Bristol's Pictorial History Record 1913 - 1938

1913 - There were negotiations between the Bristol Insurance Committee and members of the medical profession during Christmas week and terms were agreed. As a result, at the beginning of January, some 130 medical practitioners agreed to participate in medical service under the National Insurance Act.

Mr. James W. Arrowsmith died on 19 January. He was the publisher of Three Men in a Boat, Prisoner of Zenda and works by Rider Haggard and Marie Corelli and also some of Latimer’ s books, Bristol Past and Present by Taylor and Nicholls, and Arrowsmith ‘s Dictionary of Bristol. He was one of the men whose action secured the County Ground at Ashley Down for Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and played a part in the movement to erect the Cabot Tower and Colston’s statue in Colston Avenue. His interest in the affairs of Bristol University led to the decision, in 1911, to name the tower in the University building in Tyndall’s Park the Arrowsmith tower.

At the annual meeting of subscribers to Bristol Fine Arts Academy held in February it was announced that the King had agreed to become its patron and that it would be known as the Royal West of England Academy.

In the spring there was dissension at Bristol University prompted by the actions of Professor Gerthwohl, the head of the French department, who gave public expression of his criticism of the Senate in the press. He complained of the fact that Professor Cowl, Professor of English at the University College, had not been appointed when the University received its charter; he also recorded that lecturers’ requests for increased remuneration had not been met due to shortage of funds and protested at the number of honorary degrees granted by the newly established University. He was supported by Miss Geraldine Hodgson, a lecturer in education and by T.R. Glover, Cambridge University’s representative on the Council, who resigned. Questions about the dispute were asked in Parliament. Professor Gerthwohl appeared before the University Council in May and they confirmed the Senate’s actions.

In March the Elementary Education Committee considered a report from school attendance officers who said that there was a serious interference with attendance of children at school in consequence of cinematograph shows being open during school hours. They requested that licences granted by the justices should stipulate that children of school age should not be admitted during school hours.

At the end of March Alice Mary Walters appeared before the magistrates summoned for keeping a dog without a licence. She told the court that she supported women’s suffrage and that her refusal to pay was a protest against the Government. She refused to pay the fine and was sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment.

Alderman J.W.S. Dix, the ‘father’ of Bristol City Council, died on 2 April. He was a Conservative, chairman of Clifton Union from 1859 until 1867 and a Bristol councillor from 1876 until he became an alderman in 1891. He was an energetic supporter of the scheme to remove the swing bridge at St. Augustine’s and to form Colston Avenue and the gardens at the Tramway Centre. By profession Alderman Dix was a solicitor; he was chairman of Bristol Gas Company and had the distinction of having one of the company’s locomotives named after him. He was cremated at Golder’ s Green and the ashes interred in the city.

to moneylenders. Mr. Shaw did not appear and a warrant was issued for his arrest but the Official Receiver told the creditors that he was in Australia and anticipated that there would be some difficulty in executing the warrant.

The National Sunday School convention took place in the Victoria Rooms in October. The meeting paid tribute to J.S. Fry and it was reported that the King and Queen’s deep interest in the work of the movement had brought about a distinct advance in the training of children. The work of missions to children in China and India was brought to the meeting’s attention and the debt due to Sunday School teachers in all walks of life was acknowledged.

In the same month the Royal West of England Academy’s premises were reopened after refurbishment, extension and decoration. The ceremony was performed by Miss Stancombe Wills who had recently purchased and presented to Bristol Art Gallery The Vision of Endymion by Sir Edward I. Poynter, President of the Royal Academy.

At the end of October the pavilion at the University sports ground was seriously damaged by fire and suffragette literature was found at the scene including one reading ‘Business before pleasure. Hobhouse being responsible will pay. Release Mary Richardson’. University students later attacked the headquarters of the Women’s Social and Political Union in Queens Road, burning the furniture outside in the road. In the middle of November a large house known as ‘Begbrook’ at Frenchay burned down despite the efforts of Mangotsfield Fire Brigade. Value of the damage was put at £3,000. Again, suffragette literature was found including a paper reading ‘Birrell is coming. Rachel Pearce is still being tortured.’

Also at the end of the month a Congregational Chapel in Bridge Street was demolished to make way for new premises for Baker, Baker & Co. The congregation could be traced back to the ejectment of 1662 and the chapel building itself was opened in 1786.

At the beginning of November Sarah Bernhardt appeared at the Hippodrome in La Dame Aux Camlias. To mark her visit to the city the Bristol Playgoers’ Club entertained her to luncheon at the Royal Hotel; 150 people attended.

The new church of St. Ambrose, Whitehall was consecrated by the Bishop of Bristol at the end of November. The organ was built by T.W. Lewis of Bristol to a design of Grahame H. Wills. The building cost over £13,300 and there was seating for 700 persons. The architects were W.V. & A.R. Gough.

Following the marriage of Miss Hughes, there was a vacancy for the post of headmistress of Colston’s Girls’ School. In December the governors appointed Miss Beatrice Margaret Sparks, headmistress of Wisbech High School.

LORD MAYORS AND SHERIFFS

(The civic year ran from November)

1899/1900 Sir Herbert Ashman - George Alfred Wills

1900/1901 James Colthurst Godwin - Edward Bumet James

1901/1902 Charles Edward Ley Gardner - Francis Arden Close

1902/1903 Sir Robert Henry Symes - Joseph Weston-Stevens

1903/1904 Sir Robert Henry Symes - William Henry Greville Edwards

1904/1905 Edward Bumet James - Herbert Cary George Batten

1905/1906 Alfred John Smith - Henry Lorymer Riseley

1906/1907 Alfred John Smith - Henry Daniel

1907/1908 Edward Burnet James - Herbert Cary - George Batten (knighted 1908)

1908/1909 Edward Robinson Stanley - Hugh Badock

1909/1910 Christopher Albert Hayes - George Riseley

1910/1911 Christopher Albert Hayes - George Riseley

1911/1912 Frank William Wills - Robert Edward Bush (knighted 1912)

1912/1913 Charles James Lowe - Thomas Joseph Lennard

1913/1914 John Swaish - Adam Cottam Castle.

