Danny Thompson (doctoral researcher, University of Chichester) and HelinaShebeshe (doctoral researcher, SOAS). The papers covered histories of Asantehene Prempeh I, educational scholarships and development bureaucracy in Ghana, and Ethiopian migrants in the United Kingdom and their understanding and experiences of belonging. The panel was chaired by Dr Saima Nasar(Senior Lecturer in the History of Africa and its Diasporas, University of Bristol).
Celine Henry-Agyemang, University of Birmingham, delivers her paper
Our final panel on ‘Fashioning Selves’was chaired by Ross Goodman-Brown (doctoral researcher, University of Bristol). The panellists included: Natasha Henry (doctoral researcher, University of Leicester), Claudia Jones (MA Black Humanities student, University of Bristol) and Olivia Wyatt (doctoral researcher, QMUL). Each paper examined race and racialisation. Wyatt, for instance, interrogated the ambivalent attitudes towards Black mixed-heritage children between the 1920s and the early 1950s.
Olivia Wyatt, Queen Mary University of London, presents her paper
We were hugely honoured to then be joined by our keynote speaker: author, feminist and academic researcher, Lola Olufemi. Olufemi’s paper ‘Only the Promise of Liberation’ examined the purpose, utility and function of the imagination in the work of anti-racist and feminist grassroots political mobilisations in the UK.
Feedback from the day was overwhelmingly positive:
‘New Directions brought together some of the most talented emerging scholars working in Black Humanities in Britain. I thought the quality of the research on offer and the generosity of the questions and discussion made for a very warm and supportive environment. For some it was their first time giving a paper in person, and many shared with me that the collegiality in the room made this a much less daunting experience. The event made me excited and hopeful for the future of Black Humanities.’ Dr Amber Lascelles (RHUL).
‘The conference was a fantastic opportunity to bring together different voices — from around the world — working within the field of Black humanities. Not only did it provide us with refreshingly alternative concepts and methodologies, the conferencealso functioned as a safe space for upcoming researchers from ethnically-marginalised backgrounds navigating workplaces that are overwhelmingly White. The love, care and support that emerged within these sessions fill me with hope and excitement for the future of Black humanities in Britain.’ Olivia Wyatt (QMUL).
Olivia Wyatt, Wasuk Godwin Sule-Pearce, Caine Tayo-Lewin Turner, and Sascha DaCosta-Hinds in discussion
‘New Directions provided an encouraging and welcoming space, bringing together a diverse set of researchers united by the concern for the future of black studies. The range of focus and disciplinary methods (without the pretence of uniform expertise) made participation both rewarding and generative. Distinct ideological undercurrents did not serve to divide but rather inform a dialogue on the political dimensions of black humanities as a discourse; I gained clarity on my position as well as the field in general. I look forward to the Centre’s future events and conferences.’ Caine Tayo Lewin-Turner (University of Oxford).
‘I thoroughly enjoyed New Directionsin Black Humanities at Bristol. As an Africanist it is often difficult to see how my work falls into conversations on black humanities, however the breadth of research made me feel at ease while at the programme. I heard many amazing discussions as well as questions and contributions which I will be exploring in my methodology for my own research. The key thing I am taking away from the programme is the rich network of researchers that I met and hope to keep in touch with throughout my research career. I hope this programme is organised again next year.’ Celine Henry (University of Birmingham).
Many thanks to everyone who participated in and supported the conference!
The Centre for Black Humanities is an international interdisciplinary hub for Black Humanities research in the heart of Bristol. To find out more about the Centre’s activities, research and to join the mailing list, please contact cbh-publicity@bristol.ac.uk. You can also stay up to date through the Centre’s Twitter account.
By Alice Kinghorn, PhD History candidate, School of Humanities
As PhD History candidate Alice Kinghorn’s co-authored article with Professor Hilary Carey appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, we caught up with Alice to find out how her experience as a postgraduate research (PGR) intern prepared her for publishing in an academic journal.
I undertook a PGR internship under the supervision of Professor Hilary Carey in June/July 2022. We worked together over the course of five weeks to co-author an article on the slave-owning missionary, James Curtin. Curtin is a figure that incorporated both of our scholarly interests, as a Catholic convert who travelled to Antigua as a Protestant missionary in the early nineteenth century.
