Bristol History Podcast

This week I met with Professor Nick Groom, to discuss the life, work and reputation of the Bristolian poet Thomas Chatterton. Born in Redcliffe in 1752, Chatterton was a precocious talent. In just seventeen years of life he produced a great body of poems, plays, prose works and a collection of medieval writings that he attributed to a fictional 15th century monk named Thomas Rowley. We discussed the details of Chatterton's short life and the myths that surround his posthumous reputation.

Your Bristol Life is a new series of five podcasts shining a light on underrepresented aspects of Bristol's history. This BCfm series was made with the Bristol Cable, Bristol History Podcast and In The Dark. *** Henrietta Lacks by Daniel Edmund *** The life-size bronze statue of Henrietta Lacks that was erected at the University of Bristol in 2021 by Bristol-based artist Helen Wilson Roe is the first public statue of a Black woman made by a Black woman to be permanently installed in the UK. Henrietta Lacks was a young African-American mother who had an aggressive form of cervical cancer. During surgery, a sample of cells was taken from the tumour and sent to a laboratory where they were found to be the first living human cells ever to survive and multiply outside the human body. Henrietta’s cells were taken without her or her family's knowledge or consent, and it was only in 1975 that by chance the family found out about her legacy. These cells made possible some of the most important medical advances of all time including the development of the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, gene-mapping, IVF and cloning. In this episode, speaker and presenter Daniel Edmund talks to former Lord Mayor of Bristol Cleo Lake, American Senior Policy Analyst Marissa Edmund, and Brand Strategist Bobbi O’Gilvie about how a statue of Henrietta Lacks ended up in Bristol, and the importance of honouring and protecting Black women everywhere. Featured artwork by Jon Trace

This week I met with Dr. Jessica Moody of Bristol University to discuss the ways in which Bristol has publicly addressed its involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade. We touched on methods of commemoration (using Liverpool as a point of comparison)and explored some of the reasons behind Bristol's changing attitude towards her slaving past.

This week I met with acclaimed historian and historical fiction writer, Lucienne Boyce. We discussed the history of the women's suffrage movement in Bristol, the continuities between the 18th century and our present day, and to what degree historical fiction can contribute to historical understanding.

This week I met with the writer, poet, historian and playwright Dr. Edson Burton. We discussed (among other things) how his historical outlook shapes his cultural work; the legacy of Caribbean migration to Britain and how Brexit plays into wider narratives of place and identity.