1914-18 - About 55,000 men from the Bristol area enlist for World War One. More than 7,000 men from the Bristol area died.

1917 - Avonmouth becomes the centre of the British chemical warfare manufacturing drive. The plant makes 20 tons of mustard gas a day.

In December 1918. the plant Medical Officer reports that in the six months it has been operational, there are 1,400 illnesses reported by its 1,900 workers — all attributable to their work.

There are 160 accidents and over 1,000 burns.Three people die in accidents and another four die as a result of their illnesses. There are 30 resident patients in the factory hospital tended by a doctor and eight nurses. The gas produced at the Avonmouth plant didn’t arrive in France until September 1918, two months before the Armistice.

1918 - Wills' Woodbines were very popular and when the lads came home after the armistice of 1918, sales soared. Although, by the turn of the 19th century, women had been targeted by the salesmen - Philip Morris's Marlboro Brand, complete with red tip to hide lipstick marks - was aimed specifically at them - there was a moral dilemma at work, with women who smoked considered as of somewhat questionable morality. But by the 1920s the gay young things, with their diamond encrusted holders, had added a touch of glamour to smoking and soon 'respectable' middle class women were taking it up.

1920s - This story, written by G T Morgan and sent in by a reader, gives us a glimpse into what life must have been like in Bristol in the 1920s - a time which saw extremes of poverty and wealth. His home was a small pub, but his working day was spent as a page boy in a leading city hotel. Here are his evocative reminiscences.

In 1926 I lived a life in two worlds. For by day, at the hotel, I made personal contact with film stars, actors, millionaires, famous aviators, commercial travellers and professional tipsters. But by night, in east Bristol, I experienced the blue, smokey atmosphere of a spit and sawdust public house, a place which happened to be my home. Here and there was a bar spittoon, and a gas jet was used to seal bottles in the 'bottle and jug' with red wax.

Our way of life was very different in those days, and I saw much poverty among my good friends and neighbours in Derby Street. Comparing our back street struggle for the very necessities of life with the soft lights, sweet music and plush carpets of the hotel, I felt I was living a Jekyll and Hyde existence.

From the pub window in the early morning, I could see women queuing up outside the pawnbrokers shop opposite. Clutched closely to their white laced cotton pinafores were white sheet bundles tied at all four corners. These women also wore their husband's caps, but to add a feminine touch they pushed an oversized steel hat pin through the top.

Those were the days of the dreaded means test, and unemployment was rife. Groups of men would stand idly on street corners, their only possession a packet of Woodbine cigarettes. But this was also the era of the Bullnose Morris car, the lamplighter crystal set, the tin trumpeted gramophone, the barrel organ and radio stations 5WA Cardiff and 2LO London.

This was still the age of the smithy - the clanging, dancing hammer on the anvil, and the fumes from burning horses' hooves. Cockle-sellers in Welsh national costume would roam the streets, their cries of 'cockles!' mingling with the melodious rumbling of a side street barrel organ. Kids would be in the streets playing conkers, kicktin, monkey tops, bedlam, hoops and skipping.

They also swapped or exchanged cigarette cards known as 'generals'. There was also a wonderful series of 'Do You Know' and 'Cries Of London'. A weekend chore for them was polishing knives, forks and spoons on a scouring board, The sweet shop on the corner sold aniseed balls, humbugs and halfpenny gobstoppers that changed colour with every few sucks.

Wire-rimmed glasses and spectacles came from the sixpenny bazaar. A cry of 'ripe bananas' came from barrow boys, and weekend joints were sold by butchers at Saturday night giveaway prices. Horse dealers trotted their horses up and down the side streets under the watchful eye of would-be buyers, and sheep and cows, being driven from the market to the slaughterhouse, would dirty the streets.

An occasional escaped bull would run amok, causing excitement and scattering pedestrians in all directions. My playground, St George Park, was where many ex-professional soccer players - such as Billy Coggins, Walt Jennings and Ted Hathway - booted red rubber gaskin balls about on the grass.

Even Bob Hope, in later life America's king jester, sought pleasure in the park. He, like may other youngsters, fished for tiddlers in the lake and quenched his thirst from the chained copper cup water fountain at Park Crescent.

But each morning I left this world behind me as I boarded a tram to the Centre to take up my duties - a long 12-hour day working at the hotel. Alongside the docks, by the city Centre, was ex-Bristol and England rugby player Sam Tucker. By day a foreman docker, he would stand on a box and select his men for the day's work. Hundreds more, with cigarette in mouth, would miserably disperse to idle away yet another day of unemployment.

At the top of Park Street was the Princes Theatre, destroyed in the Blitz of 1940. Pauline Frederick, the silent film star and stage star, made an appearance there in the late 1920s after a two-week run of The Wandering Jew featuring that very famous actor Matheson Lang. It was Miss Frederick's manager who offered me a film test at the Fox Studios in Hollywood. It was all very exciting - until my parents objected and dashed forever my hopes of seeing Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Ruth Roland, Tom Mix and William S Hart in real life.

My wages at the hotel were six shillings a week, but tips gave me an average of £2 per week. At Christmas the kindly chairman of the board of directors handed me a gift of two brand new half crowns (25p)

Bert Hinkler and Captain McIntosh, two famous aviators of the time, often joked with me. One day they even signed my autograph book. I remember seeing Yehudi Menuhin, and I became friendly with Will Hay's son, who often accompanied his father. The Bristol Times and Echo newspaper paid cash for news items in those days. This offered me a sideline, as my job often threw into my lap many good stories.

When a famous film star tried to make her presence in the city a secret, it was no mystery to me how it became known to Bristol readers. Old Bill Hooper, at the Princes Theatre stage door, was a well- known personality. Known as Larry Lynx, he obtained good information about horses from stage personalities. His tips seldom failed.

On classic race days, such as the Derby or Lincoln, I would pluck a pigeon from dad's racing loft and transport it to the hotel in a box. I had a pigeon post operating. Gambling of any kind was forbidden in the pub, so the gent's toilet was used, with bets often written on the back of a cigarette packet.

Mamoud, a Derby winner, proved one of Bill's certs.