After creating an initial plan together, we each set off on our own research tasks. I visited LambethPalace Archives, where I had the opportunity to carry out investigative research that has been restricted during the period of the pandemic. Following our individual research, we shared notes and drew up a plan. Using a shared document and with regular meetings, we took to writing up the article.
One of the biggest challenges during my internship has been to keep a narrow enough focus when researching and writing collaboratively. Our individual research disclosed many interesting accounts, and our initial draft ending up being over twice the journal’s word limit. Consequently, the editing process was challenging. Nonetheless, after lengthy edits, I believe I have improved my ability to write clearly and concisely for an academic audience.Together we co-wrote and co-edited the article, andsubmitted for publication to the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, which the article on James Curtin features in.
The opportunity to write a jointly authored article with Professor Carey has supported me immensely as a postgraduate researcher. I have gained valuable experience in the academic publication process, including selecting an appropriate journal and writing a concise piece that whilst related to my thesis, is separate to my main research. I feel more confident going into the publication process in the future following this internship, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to explore this with the support of my supervisor.This internship engendered success through its published research output, which is my first published article in an academic journal.
By Professor Sumita Mukherjee, Dr Florian Stadtler, Dr Aleena Din, Dr Rehana Ahmed and Dr Maya Parmar
We’re excited to launch the new project Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1830s to the present. Remaking Britain is an AHRC-funded research project led by the University of Bristol (Sumita Mukherjee, PI and Florian Stadtler, Co-I) and Queen Mary University of London (Rehana Ahmed, Co-I) in partnership with the British Library. Aleena Din (Bristol) and Maya Parmar (QMUL) are researchers on the project.
Remaking Britain will reveal the significance of South Asian people and communities as agents of change to Britain’s cultural, economic, political and social life from the period of empire in the 1830s to the present. Through the exploration of archival records and the capturing of oral histories, the project will produce a free, interactive and widely accessible digital resourcewith accompanying learning materials and oral history interviews, designed for researchers of all types from academics to community and family historians, to interested members of the public.
We are working closely with the Bristol Research IT team, led by Tessa Alexander, with Mike Jones, as well as user experience consultant Stu Church and web designer Tom Waterhouse. This resource, with roughly 750 entries,will be launched in the summer of 2025.
To mark South Asian Heritage Month, which takes place between 18th July-17th August, we have spotlighted five individuals, events and organisations which will feature in our digital resource.
Atiya Fyzee (1877-1967), author, social reformer and arts patron
As a youth, Atiya was involved in women’s organisations and made contributions to reformist journals for Muslim women, including Tahzib un-niswan(Lahore) and Khatun (Aligarh). She was sent to London by her parents for an education and undertook a teaching qualification at Maria Grey Training College. While in London, Atiya wrote a travel diary which documented her networks and connections in Britain. This was later published as Zamana–i-tahsil (A Time of Education) in 1921.
During her short time in Britain, she became part of influential social networks, travelled across Europe and made significant cultural contributions through her groundbreaking observations of life as a Muslim woman in early 20th century Britain.
Amrit Kaur (1889-1964), activist and politician
Amrit Kaur. Source: “Rajkumari Amrit Kaur”, The Indian Listener (November 7, 1936): 1096.
Rajkumari Amrit Kaur was a leading member of the Indian suffrage movement in the 1920s and 1930s, visiting London numerous times to campaign for Indian women’s rights, and went on to become Independent India’s first female cabinet minister.
Amrit Kaur was the first Indian to study at Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset. She joined the school in 1902, following the coronation of Edward VII, and left in 1906 as Head Girl and Captain of Games.Amrit Kaur also served as one of Mahatma Gandhi’s private secretaries for 16 years and was an active member of the non-cooperation movement.In 1950, her suffrage campaigning saw success as the new constitution of India enfranchised all adult men and women over the age of 21.
Chuni Lal Katial (1898-1978), doctor and politician
Chuni Lal Katialgraduated with a degree in medicine from Lahore University, and then continued his studies in Liverpool in public health and tropical medicine in 1927. After moving to London, he initially worked as a doctor in Canning Town, and later set up a surgery in Finsbury, attending mainly toworking class communities. He was elected as a councillor for the Labour Party in 1934, and in 1938 he became the first South Asian mayor in the UK. He was a driving force as Chairman of the Public Health Committee in the setting up of the pioneering Finsbury Health Centre, which offered a range of health facilities all in one location, including a tuberculosis clinic, dentist and women’s clinic. During the Second World War, Katial was a civil defence medical officer.
