Category: History

Dudbridge Railway Station

 

I often walk the cycle track below Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky.

But, today, I stand at the blue brick retaining wall

At the old Dudbridge railway station,

Watching the cars career around the roundabout,

Drivers mostly oblivious of the history of Dudbridge;

But when I ignore the roar of the traffic,

And I find my mind’s historical eye,

I can see a medieval pilgrim crossing the bridge,

A packhorse with Cotswold wool a mile behind.

For here I stand by the confluence of two rivers.

But also, at the junction of two railway lines:

The interface of water power and steam power,

The inexorable march of the industrial revolution:

Foundries and forges and furnaces

And cranes and pulleys and chains and smoke:

A century-old pandemonium at Dudbridge,

Where once there was an orchard and there is still a Meadow Lane.

Carefully cross the road and study the information plaques

On the wall at Sainsburys; the clothier’s 1646 doorway too;

The inscription at REDLERS from 1910;

The information board at Kimmins Mill,

Then retrace your steps carefully back to the blue brick wall,

And recite these words from T.S. Eliot to yourself:
“And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Psychogeography and Cyclo-geography

 

I’m a great fan of psychogeographical wandering: I love the whole chronotope thing of getting lost in a landscape and drifting through timescapes; I love the whole Hazlittian and Solnitian walking and thinking at 2.5 miles an hour trope. I love walking, thinking, imagining and composing on my own.

But sometimes, the bicycle calls. The traditions of the Clarion Club beckon: a collective socialist exploration of landscape, history and conversation. That too has it place: a good old-fashioned bike ride. Or perhaps a bit of Mr. Polly; Mr. Kipps; Lucia and Georgino; or working-class hero; or green locomotion.

Cyclo-geography, however,  is a new phenomenon: it needs an e-bike around these parts. The freedom to pedal with comfort up any Stroudwater hill; the satisfaction of knowing that you can explore as many valleys as you wish; the exploration of all those precipitous dead ends that you would never contemplate on your old steed; doing in two hours what used to take four; in short, extending your pedestrian practice of psychogeography, through the praxis of cyclo-geography.

And collective cycling has a rich heritage. Here is one strand:

Cyclists of the World Unite You have Nothing to lose but your Chains

The 1890s saw the development

Of the bicycle as we now know it,

Overtaking the posh boys’ plaything,

The cumbrous high-seated penny-farthing;

Here was a bike the workers could afford:

Second-hand, about twice a weekly wage;

New, about ten times that but with a deposit,

You could pay by tolerable instalments.

This was an end of century revolution:

The sun might not set on the British Empire,

But it also shone on working-class

Women and men cycling to work,

Or cycling for leisure along the lanes,

Roads and thoroughfares of this country.

There was a political change too:

The Independent Labour Party was formed in 1893;

Unskilled workers began to unionise

After the Bryant and May women’s strike of 1888 –

But no women had the vote, of course,

And only 60% of men over 21

In this so-called British democracy.

And so, socialism and cycling went hand in glove,

With the determined men and women

Of the Clarion Club Scouts,

Carrying the message of collectivism,

And the nascent liberation of women.

And this was a form of recreation too,

That working-class women could pursue,

Unlike tennis and badminton and croquet –

And bloomin’ ‘eck!

Women cycling in their knickers and bloomers,

Liberated from corsets and heavy skirts.

So, remember this history,

And remember this too:

Cyclists of the World Unite!

You have Nothing to lose but your Chains.

Here is the Clarion Club hymn – it would be great if anyone fancies updating the gendered language from a century ago and more.

The Clarion Club

Oh! Who rides by day and night, roundabout,

Tinkling their bicycle bell?

Hark how they near us with cheering shouts,

Hurrah! Hurrah! It’s the Clarion Scouts!

List to the story they tell.

What tho’ the weather be cold as an icicle,

Bravely they cling to their Clarion bicycle

Scattering leaflets, sticking up labels,

Filling a breach at old hostelry tables,

Such are the beings I’ll sing you about.