My autograph book was stuffed with names - Yehudi Menuhin, Larry Gains, Layton and Johnstone, George Formby, Houdini, Nellie Wallace, Ella Shields, Henry Ainley, Richard Tauber, Talbot O Farrel, G S Elliot, Kreisler, Mona Vivian, Flotsam and Jetsam and many others. But the book, just like the Princes Theatre, was burned in the Blitz. Now, those big names are just a memory.

Charlie Stephens, a barber from Bedminster. tries to shoot Niagara Falls in an oak barrel.

1920 - On Sunday July II, 1920, Charlie Stephens, a barber from Bedminster. tries to shoot Niagara Falls in an oak barrel.

Sadly, Charlie’s barrel is way too heavy and he crashes straight onto the lagged rocks at the bottom. - The following morning, an arm is rescued from the water bearing a tattoo that reads, Forget me not,Annie! Charlie has previous: when he was five years old he was pronounced dead and laid in a coffin before springing back to life; at 16 he was almost run over by a coal wagon. - Then he spent three years in the trenches of World War One and came home without a scratch. - As well as running a busy barber’s shop and bringing up 11 children with his wife Annie, Charlie fancied himself as a bit of a stuntman. - First, he began performing daring tricks in a lions’ den; then he parachuted from a balloon; then he dived off the Forth Bridge head first Niagara should have been Charlie’s finest hour. - Instead, Bedminster’s answer to Houdini had tried his luck once too often.

World's first express coach service

1920s - 'A Bristol coach company introduced the world's first express coach service, linking Bristol with London. Travel back in time to the days of Greyhound and Morning Star'

The Greyhound coach that zoomed passengers from Bristol to London in a mere eight hours in 1925, was the first to make the through run since coaches were pulled by horses. Greyhound was one of a number of coach companies competing aggressively for the growing market for long distance travel, and it scored a major coup with its fast London run.

Just £1 return for the longest through route ever attempted to a timetable.

These were no mere people carriers but what the company called 'Luxurious travelling parlours', albeit with solid tyres and a speed limit of 20 mph. These long distance coaches were first tested along Ladies Mile on the Downs by placing three tumblers of water in the gangway. If no water was spilled, the coach was accepted.

One of the first drivers on the route, Ted Bryant, recalled leaving Bristol at 11 a.m. and getting into Hammersmith London after seven that night. 'But they were really beautiful buses and everyone was so helpful and polite. In those early days, we had quite aristocratic passengers'.

Ted also took out the first Bristol bus to be equipped with a radio, as far back as 1926. It worked well when the bus was standing still but reception vanished on the move.

Trips weren't always incident free either - inspector Bill Lander remembered being delayed in Calne when a pig escaped from the bacon factory and became caught beneath the hot exhaust pipe. On another occasion, the radiator boiled over and passengers had to carry cans of water from a nearby RAF station.

Greyhound ran two coaches a day to London, leaving at 9 am. and 11 a.m. via Bath, Marlborough, Newbury, Reading and Maidenhead. The earlier one travelled via Chippenham and stopped for refreshments at Newbury The second went via Devizes and had a break at Hungerford Wiltshire.

The company originally offered a ticket from Bristol to London for just £1

In 1927, the luxury travelling parlours were replaced by super deluxe buffet coaches, upholstered in red antique leather with smoking and non smoking sections. Each seat had a folding table, windows were curtained and there was a steward's pantry for tea, cigarettes and chocolate. There were also on-board toilets but these were removed after a year because passengers found using them was 'somewhat hazardous'.

Greyhound had a competitor in 1928 in the Super Comfort coaches introduced by Morning Star of Lawrence Hill. The Leyland Lioness coaches were painted in sumptuous scarlet and cream and ran via Warmley, Wick and Marshfield to Chippenham, Marlborough, Newbury and Reading.

An early review of the new service pointed out that the Lioness had the same type of chassis as that supplied to the King, while the clutch was designed by racing ace j. C. Parry Thomas. The 29.9 hp engine ( 58 bhp ) provided 'remarkable' acceleration and ample power to get up steep inclines like Tog Hill.

The only problem, an unnamed Bristol Times reporter wrote, was that the coach was so comfortable, passengers were tempted to fall asleep instead of enjoying the unrivalled scenery;

'To travel to London by road may be a novelty to those who are inexperienced but to business men in a hurry or to people who desire the health-giving air and the exhilaration of speedy and reliable motoring, the new Morning Star service is undoubtedly a blessing' he added.

'Those who try it as a new sensation will adopt it as a permanent means of journeying to the Metropolis, for it combines safety, speed, comfort and cheapness'.

And if you think an eight hour trip to London is hardly of much use 'to businessmen in a hurry', bear in mind that even modern coaches used to take more than six hours along the A4 before the M4 opened fully in 1971.

1925 - King George V and Queen Mary open the new University buildings.

1926 - Opening of the Portway between Bristol and Avonmouth.

1930 - Official opening in May of Bristol Airport at Whitchurch by Prince George.Whitchurch is only the third civil airport in the country.

BRISTOL TRADE & INDUSTRY

In 1933 J.B. Priestley found Bristol a lively, bustling city, ‘earning its living and spending its own money . . achieving a new prosperity by selling us Gold Flake and Fry’s chocolate and soap and clothes and a hundred other things’. The range of Bristol industries was indeed quite remarkable and rooted in the city’s early medieval origins, when the woollen industry, soap manufacture, ship building and a wide range of wood, leather and metal trades were sustained by maritime trade.

Raw materials, essential for many of the city’s industries, were brought in by sea: tallow, leather hides, metals and metal ores, cocoa beans, tobacco leaf and wines and sherry. The variety of industrial activity in the city was further stimulated by Bristol’s pre-eminence in the south-west: Bristol traditionally dominated trade over much of the region, and as one of the largest cities in the country (seventh largest in 1940)

it contained a large urban market stimulating a demand for almost everything.

In 1940 the Bristol Development Board claimed that there were 2,248 factories and workshops in Bristol representing some 300 different industries. A few of these dominated the city, the manufacture of tobacco products, for example, and chocolate, which made the name Bristol famous world wide.

In 1928 the City Council’s publication Bristol Commercially Considered stated that there were 11 ,000 people employed in the food, drink and tobacco industries; the paper and printing trades employed nearly as many, accounting for 9,000 jobs in the city; while engineering and allied trades provided 13,592 jobs.