Katial was also heavily involved with the campaigning pressure group the India League. During the Second Round Table Conference in 1931, he became Gandhi’s chaperone in London, and a famous meeting between Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin took place at his house.
M KGandhi meeting actor, Charlie Chaplin, in London’s East End.Also in the picture from left to right are: DrKatial and the poet, Sarojini Naidu, 22nd September 1931 (Photo by Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
Indian Writing (1940-45)
South Asian writers played a significant part in London’s literary and political life in the early twentieth century. One node of a substantial network which connected South Asian, British and other anti-colonial writers, intellectuals and activists was the magazine Indian Writing (1940-45), edited by Iqbal Singh, Ahmed Ali,KrishnaraoShelvankar and Alagu Subramaniam. Run from Sasadhar Sinha’s Bibliophile Bookshop, located just a stone’s throw from the British Museum at 16 Little Russell Street, the magazine published short fiction, non-fiction and book reviews. On the cusp of Indian independence, it brought together fierce political critique and literary talent at the heart of the imperial metropolis.
Advertisement for Indian Writing, published in the magazine, Life and Letters and the London Mercury and Bookman [Shelfmark: P.P.5939.bgf.; Courtesy of the British Library]
South Asians and the NHS
The NHS as we know it today has been built – and continues to be sustained – by migrant contributions. South Asians have played a major role in this. But we can place South Asians in the medical profession in Britain, long before the NHS was formed.Bari Chohan, who shared his family history for the Millenium Memory Bank (MMB), described how his family arrived in England in the 1870s, having practiced homeopathy and opthalmics on the subcontinent. They then opened medical clinics all over England. Bari’s great uncle Dr Chirag Din Chohan, who was a hakim (practitioner of alternative medicine) and an eye specialist,opened his first practice in Harrogate in the early 1920s. He later moved to his wife Florence’s hometown of Middlesbrough in 1925 where, in 1933, he opened a practice on Kensington Road. In 1937, Dr Chohanopened a second practice on nearby Linthorpe Road.
An Indian doctor examines a patient, UK, October 1955. Original publication: Picture Post – 8572 – Indians in London – unpub. (Photo by Thurston Hopkins/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)]
The team chose to spotlight these lives and organisationsas they showcase the wide range of interests of the projectincludinggender, literary and cultural life, political activism and campaigning, religion, as well asworkers’ experiences.
Contact us
We’d love to hear from anyone with project queries, expressions of interest in oral history participation, or any information relating to the rich history of South Asians in Britain from the 1830s to the present.
The fabulous Bristol Harbour Festival is on again! This means it is over ayear since Professor Hilary Carey, Professor of Imperial and Religious History, and Dr Sumita Mukherjee, Associate Professor in Modern History, received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for aproject examining missions to British and Asian seafarers in the ports of Bristol, Liverpool, Hull and London.
What progress has been made?
The most important change is that we are now a team.
We are delighted to introduce Dr Lucy Wray who comes to us from Belfast where she has been working on the Madill Archive project, a collection of over 5,000 photographs documenting the history of Irish boats. Lucy is working on the stream of the project which focuses on lascars,a term often used for non-European seafarers employed on British ships. Lascars were predominately from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean.
We also welcome Dr Manikarnika Dutta, who is an historian of colonialism, medicine and public health. Her DPhil thesis at Oxford studied the health and welfare of European seamen in Indian port cities such as Calcutta and Bombay. In this project, she will be working on British mariners and the imprint the network of sailors‘ homes, missions, orphanages and welfare services had on port cities.
Our research administrator isJess Kirkby, who has lived in Bristol for the last ten years and has worked for a number of charities in the culture and environment sectors, including the RWA Gallery and the Forest of Avon Trust.
In the sections below we outline some of our work in the past few months.
Port histories
We are only getting started, but already we are finding that archival records relating to the merchant marine are voluminous and very widely scattered. Partly because they were situated in liminal settings, literally by the shore and within easy access to commercial ports, many of the buildings that used to cater for the peripatetic merchant marine are no more.
We are currently building a project website where we hope to map out some of the historical traces that missions and seafarers left on port cities, including Bristol.