Three hearty cheers for the Clarion Scouts!

(Chorus):

Hurrah for the Clarion Scouts!

Hail them with strenuous shouts!

As bold as Lysander

To push propaganda,

Hurrah for the Clarion Scouts!

Down to the haunts of the parson and squire,

Putting opponents to rout;

Bestriding their steeds with pneumatic tyre,

Through village and hamlet, thro’ mud and thro’ mire

Rideth the Clarion Scouts.

Nailing down lies and disposing of fables,

Improving the landscape by sticking up labels:

What do they care for the wind and the weather?

If they’re alone or a hundred together,

They’re always eager to join in a bout.

Then give three cheers for the Clarion Scout.

What do these labels mysterious teach?

What is the message they bring?

Something that comes within everyone’s reach:

A gospel of unity – that’s what they preach.

In praise of that gospel I sing.

Here’s Bob Blenkinsop:

Cycling out: Sunday rides with the fellowship

 An occasional listener to Desert Island Discs, I tuned in to listen the other day to Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim. He did not want to take the Bible for reading material; he chose: several copies of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Several copies? Oh yes. for Norman desired to give copies of the life of Hasting’s painters and decorators to those who would visit him whilst on his Island Odyssey. The DJ felt that this was the best fictional account of Socialism in action, and this was his vision for the island.

Hearing this reminded me of that scene in the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists when the Sunday cyclists came to town: “One Sunday morning towards the end of July about 25 men and women on bicycles invaded the town”

They distributed leaflets on socialism. Their presence was greeted with some derision and some cheers. The distributed leaflet read:

 

What is Socialism?

At present the workers with

Hand and brain produce

Continually food, clothing and all

Useful and beautiful things in great abundance

BUT THEY LABOUR IN VAIN

This standard-bearing cyclist vanguard of the Clarion Club, founded in 1895, is still in existence today, with a Cotswold Clarion Cycling Club and other U.K. branches and one clubhouse (only open on a Sunday) on the West Yorkshire/Lancashire border.

On my Bike, along the canal I imagine: Stuart, Dennis, Andy B, Norman, Angi, Jenny and I, our baskets filled with leaflets, and, saddles set with optimism. We heed the Clarion Call to defeat the scourge of Reform and its fag face phoney leader, for that is the pertinent call.

The Cyclists visited Mugsborough at the end of July. Let us one and all cycle out with copies of the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, leaflets to give; be brave comrades, we are many they are few.

 

LOOK OUT FOR THE SOCIALIST VAN

Walking: Art-act and Artefact

 

We finished the previous chapter thus: Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’ Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

I asked my sister, Fliss, and brother-in-law, Rod, if they would send me a few lines about their memories of walking the Downs in Wiltshire when they sometimes recited lines from Edward Thomas to each other.

4 July 2026

Now that our days of long rambles on the Downs

are beyond us, we have wonderful memories of the

sweeping views we had from places like

Wansdyke and Ridgeway, from where at one

spot towards Hackpen, five hill forts are in

view with:

Uffington, Liddington, Barbury, Oldbury and

Martinsell all clearly visible.

Often the words of Alfred Williams and

Richard Jefferies came to mind –

‘Still to find and still to follow

Joy in every hill and hollow

Company in solitude’(A.W.)

‘It is eternity now

I am in the midst of it

It is about me in the sunshine’ (R.J.)

Ridgeway walks always brought

Andrew Young’s ‘On the Ridgeway’ to mind

and we often recite these lines to each other.

65 years wed and it seems as though they

were penned especially for us.

‘Thinking of those who walked here long ago

On this greenway in summer and in snow

She said, “This is the oldest road we tread,

The oldest in the world?”

“Yes, Love,” I said.’

With these happy days only memories

our short strolls are now devoted

to botanising and it’s astonishing

the joy to be had when keeping

eyes down when ambling along.

On a rail track walk we recently

Found five varieties of cranesbill.