The larger factories belonging to companies such as WD. & H.O. Wills formed major city landmarks. The Wills factories on East Street and Raleigh Road in Bedminster towered over the neighbouring streets of terraced houses. Until they relocated to Keynsham, Fry’s factories, eight of them in total, dominated a cramped site around the Pithay, and their factory chimneys were as conspicuous a city-centre landmark as the nearby church towers.

There were several other large works in or close to the centre: breweries, flour mills on Redcliffe Back, an electricity generating station (belonging to the Bristol Tramway & Carriage Company) and Llewellin & James’s brass foundry on Castle Green. East of the centre at Broad Plain was the impressive factory of Christopher Thomas & Brothers, soap and candle makers, modelled on a Florentine palace, and next to it the Midland Iron Works of Gardiner Sons & Co.; they specialised in the manufacture of architectural iron and brass-work which adorned many important shops, offices and public buildings in the city.

Many other major industries were located in the eastern districts of the city. Beyond Temple Meads barges towed raw materials up river to Barton Hill and St Philip’s Marsh, lying either side of the Feeder Canal, where chemical works, glue and paint factories, potteries ,gas works and railway engine sheds filled the air with smoke.

Barges carried wood pulp transferred from foreign vessels in the City Docks to the large board mills at St Anne‘s, established in 1912 by Imperial Tobacco, where it was converted into cardboard packaging for tobacco, chocolates, cereals and other foodstuffs. At Crew's Hole there were more chemical works, while south of the Avon at Brislington the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company had their works for bus construction.

The spread of industry continued eastwards beyond the city’s boundaries into Kingswood and Hanham in Gloucestershire, where clothing, footwear and brush-making were carried on: the Kleen-e-ze Brush Company started the manufacture of brushes in Hanham in the 1920s. In the early twentieth century Fishponds became established as a new engineering centre of Bristol.

While the larger firms dominated the local economy there were also many smaller workshop-based industries and trades employing skilled labour: typically these were small family concerns chiefly making household and personal consumer goods. Some had quite a rural flavour and perpetuated traditional handcrafts, for example basket makers or saddler's, such as Shattock & Hunter in Frogmore Street.

Until 1953 Sale & Sons continued to make clogs in West Street: these were worn by workers at George’s brewery, Fry’s and other local factories. The making of shoes and leather trunks were two other important leather trades; there were also hatters, tailors and dressmakers and wood and furniture trades including upholstery. Many small businesses were found in or close to the city centre: thus furniture makers and upholsterers were concentrated in St Pauls.

As it didn’t rely too heavily on one particular industry, Bristol’s economy proved resilient in difficult times such as the early 1920s, when trade was disrupted following the end of the First World War. Bristol also escaped the worst effects of the depression of the early 1930s, although the city did suffer hardship: unemployment reached 10 per cent in these years, and in February 1932 a march by 10,000 demonstrators protesting against unemployment flared into violence in Old Market, and thirty people were injured.

The 1920s saw the demise of several formerly important industries. The last glass cones in the city — at Powell and Ricketts bottle works in Avon Street — were fired for the final time in 1923, and in 1925 the Great Western Cotton Works, which bad been a major source of employment in Barton Hill since 1838, closed.

Coal mining had been in steady decline in the city since the late nineteenth century and the last collieries in the city closed around this time; with them went the brickworks which had used the clay found with the coal seams.

The clothing trades contracted from the 1920s, while the footwear industry — one of the largest employers in the early twentieth century suffered a major decline between 1920 and 1969. Other old-established industries, however, continued to thrive, and there were many firms, such as Fry’s, Harvey’s and Wills, which had been in business in the city since the eighteenth century.

Lead shot continued to be made using the tower on Redcliff Hill that William Watts, the inventor of the process, had built in about 1782. Ferris & Co., manufacturers of pharmaceutical products in Union Street, had been established in 1754, and E.A. & W Greenslade, brush and plane manufacturers, in 1727.

By the 1920s several new industries were emerging which were to become vital to the city’s prosperity in the mid-twentieth century. Most spectacular was the expansion of the aircraft industry following the creation of the British and Colonial Aeroplane Company at Filton by Sir George White in 1910.

In 1920 the company changed its name to the Bristol Aeroplane Company, and alongside the manufacture of aeroplanes began the production of aero-engines. After a period of retrenchment up to 1934 production increased in response to the government’s rearmament programme, which placed a strong emphasis on air power, and by 1939 the company was the largest single employer in the city, providing jobs to over 18,000 people.

During the war the company manufactured the Blenheim, the Beaufighter and other military aircraft and also produced 101,000 engines. After the war the company developed the Bristol Brabazon as a long-haul passenger aircraft. The prototype made its maiden flight in 1949 among much local optimism: at the time this handsome eight-engined aircraft was the largest passenger aircraft in the world.

The optimism, sadly, was misplaced and even before a second prototype could be completed it was evident that the future lay with jet airliners; the project was abandoned and the Brabazon scrapped. The Britannia, another graceful aeroplane, soon followed. Powered by four turbo prop-engines, it enjoyed limited success, but it was the small, ugly, but useful Bristol Freighter which brought commercial success to the company in the field of civil aviation in the 1950s.

image above: 1866 Steep Street from the junction with Trenchard Street

By the late 1950s it was apparent that the day of the independent aircraft manufacturer was over, and the Bristol Aeroplane Company merged with other leading manufacturers to form the British Aircraft Corporation; in the 1960s the aircraft division was responsible for the British development of Concorde.

Still within the field of transport, the early twentieth century had seen the rise of new firms drawing on the potential of the internal combustion engine. The mid-twentieth century saw their consolidation into important local industries which ensured that, besides aeroplanes, the name Bristol was to become firmly established with cars and motorbikes, buses and lorries.

The first motor car had been built in Bristol in 1900 and its builder, Joseph Barter, went on to develop the Douglas motorcycle, which continued in production in Kingswood until the 1950s. Regular car production in the city had to wait until the formation of the car division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company at the end of the Second World War.

Drawing from the in-house expertise in aircraft manufacture and from drawings belonging to the German car maker BMW, confiscated after the war, the company entered the field of luxury car production.