During the Bristol blitz of 1940, the Seamen’s Mission Church on Prince’s Street was partly destroyed and remains an eyesore in the heart of the city.
Former Seamen’s Church and Institute, Prince Street Bristol 1920s. Source: Hartley Collection at M Shed.
Former Seamen’s Church and Institute, Prince Street Bristol in 2023. Source: George Thomas.
In May 2023,BristolLivereported that there were plans to restore the building, with one proposal advocating the creation of aMuseum and Memorial to the Victims of Enslavement. If so, it will have fared better than the magnificent Liverpool Seaman’s Mission, of which all that remains are the gates – now part of the portside shopping centre.
Gates to Liverpool Seaman’s Mission, opened in 1850 and demolished in 1974. Source: Jessica Moody, 10 July 2023
Race and empire histories
Lucy Wray has been scouring the print records of missionary societies looking for visual sources for the project. The illustrationbelow encapsulates the project’s key themes around race, religion and empire. The scene from 31 May 1856 shows Prince Albert surrounded by guests of different ethnicities in a room strewn with flags from the empire and a biblical banner reading ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers’. The monarch was welcomed by waving crowds at London’s West India dock as he laid the foundation stone for The Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders.
Prince Albert lays the foundation stone of the Strangers’ Home, 31 May 1856, Illustrated London News, 14 June 1856. Source: Public Domain. Wikimedia Commons
Lucy is exploring how religious institutions like the Strangers Home for Asiatics interacted with lascars. In the nineteenth century, the British Merchant Marine was transformed by the employment of lascars. On the outbreak of war in 1914, 30% of merchant crews were born abroad, and lascars comprised 1 in 6 of these men.
In addition to difficult working conditions, restrictions, lower pay, and prejudice, lascars struggled to find accommodation in British ports. For most of the nineteenth century, voluntary religious societies and missions were the mainstays of welfare, accommodation and support services for this extensive, vulnerable, multi-ethnic and multi-religious labour force. By exploring visual sources, alongside print sources, Lucy hopes to offer insights into the gendered and racialised ways in which missions and lascars interacted across the century.
British mariners, missions and welfare
Manikarnika Dutta has been working in the Hull History Centre which holds the records of the Anglican Mission to Seafarers, who are our project partners.
She has found extensive annual reports of the Port of Hull Society for the Religious Instruction of Seamen and the Hull Sailor’s Home. These reports describe the religious and moral advice to British seamen through ministries and the promotion of healthy living practices through institutional accommodation between voyages.
Manikarnika has been particularly struck by the institutions created for the families of seafarers, and the extent to which the women of maritime ports supported charitable and religious outreach to sailors.One example was the Hull Seamen’s and General Orphan Asylum, ‘established for the maintenance, clothing and education of the Fatherless children of seamen and others’.
A very interesting part of the archives are the Hull Mariners’ Church Orphan Society records that describe the welfare for the children of seamen, especially local fishermen, who died in shipwrecks or from other causes in service. Manikarnika will be studying this further to understand the history of orphanages as charitable institutional care and compare different trajectories of Victorian debates on child welfare. She hopes to address broader themes such as poverty, homelessness, criminality along with compassion, love and charity and Christian morals to write an emotional, social and religious history of care homes for seamen.
Hull Seamen’s and General Orphan Asylum, 1860. Hull History Centre, The Records of the Hull Seamans and General Orphanage, ALBUM 1863-1900, C DSHO 2/56. Credit: Hull City Archives, Hull History Centre
In May 1871, the children of the Orphan Asylum sang a special hymn with these words:
Thou Who are the Orphans’ Father
Deign to hear the Orphans’ prayer
While they round Thy footstool gather,
Humbly trusting in Thy care.
Here no father’s arm defends them,
Here no father’s love can bless,
Strangers’ aid alone befriends them,
Father! Help the fatherless!
Source: Hull History Centre, The Records of the Hull Seamans and General Orphanage, ALBUM 1863-1900, C DSHO 2/56. Credit: Hull City Archives, Hull History Centre.
What comes next?
We are eagerly looking forward to further discoveries in Liverpool, Hulland Bristol. We are excited to find how different these cities were –and how diverse and adventurous the lives of the sailors who visited them were.