Then came the canal, bringing

Edward Thomas to mind with –

Willows, willow herb and meadowsweet

Plus

High cloudlets in the sky

While

Nearby a blackbird sang.

In early spring, our search for ‘Each year’s

First violets, white and lonely’

are usually found in the most unlikely

places – roadside verges where they struggle

to emerge through litter and fallen leaves,

yet they somehow survive.

We are always dipping into Edward Thomas and

have come to love ‘The Huxter’ for the image

it gives of a poor but happy pair chuckling

as they ‘bump down the lane’

Pure Magic

Rod Smith and Felicity Smith

The Huxter

He has a hump like an ape on his back;
He has of money a plentiful lack;
And but for a gay coat of double his girth
There is not a plainer thing on the earth
This fine May morning.

But the huxter has a bottle of beer;
He drives a cart and his wife sits near
Who does not heed his lack or his hump;
And they laugh as down the lane they bump
This fine May morning.

I keep the letters sent to me by my sister and brother-in-law, but not neatly tied together in a bundle or secreted in a box. I leave them in odd places on book shelves hither and thither and forget where I have put them. And then have unexpected surprises and pop-up memories around the house.

 

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/wiltshire-walking-with-edward-thomas/

 

 

 

Railway Navvies and I.K. Brunel

Everyone knows the name:

Isambard Kingdom Brunel!

And everyone knows that photograph:

The top hat, the waistcoat, the cigar,

The chain-link in the background for emphasis;

The self-assured pride of the Victorian engineer,

The man of the moment and momentum,

Proud of his steamships on the oceans,

And proud of his Great Western Railway:

The dignified certainty of genius,

Knowing that his one hundred-and-twenty mile long line

Would run all the long level permanent way,

From Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads,

With a mean gradient of just 1 in 1,380.

Just as his drawing board had intended.

But where are the men who built it?

And where are the women who followed

The ever-expanding permanent way?

Where are the Fox Talbot portraits of the navvies,

With their picks and shovels and gunpowder,

Their slide rule discipline and one hundred deaths,

Taking the line through Box Tunnel,

So that the sun shone clean right through

On Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s birthday?

Where is the tribute to their anonymity?

A working-class hero is something to be.

Walking and Cycling and Pop-up Museums

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Blake’s lines have become something of a Radical Stroud motif for a number of reasons.

But this is the fundamental reason:

I started writing A Guide to the Radical History of Stroud and the Five Valleys around 2011, with a narrative history occasionally touched by a comedic Mark Steele/ Mark Thomas style of analysis. A visit to the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library completely changed my approach: no more the lonely writer in the garret burning the midnight oil trope. Instead, collaborative writing on the hoof: ‘Footprints and Footpaths not Footnotes.’

And, also, collaborative texts revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary, in an EP Thompson quest (The Making of the English Working Class): rescuing ‘the poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity.’ A Blakean optic not just upon the landscape but on social history too.

And that approach led me to a free verse style of writing up my/our walks and the recording of my historical research and consequent blogging: it enabled quick scribbling and composing but with a touch of figurative style. (I include a guide for this approach in a link at the end of this piece.)

I read around psychogeography, the Paris Situationists (‘Underneath the pavement, the beach!’ another of our motifs), Rebecca Solnit, William Hazlitt, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Phil Smith, et al so as to contextualise my walking through landscape and history: ‘slipping through wormholes of time.’

But now, all roads lead to Edward Thomas.

And Richard Jefferies.

Edward Thomas on Walking and Cycling
Richard Jefferies on Walking

Bike or boots?

Bikes or boots? A difficult question sometimes, and an obvious one at others. I suppose, it’s a question of what you fancy, or a matter of where you want to travel, or how far, or how much time you have: whether you want to wander across fields, or pursue a path along lanes, or up a succession of hills, and down the consequent dales. Or what you did yesterday.