The first model, the 400, made its debut in 1947 and established the company’s reputation for expensive cars which embodied good detailed design, painstaking hand craftsmanship, speed, power, performance, excellent handling and luxury.

Buses had been made in Bristol since 1908 when the Bristol Tramways & Carriage Company started their production at Filton for their own use.

In 1912 the BT & CC established new works at Brislington and from the 1920s began the production of bus chassis and lorries for sale nationwide. In the late 1930s the company produced nearly 200 new double-decker buses to replace the trains which finally disappeared in 1941. As part of the Tilling Group, the BT & CC was nationalised in 1948, and the following year the Bristol works introduced the Lodekka, a low-height double-decker which enjoyed widespread use with other nationalised bus companies.

Bristol has a long association with the non-ferrous metal industries, particularly lead working and the making of brass. While brass making finally ended in 1927 with the closure of the works at Keynsham, a new industry — zinc smelting — had started ten years earlier at Avonmouth.

The works had been established during the First World War to manufacture poisonous gas but had not been completed before the end of hostilities, and in peacetime they were taken over by the National Smelting Company who commenced zinc smelting and the production of sulphuric acid. Subsequently controlled by the Imperial Smelting Corporation and the Consolidated Zinc Corporation, the undertaking experienced continuous growth throughout the mid-twentieth century, including a programme of modernisation and expansion launched in 1965 in collaboration with Imperial Chemical Industries and Fisons.

image above: 1917 The Bristol Suspension Bridge it hangs 245 feet high above water level it opened in 1864 and is still in use today.

The rise of new industries was accompanied by the creation of new industrial zones on the edge of the city. The Bristol Aeroplane Company made Filton an industrial area, while the establishment of the BT & CC’s works at Brislington in 1912 was followed by the development of an industrial estate along the Bath Road in the 1920s.

An industrial estate was developed in Fishponds and after the war the City Council created a trading estate for light industry in Bedminster. These new industrial zones reflected the diminishing influence of the port in determining the location of new factories. Aeroplane production, for example, existed independently of the port; what was important, however, was the availability of cheap land and the presence of good communications by road and rail.

The Bristol Aeroplane Company’s site at Filton was huge, and after the Second World War even swallowed up the village of Charlton to make way for the new runway required for the Brabazon project.

The development of the industrial estate at Avonmouth was again stimulated by the availability of cheap land and good communications, but also reflected the ability of the port to continue to attract industry.

Factory sites adjacent to the quaysides had the advantage that bulky raw materials could be processed with the minimum of movement. As the economic role of the City Docks waned so the attraction of Avonmouth increased, and from the 1920s the Port Authority promoted the Avonmouth Docks Trading Estate at Chittening.

Flour milling was gradually concentrated in the docks at Avonmouth, while the metallurgical, chemical and petrochemical industries sustained by imported ores and petroleum were largely responsible for the expansion of the Avonmouth industrial zone north-wards along the Severn. The rawness of this industrial development, including the vast works of the National Smelting Company on St Andrew’s Road, was emphasised by the survival of small farms such as Rockingham, Chittening and Madam farms immediately outside the factory perimeters.

The city centre, meanwhile, which had traditionally had a strong industrial character owing to the presence of the docks, gradually lost some of its industry during this period.

Fry’s made the decision to leave the centre in 1922. Their factories were hemmed in on all sides preventing further expansion and there were no direct rail or water communications. They chose a 220-acre site in open country at Keynsham with good communications which they named Somerdale.

The move was completed by 1931. Some industries in the centre quietly declined and closed while others, such as Price Powell & Co., stoneware manufacturers in St Thomas Street, were destroyed by German bombing. In the post-war period the granaries and mills in the city closed as the industry consolidated its operations at Avonmouth.

In the post-war period more old-established Bristol industries closed or found their local identity greatly reduced. J.S. Fry & Sons had merged their financial interests with Cadbury’s as early as 1918 as a response to intense competition in the industry, and in 1935 became a subsidiary of Cadbury’s.

Bristol’s largest soap manufacturer, Christopher Thomas & Brothers, had been taken over by Lever Brothers in 1913; they were well known locally for the Puritan brand of soap but finally ceased production in 1953. This was not quite the end of Bristol’s soap and candle-making industry, however, as Carwardines of Sheene Road, Bedminster, remained in business until about 1961.

Locomotive building in Bristol which had always been on a modest scale compared with Manchester, Leeds or Glasgow — finally came to an end with the closure of Peckett’s Atlas works in St George in 1962. The closure of Pountney’s Bristol Pottery in Fishponds in 1969 marked the end of a centuries-old Bristol industry.

Other industries, meanwhile, thrived: Wills maintained their pre-eminence in cigarette production into the 1960s by relaunching the Embassy brand with gift coupons, which were extremely popular.

By the 1960s Robinsons, as part of the Dickinson Robinson Group, had become an international packaging and engineering group.

The Bristol Motor Car Company bucked the trend towards absorption, surviving the creation of the British Aircraft Corporation. - In 1961, when it was bought by Sir George White: production continued, with the Bristol 411 appearing in 1969, although from 1961 they were powered by Chrysler engines made in Canada.

Whatever the shifting fortunes of companies at board level, the prime consideration for thousands of ordinary Bristolians was that local industry meant employment and security. Working conditions varied: some workers endured low pay, long hours and hazardous working conditions. Wills and Fry's, on the other hand, had good reputations in spite of strict and paternalistic regimes on the factory floor.

The aim of many young people in Bedminster was to find employment with one of the large firms such as Wills, Robinsons or Mardons. At Wills women would traditionally leave the company upon marrying but there were many employees who spent their entire working lives there.

From the 1920s women increasingly found opportunities for office employment, a legacy of the First World War, when they had taken the place of men called to the Front.

The larger firms generally had good facilities for their employees: each of the Wills factories had a medical room, treatment room and recreational facilities, including athletic grounds and an evening club in Luckwell Road. Between 1920 and 1969, several major changes to Bristol's industrial structure occurred.

Several industries, including soap and glass manufacture, coal mining and potteries disappeared; ship building ended a few years later with the closure of the Albion yard in the City Docks in 1977 and the clothing and footwear industries diminished in importance.