We are especially keen to find out how British and Asian mariners worked together and why the merchant marine became so racially, religiously and socially divided. If any readers have any of their own stories or images to share about this fascinating history, please get in touch with the project team!
Contact us
You can follow the development of the Mariners project through our Bristol blog. Or do send us an email:
By Dr Laurence Publicover, Senior Lecturer in English, School of Humanities
Dr Laurence Publicover discusses his contribution to a new play, The Hamlet Voyage, performed at the Bristol Harbour Festival in 2022. The project received an AHRC Impact Acceleration Account Award and underlines the positive social influence arts and humanities research can effect.
The Hamlet Voyage performed aboard The Matthew in Bristol. Image Credit: Edward Felton
In January 2021, I held a video conference call with a Bristol-based American theatre director named Ben Prusiner. For some years, it turned out, both of us had been intrigued by the enigmatic evidence surrounding a specific performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: one supposed to have taken place aboard an East India Company (EIC) ship off the coast of Sierra Leone in 1607.
Shipboard theatricals
If this performance did take place—and its reality continues to be the subject of debate—then it is not only the first recorded performance of Shakespeare outside Europe; it is the first recorded performance, anywhere, of Hamlet. (Shakespeare’s tragedy was written and first performed around 1600, and versions of it were published in 1603 and then 1604-5, but there are no surviving records of specific performances before 1607.) To make things even more intriguing, the voyage on which this performance may or may not have taken place involved the first English ship to reach mainland India—a region that the EIC, at this point a fledging enterprise, would later rule.
All this interests me not only because I work on Shakespeare, but also because, in recent years, I have become interested in what people read, write, and perform on board ships; in fact, before Ben and I made contact, I had alluded to the episode off the coast of Sierra Leone in the introduction to a volume of essays on this topic.
The Hamlet Voyage
Ben didn’t simply want to talk to a fellow Shakespeare enthusiast; he wanted my help in developing a play about the possible performance of Hamlet. With staggering energy and imagination, he then realised this vision over the following eighteen months, commissioning a script from the British-Nigerian playwright Rex Obano (who had written previously on Africa and early modern England, and who had also, before becoming a playwright, been an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company) and involving a team of academics and creative practitioners with expertise relating to the story. With the help of Jiamiao Chen, who worked as a research assistant, my role in the project was to locate and help interpret primary and secondary literature concerning the third voyage of the East India Company—and in addition, to help Rex and Ben think about shipboard theatricals and about the texts of Hamlet with which the English sailors might have been working.
We trialled the first draft of Rex’s script at the University of Bristol’s Department of Theatre over the summer of 2021, working with student volunteers, and then ran a second series of workshops that autumn at the Trinity Centre in Easton, where Ben invited members of Bristol’s West African and South Asian communities to watch rehearsals and ask questions. With support from several funding bodies, including Arts Council England, the University of Bristol’s Participatory Research Fund and its Impact Acceleration Fund, and the Fenton Arts Trust, The Hamlet Voyage—as the play was titled—went into rehearsal in London in the early summer of 2022. I travelled to London to speak to the cast about the historical background of the play and about why (and how) people might have performed Shakespeare during a long voyage; in addition, I helped the actors playing English sailors to rehearse the scenes from Shakespeare that Rex had incorporated into his play.
The Bristol Harbour Festival
The Hamlet Voyage premiered at the 2022 Bristol Harbour Festival on board the Matthew, the replica of the ship on which John Cabot sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland in 1497; it then transferred to London for a run at the Bridewell Theatre. On the morning of the first performance, Rex and I spoke about the play on BBC Radio Bristol, and the interviewer asked the question that I’ve been asked countless times since: Did this performance of Hamlet really happen? I direct anyone wishing for a response to that question to the piece I wrote for the project’s website.
The Hamlet Voyage performed at the Bristol Harbour Festival, 2022. Image Credit: Edward Felton
The Hamlet Voyage performed aboard The Matthew in Bristol. Image Credit: Edward Felton
Education Outreach
That website was also the basis for an education programme that reached around 200 students across four Bristol schools in 2022. Across four sessions, students were asked to think about the possible performance of Hamlet in a number of different ways: for example, through West African forms of storytelling and through English modes of record-keeping (specifically, diary-writing).