This is how Edward Thomas compared the two pursuits in 1913 In Pursuit of Spring:

‘It was a still morning … But not until I went out could I tell that it was softly and coldly raining. Everything more than two or three fields away was hidden.
Cycling is inferior in this weather, because in cycling chiefly ample views are to be seen, and the mist conceals them. You travel too quickly to notice many small things. But walking I saw every small thing one by one.’

‘Under elms near Semington the threshing machine boomed, it’s unchanging note mingled with a hiss of the addition of each sheaf. Otherwise, the earth was the rooks’, heaven was the larks’; and I rode easily on along the good road somewhere between the two.
Motion was extraordinarily easy that afternoon, and I had no doubts that I did well to bicycle instead of walking. It was as easy as riding in a cart, and more satisfying to the restless … At the same time, I was a great deal nearer to being a disembodied spirit than I can often be. No people or thoughts embarrassed me. I fed through the senses directly … through the eyes chiefly, and was happier than is explicable … a foretaste of a sort of imprisonment in the viewless winds.’

Robert Macfarlane writes in the introduction to The South Country that ‘Edward Thomas was a compulsive walker’, and mentions Helen Thomas’ assertion that “His greatest pleasure … was to walk and be alone”, spurning roads, often walking in a circle for a whole day, without a map, “guided by the hills or the sun”. Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Helen Thomas wrote in the preface to the 1932 edition of The South Country (first published 1909): “for him the most satisfying days were when he wandered far afield alone, rereading forgotten footpaths and hidden lanes, stopping at remote and primitive inns where strangers were rare … to Edward Thomas walking was not merely exercise … Nor was he … only the nature lover intent on observing … Nor was he only the aesthete … the beauty of the contours of the hills, the symmetry of the trees, and the grouping of the villages. Nor was he only the wayfarer meeting fellow travellers … talking … listening… Nor was he only the artist transmuting all this into words. He was all these and much more.”

This is Edward Thomas near the start of the book: ‘I have used a good many maps in my time, largely to avoid the towns; but I confess that I prefer to do without them and to go, if I have some days before me, guided by the hills or the sun or a stream – or, if I have one day only, in a rough circle, trusting, by taking a series of turnings to the left or a series to the right … and to return at last to my starting-point … The signboards thus often astonish me … There is a wealth of poetry in them …’

Another Wiltshire walker is of interest here: Richard Jefferies in his book The Amateur Poacher:

‘Those only know a country who are acquainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, the outside may be seen, but the footpaths go through the heart of the land. There are routes by which mile after mile may be travelled without leaving the sward … village to village, now crossing green meads, now cornfields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyards…’

Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists,

 ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

More to follow on Edward Thomas later.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

 

 

A People’s History Chapter Ten

A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY

A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

A TEXTUAL SAMPLER

Chapter Ten

Riots remembered:

Hello Stuart

Good to see you on Wednesday. I promised to send you something about the wonderfully named ‘ Mid-Gloucestershire Historical Pageant of Progress’ acted out at Fromehall Park in the late summer of 1911. My mother (ringed on the attached photo page) was almost nine years old and, as you can see, was pretending to be a corn and machinery rioter! The personnel for episode V111 were drawn from the Nailsworth area. The performance text was entirely in rhyming couplets and lasted two and a half hours – surely the largest event numerically produced in the Stroud area since its cast numbered 1100!

Hope this is of interest.

Best wishes

Howard

 

Episode VIII. Corn Law Riots, AD 1846

Enter a crowd of unemployed and starving weavers and workpeople complaining of the dearness of bread and the cruelty of the Corn Laws. A band of rioters come up singing. They attack a baker’s cart and seize the bread. They are then setting out for the mills to destroy the new machines but are stopped by a mill-owner, who explains that it is the Corn Laws and not the new machines that cause unemployment. A messenger brings news of the repeal of the Corn Laws. General rejoicing.