Other industries, however, continued to maintain a strong presence in the city tobacco, printing and packaging, for example while new industries such as aircraft production and chemical processing expanded. The rise of manufacturing zones at Avonmouth and Severnside, Filton and Brislington marked the decreasing importance of industry to the city centre.

As firms merged, the local identity of the city's manufactures was reduced. By 1969, the influence of the Port on determining the siting of new factories was less important than Bristol's new links by motorway with London, South Wales, the Midlands and the South West. This was a factor in the growth of the service sector, including banking and insurance from the 1960s, a trend which continued through the 1970s and 1980s.

As the service sector increased in importance, the number of jobs in manufacturing declined. Traditional skills in engineering and other trades and industries disappeared and high-rise office blocks not factories came to

1935 RECOLLECTIONS OF H. L. VOWLES 'EVENING POST' 1935

WHEN about two years old, I was taken by my parents to live at Bishopston. There were only a few houses there then, it being mostly fields. Old Black Harry, the smith, was a noted character, then established where Elton Road now is, in an old kiln with boards placed on the top for a roof. As boys we used to throw stones on it and then run away, for he kept half a dozen dogs. From Zetland Road to Arley Church were fields, with a low wall along the pathway, and a ditch at the side of the wall, which became flooded after much rain.

In the winter of 1881 I saw the water four feet deep under the railway bridge, and an old woman with a bundle of newspaper on her shoulder struggling through it from Cotham Brow. The water was over her waist, and it was a wonder that she was not swept away. After the rains came snow - it was ten feet deep over the high walls, and on the level it was four feet deep. I remember the snow of that winter being piled along the gutters, six feet high, with gaps every now and then to enable people to cross the street.

Eventually the snow was carted away to the Horsefair and piled as high as the roofs of the houses. But it would not melt, and so had to be broken up with pickaxes and carried to the harbour and thrown in.

Where Horfield Prison is, there was once a large round pond, with water about two feet deep and an island in the middle, on which we used to skate in the winter. The place was called Horfield Gardens, and my uncle who was a comic singer, used to sing and play the guitar at galas there. Opposite St. Michael’s Church, Bishopston, when I lived there (it was called Hill View, St. Michael’s Mount) were all fields, and I used to frighten the birds off the wheat with a bell.

There were fields where St. Andrew’s Park now stands, and a very deep quarry with water in it, where I used to get fossils like mussels and eels turned to stone - it seemed as though the sea was at one time where now there are villas and the park. When a boy I used to go behind Colston’s Girls’ School and watch the bathers go up a ladder at the side of the wall and dive in at Rennision’s Baths. In those days I liked to see the soldiers from Horfield Barracks marching to church wearing the old shako (with its knob in front, half red and half white) and the red tunic with yellow facings and braidings.

I have seen back streets become main streets, and main streets become back streets. I saw Lower Union Street being cut through to Horsefair, before which the arcades were the main way; and I also saw Baldwin Street being made and the People’s Palace being built, I was one of the first to go and see a show there. I have seen at the Palace the White-eyed Kaffir, Florrie Ford, Harry Lauder, Charlie Chaplin, Austin Rudd, Ada Limberg, the Sisters Tilley, Peter Goty, Hackensmidt, Sandow, Sims Reeve, Marie Lloyd, and many others. My uncle was chairman at the Albambra Music Hall in Broadmead, later called the Star, and then the Tivoli. He used to tap on his desk and say, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, George Elton will now appear '. Then it was: 'Millie Tempest will sing a song '.

The porter stores at Zed Alley were then carried on as a music hall, and another attraction was Wombwell’s Show, held every winter in the Horsefair. They had a splendid band, playing outside to the crowds looking on, and girls came out and danced on the small stage to entice the onlookers to go in and see the animals. Then there was the grand circus, with gilded cars drawn by elephants, and piebald horses and camels, and the band leading the way in a chariot.

I have been on the stage myself at the Prince’s Theatre in several companies in years gone by, and have been in plays in which Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Wilson Barrett, Frank Benson, Mr. Tearle and others appeared. I have also appeared at the Old Theatre. I can well remember being in 'Faust' in which I was one of the lost souls in Hell. I was among fifty boys and fifty girls grouped on the stage, with mountain scenery around us, and Henry Irving dressed in red as Mephistopheles looking down on us from a rock, grinning.

There were pretty old houses in Lewin’s Mead, and in the Horsefair—all gone now ! - and shops each side of the Pithay, with their fronts ornamented with carpets and clothes which were hung outside. You could get lost in Lewin’s Mead and Black Friar which were full of courts and alleys. There were policemen at the beginning of these streets who never ventured to go down them.

An inspector, a sergeant, and a policeman would go down together for mutual protection—even in daylight. The same state of affairs prevailed in Gloucester Lane, where they would throw a policeman in the river. About 1875 I remember the little shops along where Fry’s factories were built later. In the hauling-way there is still an iron plate over the River Froom. I knew the caretaker, and one day his kitchen and all his coal disappeared into the Froom. St. Bartholomew’s Church was in Union Street, close by Fry’s factories, with an entrance round the back, and a narrow door in Union Street.

At last Fry’s bought it and a new church was built in St. Andrews, Montpelier. When I was four years old I had an old widow as a nurse, who, as far as I can remember, was old and wrinkled. Later on my mother told me her name was Mrs. Davis, and that her son who was one of the rioters in Queen Square had been hanged for his activities. When I grew up I consulted some books on old Bristol, and found that there had been a man named Davis hanged, so the story would seem to be true.

1936 BLOODY FOREIGN WAR SENT SHOCKWAVE THROUGH CITY

The Spanish Civil War, between Franco's right-wing Nationalists and the left-wing Republicans, started 70 years ago today. Gerry Brooke and Katherine Baker tell the story of how a group of Spanish schoolchildren fled Spain and sought refuge in Bristol.

Refugees: With fierce fighting in their native Basque region of Spain, dozens of children were evacuated to the safety of Bristol THE Spanish Civil War was a vicious conflict which killed thousands and divided not only the Spaniards, but people all over Europe.