Future Projects
Working on this project has influenced my work in a number of ways. I now have a better sense of what is involved in turning research into a creative output, and I’ve been inspired to keep reading and thinking about the early voyages of the EIC: I’m now writing an essay on those journeys for a volume of essays to be produced by Migration Mobilities Bristol, a Strategic Research Institute at the University of Bristol. I’m also working with Rosie Hunt from Bristol’s School of Education to develop a series of Shakespeare-related materials linked to the project and aimed at A-Level and GCSE students.
The Hamlet Voyage performed at the Bridewell Theatre, London. Image Credit: Dan Fearon
The Hamlet Voyage performed at the Bridewell Theatre, London. Image Credit: Dan Fearon
Even if it never happened—and I keep changing my mind over whether it did or didn’t—this performance of Hamlet off the coast of Sierra Leone is a wonderful story to think with, posing questions concerning the social dynamics of shipboard spaces; the place of Shakespeare in histories of globalization and imperialism; and the role of theatre in diplomatic and cultural exchange. Among all the video calls I held during the pandemic, the one with Ben in January 2021 was by some distance the most consequential.
Dr Laurence Publicover is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of English with research interests in Shakespeare and other English Renaissance dramatists and in the relationship between humans and oceans. To find out more about Laurence’s research and The Hamlet Voyage, please email l.publicover@bristol.ac.uk.
To celebrate American Independence Day, we caught up with Dr Stephen Mawdsley and Dr Sam Hitchmough, Co-Directors of the Faculty of Arts’ American Studies Research Group, to find out more about the Group, its activities, successes and plans for the future.
What is the American Studies Research Group?
The American Studies Research Group is an interdisciplinary collaborative partnership based in the Faculty of Arts, which brings together PGRs and academic staff members from History, English, Creative Writing, History of Art, Music, and Liberal Arts, as well as researchers from other allied programmes, including Geography, SPAIS, and Education.
What are the key objectives of the American Studies Research Group?
Our group has a broad and inclusive programme of events and activities designed to strengthen local research culture. We nurture not only existing staff, but the next generation of researchers by supporting the graduate student experience through colloquia, workshops, and funding initiatives. Our group not only draws on well-established academic communities and programmes, but also contributes to a range of national and global networks. We maintain a shared research agenda around a set of core themes: Race, Gender, Protest, Health and Medicine, and Decolonisation. These themes encourage and maximise opportunities for collaboration, impact, and grant capture, working together in creative ways, and alignment with university goals.
What successes have the American Studies Research Group had?
We had an extremelyproductive first year. Our group is helping to make Bristol an importantplayer in academic publishing, postgraduate recruitment, grant capture, and impact on topics related to America. Our members have fosteredAmerican Studies networks and collaborative initiatives, attracted external funding from the British Association for American Studies, establishedan external partnership with a local museum, the American Museum in Bath, held a series ofstimulatingspeaker sessions, and organized training sessions for our graduate students.
Could you tell us a little more about your partnership with the American Museum?
Last autumn two members of the American Studies Research Group were invited to join a new consultation group. A small group of experts in Native American history, American literature, museology and decolonisation, were invited to join museum staff and consider how to rethink and reframe the permanent exhibitions as well as engage with planning for future exhibitions. This work has included editing existing museum literature, text accompanying artefacts and rooms, layout, and website material and commentary.
What plans do the American Studies Research Group have for the next 12 months?
We have a dynamic set of plans for next year. In addition to continuing our regular initiatives, some of our members will continue to work closely with the American Museum in Bathas part of the consultation group reconsidering current and future exhibits.We are excited to grow our membership – please do get in touch if you’d like to join or have ideas that you’d like us to engage with.
What research have members of the American Studies Research Group recently produced?
By Professor Ulrika Maude, Director of the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science
The Centre for Health, Humanities and Science (CHHS) focuses on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research at the intersection of the humanities, health, medicine, and science. The CHHS was inaugurated in 2017 and it has almost two hundred members from across Bristol University’s six Faculties and from the NHS. It runs a regular research seminar with speakers from across the UK as well as from abroad, and hosts workshops, an annual lecture, public debates, mentoring lunches, funding workshops, postgraduate-led activities, and university-wide networking events.
CHHS members are at the forefront of developments in medical humanities research, disseminating their results through academic publications, events and public engagement activities. With the support of the Wellcome Trust and the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute, the CHHS has provided seed-corn funding for a diverse range of research projects, including grief and mourning; the senses; chronic conditions and their narratives; and health and illness in colonial film archives.