Epilogue

The Spirit of Progress returns and thanks the audience for all being ‘friends of progress’. She declares that, in the two thousand years of the pageant from Romans to the present, ‘we’ve grown to be a mighty nation, civilized and free’, with Cotswold making its own contribution to the good of England. She then proposes that the good work should continue, and that crime, disease, want, war, and misery should be banished in favour of virtue, peace, and happiness.

https://www.stroudlocalhistorysociety.org.uk/research/pageant/#:~:text=Staged%20during%20the%20late%20summer,a%20huge%20cast%20of%201100.

I helped out early doors at the Stroud Show today (July 2026) putting up Stroud Local History Society’s exhibition of Howard’s presentation about the above. We are so lucky to have the Stroud Local History Society and its members and leading lights.

Pop-up Museums Musing

Radical Stroud and Pop-up Museums

I suppose we ought to start this piece with our own working-definition of a Pop-up Museum: ‘a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

We have created such museums in pubs and art spaces and churches before – Rodborough Church, The Prince Albert, Stroud Valley Arts, the Gloucestershire Regimental Museum in Gloucester. We hope to create further pop-up museums in the future: a further Railway Pop-Up Museum (hopefully at the railway station or again at SVA or The Prince Albert) and a series of Stroud community pop-ups (again at SVA or The Prince Albert or in a church or at a closed-down shop or even in the streets).

The possible benefits are obvious: attracting people who wouldn’t normally visit museums might be one.  Encouraging people (including some who wouldn’t normally feel that they had anything important to say) to speak in public in a group, or one-to-one with a ‘curator’, could be another.  Encouraging people to visit ‘proper’ museums in Stroud, Gloucester, Cirencester, Cheltenham, Bristol and Bath etc. could be another. Revitalising closed-down shops might be another.

But let’s leave our area now; indeed, let’s leave the country, via some perceptive observations from Nora Grant in the USA: ‘Pop Up Museums: Participant-Created Ephemeral Exhibitions’:

‘The term “pop-up” has become an international buzzword used to describe ephemeral, experimental projects—from pop-up restaurants to pop-up boutiques—but a pop-up museum is still puzzling: how can you take something as substantial and precious as a museum and add a pop-up twist? What happens when you do?

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we host “pop up museums” (we do not hyphenate the name) that are both ephemeral and mobile; however, content comes from participants rather than museum staff or museum collections. Part exhibition, part program, part story-potluck, our pop up museums offer a hybrid experience that allow us to facilitate conversations around community issues and personal stories.

How does this work? Imagine a potluck in which, instead of a dish, everyone brings an object and/or story to share with others. We collaborate with community partners and choose the pop up museum’s theme and venue together. We then invite people to bring something on-topic to share … Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects …but by calling it a “museum” the project encourages people to rethink museum spaces and experiences. The Name “Museum” Sparks Confusion—But Also Meaningful Conversations.’

‘During the event, one participant commented, “People were willing to talk about what they made, how and why. And it can be loud, unlike museums. I think of museums as . . . you can’t touch anything, you can’t be noisy. It’s nice how you can touch anything. It was casual, but official-feeling at the same time.” This participant’s comment suggests a discomfort with museum spaces and with the inability to touch exhibited content. The pop up museum offers a hands-on experience in which people can touch the objects and speak directly with the exhibitor. We all have interesting things, but people rarely share them with strangers or display them in a museum context. Calling it a “pop up exhibition” or a “pop up show” would describe the physical structure, but it wouldn’t ignite as much conversation about the conceptual space of a museum. We want the project to activate museum space both physically and conceptually.’

‘The pop up museum is a fill-in-the-blanks space that prioritizes conversation over objects. Call it relational aesthetics, potluck, exhibition, museum, or non-museum—its changeability is its charm. Our primary goal for pop up museums is to bring people together in conversation through stories, art, history, and objects.’