The war attracted worldwide attention from those who saw it as a straightforward battle between Socialism and Fascism. Many were rightly fearful that it would lead to the world war which followed it.

Bristol people were involved in the war on many levels, with four young men even giving their lives for the Republican cause in Spain. Even those who remained in Bristol were reminded of the appalling danger the war posed to the civilians of Spain when 51 Basque refugees arrived in the city back in 1936.

The children had been sent by anxious parents who wanted them removed from a land of warring factions, political murder and appalling civil strife. The late Gladys Parsons and her husband Graham knew very little about the rights and wrongs of the war when, in that year, Graham was offered a temporary job as a caretaker at No 10 Kingsdown Parade by Bristol Education Committee.

It was a time of poverty and depression and Graham, an out-of- work electrician, took the job at what had been the Bristol School for deaf children (the building was lost in a wartime blitz). Gladys told the Post in 1986: 'It must have been the spring of 1936 when the children arrived.

'We all lived in this beautiful old house in Kingsdown and the children seemed happy enough. I remember my husband used to play football with them on the lovely lawns outside.' Her own children, Geoffrey and Sheila, became friends with the little Spanish refugees, and the people of Bristol rallied around, taking the youngsters on trips and parties.

'I can still remember some names,' recalled Gladys. 'Hortensia and Erisa were the teachers, and there was Maria and one little girl whose hair they had dyed blonde and whom everyone called Shirley Temple. 'The only boy's name I can remember was Alfonso. Most of the children came from the Bilbao area of Spain, I believe.'

There were many happy memories.

'It was marvellous how volunteers responded, always ready and willing to take the children on excursions,' explained Gladys. 'They once took them to Blaise, and sometimes on days out to Weston- super-Mare.' Volunteers included the Coles family of Shirehampton. The late Charles Coles, a foreman stevedore with C J King's at Avonmouth docks, even played Father Christmas for the children.

His daughter Olive told the Post in 1986: 'I remember the vitality of the children. I was 10 years old and remember going over by train from Shirehampton to see them. 'The one I remember in particular was Maria, such a little one and such fun. She even dared me to defy my father which was something I would never have dreamed of doing. He was very Victorian'

'We dressed up and took toys over to them for their Christmas party. No, they weren't sad or homesick. They were very happy children.' But the children were always thinking of home and their families in Spain, as Graham Parsons discovered one day when he went to clear the boilers in Kingsdown Parade.

Trying to shovel out left-over ash, he found that the space was jammed packed with tinned food. The children said that they had hidden it because there was nothing like this in Spain and they wanted their families to have some when they went home. After several months, with the worst of the fighting over, the children returned to their homes and families.

Mrs Parsons said: 'I never heard from any of them ever again, but I do think about them. I do wonder what happened to them, and I do like to remember their time here in Bristol, and think about what they must be like now. ' The children's story is really just a footnote in history, but one which illustrates just how disturbing events must have been to those who lived through them.

So profound was the experience of the war that it inspired some of the 20th century's greatest artists to write some of their most moving work. George Orwell's masterpiece, Homage To Catalonia, was written about his experiences of the war, as was Ernest Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls and Laurie Lee's A Moment Of War. It also inspired Pablo Picasso's famous painting Guernica, which commemorated the horrifying bomb attack on that city's civilian population. Others sent money, campaigned to raise awareness and lobbied the British government to help where it could.

Bristol East, the constituency of 'Iron Chancellor' Stafford Cripps, had been the radical centre of Labour Party agitation for years and young Bristol Socialists there were determined to do what they could to end the suffering. It was a time of mass unemployment, when Oswald Mosley's right-wing Blackshirts, were on the rise.

So the election of the left-wing Spanish Popular Front Government in 1936, which was dominated by the Socialist Republican party, made a big impact. When Franco and his fellow- conspirators rose up against them, the Labour League of Youth in Bristol flung itself into a frenzy of activity, organising propaganda and sending money and food to Spain.

The old Empire and Olympia theatres saw massive Sunday night meetings with national speakers and regular collections were made at Bristol's largest factories, including Fry's and Wills', for an ambulance which the Bristol campaign bought in August 1937. Street meetings and collections were held every weekend on the Downs and Welsh Back.

Of the young men and women prepared to go off to Spain to take part in the conflict, some joined the International Brigades and others the Spanish anarchist group POUM. In Castle Park, there's a plaque commemorating four young Bristol men who lost their lives in the civil war. It reads: 'This plaque was erected by Bristol City Council to commemorate those British volunteers who fought with the Republican Army in the Spanish Civil War.

'The 526 volunteers from Britain who gave their lives in the fight to defend democracy included four men from Bristol. They died for liberty.' The plaque then lists their names - W G Boyce, J Burton, L Huson and T E Stephens, who died between February 1937 and May 1938.

It was unveiled in 1986 by trade union leader Jack Jones, who himself was a former member of the International Brigade.

The cinema reigned supreme in Bristol in 1937

1937 - The cinema reigned supreme in Bristol in 1937 and even the city's biggest theatre,the Hippodrome on the Centre, had been converted into a sumptuous 'picture palace' for the hundreds of thousands of film fans who flocked to the beloved 'flicks' at least once a week.

There were two kinds of cinema. There was the 'local', and almost every neighbourhood in Bristol could boast its own picture house with its week-long programme of the main feature film, a B movie, a newsreel screen advertising and a thrilling trailer tempting film fans to make a date for the next week's attraction.

Then there were the bigger, smarter cinemas in the centre of town.

They were the ones which tended to snap up the best of the new Hollywood releases first . . .and so charged customers that little bit more for the privilege of seeing the new Clark Gable, Bette Davis or Gary Cooper movie first.

A night out at the central cinemas meant hopping on a tram or bus from the suburbs, a thrilling evening of screen entertainment and then a return journey on a bus or tram full of other pleasure seekers chatting about the entertainment they'd just seen.

The movies ruled the roost and each Saturday's Evening Post had a full page of film news, of reviews and a full, up-to-the-minute, film-by-film guide of what was on offer for the following seven days

'On Bristol's Broadway'. On Saturday, November 6th Bristol's own Cary Grant took starring role on the film page.The Post's movie correspondent wrote: 'Bristol's film star Cary Grant is in the news.'He had intended to take a vacation at Tokyo, travelling incognito with his friend and stand-in Mel Merrihue, but the Far Eastern crisis has caused him to change his mind. 'Instead he may go to the Bahamas or to Rio de Janeiro.'Gary's current release For You Alone comes to the Regent Cinema on November 15.