One CHHS seedcorn-funded project, Becoming Elizabeth Blackwell, centres on the Bristol-born doctor and social campaigner Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) – the first British woman to be registered as a doctor by the General Medical Council, in 1859. The project has brought together Bristol academics, a playwright and theatre director, medical students and others to produce a playscript that will re-tell and celebrate Blackwell’s life and achievements.
Several CHHS members are currently involved in collectively writing a book on Key Concepts in Medical Humanities (forthcoming, 2024), which will provide a critical introduction to concepts such as ‘health’, ‘illness’, ‘contagion’, ‘feeling’, ‘neurodiversity’, ‘disability’, and ‘dying’, as well as offering chapters on key methodologies such as ‘Black Health Humanities’, ‘Graphic Medicine’, ‘Medicine and the Arts’ and ‘Narrative Medicine’. ‘Health’, for instance, is by no means a transparent concept, and the CHHS’s former Benjamin Meeker Professor, Alexandra Parvan, argues that ‘health cannot be taken merely as the outcome of biological tests or a clean medical sheet, nor should it necessarily be understood as a state restricted to the those designated as clinically healthy.’ Rather, Parvan argues for a nuanced conception of health, one that is ‘accessible to all’.
Current large-scale research initiatives at the CHHS include Sensing Spaces of Healthcare, led by historian Victoria Bates. Poor hospital design has a negative impact on healthcare outcomes, and the project seeks to rethink the NHS Hospital through the body and the senses, focusing on the lived experience of patients, visitors, and hospital staff with the aim of improving hospital design. And a multidisciplinary team led by philosopher Havi Carel has recently won Wellcome Trust funding for a six-year project on Epistemic Injustice in Healthcare (EPIC), which aims to address inequalities. Havi says,
‘Some patients have reported that their testimonies and perspectives are ignored, dismissed, or explained away by the healthcare profession. These experiences are classified by philosophers as ‘epistemic injustices’ because, in some cases, they are based on prejudice and can jeopardise patient care and undermine trust in healthcare staff and systems.’
EPIC aims to identify practical measures that can be taken for the benefit of patients and healthcare practitioners alike.
The Good Grief Festival, inaugurated in 2020, focuses on supporting those affected by the shared experience of bereavement and grief – topics that have for too long been considered taboo. Led by Lesel Dawson (English) and Lucy Selman (Bristol Medical School), ‘Good Grief’ regularly organises talks, interviews, webinars and workshops for the general public concentrating on the ways in which the crushing experience of grief can be shared and managed.
Notable projects from recent years include The Heart of the Matter exhibition, which toured the UK in 2018. The exhibition grew from artist Sofie Layton’s residency at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and was co-organised by CHHS Advisory Board member and bioengineer Giovanni Biglino. The artworks in the exhibition were inspired by young patients with heart conditions – as well as their families and doctors – and it invited visitors to discover the extraordinary complexity, intricacy and beauty of the heart as an organ.
For many years now the Centre has been involved in medical education through the Intercalated BA in Medical Humanities, an optional one-year degree for students of Medicine and Veterinary Science, taught jointly by English and Philosophy and directed by Advisory Board member, John Lee (English). With a wide range of international collaborators and an International Advisory Board, our members are also active in public engagement work through collaborations with the NHS, patient groups, and charities as well as museums, public gardens, libraries, and other cultural organisations.
For more information about the CHHS, please contact the Centre’s administrator, Elizabeth Gourd (e.c.gourd@bristol.ac.uk).
Professor Ulrika Maude, Centre for Health, Humanities and Science Director
Our theme this year coincides with Bristol 650, the year-long celebration that marks the anniversary of the 1373 royal charter, and will focus on some of the historical, cultural and conceptual spaces of Bristol. AAL2023 will be an opportunity not just to talk about Bristol and its (in)visible histories, but also to step into the city itself. Events will be hosted in venues that span Bristol – from the Cathedral at its heart on College Green, to Spike Island in the midst of the river that defines the city’s cosmopolitan past and present. Our speakers include curators, artists, and academics, who together will take us on a journey through both familiar and unfamiliar aspects of the city’s history, including its place in the wider world.
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We trialled the first draft of Rex’s script at the University of Bristol’s 