I suppose, too, that pop-up museums could be, in a way, virtual and on-line. We have been collecting family stories here at Radical Stroud with ‘A People’s History A Miscellany of History A Textual Weaving of a Cabinet of Curiosities A Textual Sampler’ – we have been adding chapters over the last couple of years and when complete, we shall put in all online in one continuous post. This incremental story-telling has involved the local history society and the community at large. It is a model, perhaps, for future engagement in the locality on different themes. (We have also posted on how to create your own museum and how to create tongue in cheek ludic ‘counter-heritage’ events: see links at the end.)

But it’s time now for a bit of on the other handery, courtesy of Eben Diskin and the USA again (2021): ‘It’s Time to Stop Using the Word “Museum” to Describe Pop-Up Museums’:

Eben enjoys ‘mindless family excursions as much as anyone else, but pop-up museums are more than just benign diversions – they’re a symbol of the growing culture … where people think of themselves as the main character in their own movie. Now that’s metastasizing from social media to our cultural and intellectual institutions… As a highly efficient vehicle for vanity and self-aggrandizement, social media has been the primary catalyst of “me” culture … Pop-up museums are an extension of this … to offer museum-esque experiences without the learning or cultural value. They capitalize on our vanity and shrinking attention spans to tempt people away from museums with actual cultural significance. They contribute to the anti-intellectualization of culture.’

Well, I don’t disagree with some of that. And I don’t agree with some of that too. But it’s good to be mindful of such a polemic to keep us on our toes. But I finish this section with another trip to America as a judgment on the above: “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.

Now to conclude: we started off with our definition of the pop-up museum; but what definition of museum should we use? Here is the International Council of Museums 2022 definition: ‘A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.’

We look forward to contributing further to that ethos in our own idiosyncratic pop-up manner, so as to build upon our successes and achievements outlined in the second paragraph. We have the experience and expertise to take this further on the GWR, in Stroud, the county or region. We have developed a model that others can use and would be more than willing to talk about the nuts and bolts of our pop-up practice so as to spread the word.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/you-dont-have-to-be-rich-or-famous-to/

 

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/making-your-own-museum-guerrilla/

STOP PRESS!

Making pop-ups in the moment to catch the mood: I have created two over the last couple of days to catch the attention of passers-by as they walk past our front garden. One was for the Mexico v England football match involving an England shirt, a football, a pair of old football boots, two pieces of Stroud scarlet cloth, and a poem about the historic links between Stroud scarlet cloth and Mexico (the cochineal beetle). There will be a performance of the poem at the local pub showing the match in the early hours, with the possibility of further group performance in the event of an England victory.

The other pop-up involves two collages created to mark the 250th anniversary of the USA. These will be co-created with my colleague Katie McCue and displayed in the front garden of my house. It will also feature on social media, as has the football creation.

England v Mexico

Rodborough Fields

Mexico v England

 

The Prince Albert

Estadio Azteca

 

Hard to imagine these places conjoined

By anything other than a football match,

But the cochineal beetle from Mexico

Provided the dye for Stroud scarlet cloth,

Once stretched out on tenterhooks

In Rodborough Fields,

As in that iconic painting.

 

We too shall be on tenterhooks, but in the pub.

But if we win, in the gloaming after the match,

I shall stretch out a piece of Stroud scarlet cloth

In Rodborough Fields in quiet celebration.

 

Glocal History and Stroud

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

A Critique

 

Let me say at the outset of this critique that I absolutely love the Museum in the Park and I absolutely love visiting there to learn more about Stroud’s local history: my Stroud connections go back for generations and I’ve been a regular visitor to the museum as historian, teacher, father and grand-father for donkey’s years.

 

I cherish that feeling of losing myself in its successive cabinets of curiosities, rather like Alice through the Looking Glass.

 

The museum is indeed a treasure: it’s free; there are a variety of activities for children; the staff always welcome visitors, as do the initial notices: ‘Discover and Explore’; ‘Welcome to the Museum Wander whichever way you choose Look, listen, linger … Ask if you want to know more.’ Which is what I am about to do.