In this merry musical he appears with opera star Grace Moore. 'He has been cast opposite a number of singers, including Irene Dunne, in his 23 screen productions. 'It is stated that he has been signed for another role with Katherine Hepburn in her next starring feature. Bringing Up Baby. 'Cary, who recently completed Topper and The Awful Truth, supports Miss Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett.'

And from that day's 'On Bristol's roadway', some of the current releases to be seen in town:

Bristol Hippodrome: The Show Goes On(U). 'Gracie Fields as a mill girl singer who reaches for the top.'

Empire,Triangle; On The Avenue (U).'A real treat of songs, dances, fun,romance. Dick Powell,Alice Faye,Madeleine Carroll and the Ritz Brothers.'

Embassy: Prince And The Pauper (A).'Fate made one lad a king and the other a beggar. Erroll Flynn, Claude Rains . . .spectacular.'

Stoll, Bedminster: Platinum Blondell (U).'The star the world mourned in the role that made her famous. Jean Harlow and Loretta Young.'

Ambassador, Winterstoke Road: Gold Diggers Of 1937 (U). 'Dick Powell, Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell in a bright musical show with romance and fun.'

Carlton, Westbury: A Day At The Races(U). 'The Marx Brothers in one of their funniest comedies.'

1938 - DISCOVER A HIDDEN GEM

There is much controversy over the new development which will soon take place on the corner of High Street, near Bristol Bridge, where the derelict Norwich Union building is, but who today knows anything about the ruined church which stands behind it?

Only the 15th century tower and a few stones now remain of the ancient church of St Mary-Le- Port, once so hemmed in on all sides by high buildings that, according to one chronicler, 'a stranger might easily pass under the shadow of its walls without being aware of its existence'. Once known as St Mary-de-Foro, or St Mary of the Market, this church, along with nearby St Peter's, was gutted by Luftwaffe bombing in November 1940, a firestorm which, overnight, also destroyed the whole of the much-loved Wine Street/Castle street shopping area.

A writer of 90 years ago described nearby Mary-Le-Port Street as 'a quaint old thoroughfare, in the centre of which the church of St Mary-Le-Port is situated'. It was, he wrote, 'the only remaining roadway which gives the present generation some idea of the width and character of the streets in the so-called good old days. Here may be seen some specimens of the fast-disappearing medieval gabled dwellings which at one time were so numerous in the city'.

So much for the street, then, but what was so special about the church - devoid as it was of sumptous monuments and elaborately carved tombs - that it was decided to restore and maintain its 72ft high tower at a cost of some £19,000 rather than just demolish the whole lot?

Although the blitzed building was believed to date back to Norman times - about 1170 AD - excavations in 1962/3, led by local archaeologist Philip Rahtz, may have pushed the date of an original church on the site back into late Saxon times, which is when we have evidence of a mint in the settlement, which was then called Brigstowe.

The archaeologist discovered the post holes of a wooden Saxon house, complete with hearthstone and cesspit, very near the blitzed church.

It is a generally accepted that the building was dedicated to Our Lady Of The Port, and it was certainly used by sailors who, on arriving back safely from long voyages, would go in to give thanks, and perhaps an offering, for deliverance from the perils of the deep.

Ships would be moored on what was then a tidal riverbank near Bristol Bridge and the church, in full view of the Avon, would be most convenient for them.

There is an old story that Oliver Cromwell, on a visit to the city in 1645, moored his barge to a post in St Mary-Le-Port churchyard. How this bizarre tale came into being is now lost in the mists of time, but it's patently untrue.

An old document, dated 1271, describes a gift of land situated between Worshipcheepe Street (later called Bridge Street) and the churchyard. Beyond this street, and nearer the riverbank, were butcher's shambles (markets) It would have been a long way to stretch a mooring rope.

The blitzed church itself was rather unimposing, with just two aisles with clustered columns of graceful design dividing them. On the south side was a fine range of lofty windows, but the north aisle wall apparently showed only 'the mullions and tracery of former windows, which were discovered and exposed to view when houses were erected in front of the church'.

When the church was 'restored' by the Victorians in 1877, it was given a new font, with the old alabaster one finding a new home at Stapleton Workhouse.

A handsome brass eagle lectern - standing 7ft tall and once belonging to Bristol Cathedral - was badly damaged in the blitz (the pieces are still about somewhere). Dating from 1683 and rescued from the melting pot in 1803, it was, perhaps, the church's greatest treasure.

A mystery surrounding a burial in the church will now probably never be resolved. It concerns Robert Yeamans, a Royalist sympathising sheriff of Bristol who was hanged by the Parliamentarians in 1643.

His body was handed over to his father and, the story goes, buried in St Mary-Le-Port church. In 1814 the body, still exhibiting marks of the hanging and dressed in clothing of civil war date, was unearthered in a remarkable state of preservation. Before being reinterred in the church's south aisle, the heart was removed to his museum by surgeon Richard Smith and 'souvenirs', a handkerchief and parts of a shirt, taken by the rector and an attorney.

But, according to Corry And Evans' History Of Bristol, published in 1816, Yeamans was conclusively buried, not in St Mary-Le-Port, but Christ Church. So who, you might ask, was the man whose heart they took out? We will never know.

From 1940 until 1960, the future of the ruinous church, surrounded by a 'temporary' car park, was in doubt. Then, when there was talk of demolition to clear the site for redevelopment, a possible new museum and art gallery for the city, there was an outcry from the public. In the end, the church commissioners sold the ruin and the land it stood on to the Corporation for £25,000 (St Peter's cost the city some £68,650).

Who knows what the future holds for this historic church tower? Let's hope that it plays a much bigger part in the new development than it did in the previous one, hidden away, as it was, from public view.

Having survived so much of the city's history, it deserves it.

Hemmed in: St Mary-Le-Port Church has been virtually hidden by tall buildings for years, but hopefully it will be made a feature of the redevelopment.