 

The museum is a wonderful example of how to exhibit local history and tell tales of local heritage. But I wonder if something is missing when we discover and explore and wander whichever way we choose, looking, listening and lingering … are the links between Stroud & district’s history and global history missing? How can the museum fill that gap?

 

Admittedly there is a room entitled Worldwide Impact; and, elsewhere, Home from Home Our Migration Stories with some contextual information about colonialism, empire, enslavement, migration, and another information board Missing Histories Black presence in Georgian and Victorian Gloucestershire – but it felt like a bit of a bolt-on to some degree. A valiant effort when space is at a premium, it is true, for it would be impossible to change the existing overall lay-out, but I ask: ‘Would it be possible to find space somewhere for a permanent display, or temporary exhibitions, so as to expand on that contextual information about colonialism, empire and enslavement, so as to give it some emphasis to their local connections?’

 

Talking of which, on the day of my visit in June 2026, I noticed an exhibit in a display case, Stroudwater Strip by Fay Allwood: ‘Contemporary artists and students are always being inspired by the Museum’s collection which is displayed in the old mansion house you see across the courtyard. This piece of textile art references the Wallbridge painting showing strips of red, blue and white cloth drying in green fields in the late 1700s. It also celebrates the teasel, a significant plant in local textile history.’

If you have created work inspired by the museum or garden and would like to show it here, please let us know! Email museum@stroud.gov.uk

 

Well, I suppose that is what I am doing as I write this critique.

But I have also, of course, created work in the past with colleagues at Radical Stroud about Stroud scarlet and its global links: exhibitions (with performance) at the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum (July-September 2023) and Stroud Valley Arts (November 2022). I have written extensively about this history at www.radicalstroud.co.uk and was a member of the original committee looking at the Black Boy Clock for SDC (as well as co-writing the script for Freedom’s Arch to celebrate the abolition arch with a performance at Archway School at the turn of the century). More recently, I teamed up with Black Ark Media and the GWR for the development of a Black History map linked to the county’s railway stations. Radical Stroud is also currently receiving support for permanent and temporary exhibitions at Stroud railway station, including:

 

‘A Pop-Up Museum:  a temporary exhibition carefully created and curated but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

We have created such museums in pubs and art spaces and churches before – we now intend to create a Railway Pop-Up Museum. Watch this space!’

Stuart Butler and Katie McCue

www.radicalstroud.co.uk

 

Here endeth chapter one of this critique. Thank you for reading it and I hope you have enjoyed reading it. Chapter two – based on observations made at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum – to follow.

Chapter Two

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

A Critique

An account of my visit to Kelvingrove: transcripts from information boards

 

Racism –

a legacy of Empire

 

Glasgow Life Museums has a legal and moral duty to play its part in eliminating the evil of racism in our city. Racism has its roots in transatlantic slavery and colonialism. Both systems have been crucial in the development of Glasgow as a city, as well as its museums. As museums engage people with the past, we can do more to build on understanding of how racism has developed as a legacy of colonialism.

 

Regardless of the colour of our skin, we should all have the right to access culture and heritage equally. That heritage should be presented as honestly and fully as possible, which involves confronting how racism is part of our history.

 

Some of our galleries, displays and narratives no longer reflect Glasgow Life Museums’ views or ambitions when it comes to tackling racism and addressing the legacies of slavery and empire. We know we can do more, and we are examining the museums service to identify how we need to change.

 

 

Language

 

Language is constantly evolving and we are reviewing the way we write and speak about racism, slavery and colonialism. Here are some of the key words that we think are relevant to this work, taken from sources such as Oxford Languages, Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary. If you have any comments or would like to suggest other words, get in touch with us at VisitorStudies@glasgowlife.org.uk

 

 

Colonialism

The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

 

Legacies

Things transmitted by, or received from, an ancestor or predecessor or from the past. In this context, historic events which have had consequences that shape present-day societies.

 

Race

A social construct (that is, human invention) based on skin colour and facial features (shape of eyes, nose, lips, hair texture etc.). Even if it isn’t biologically ‘real’, its impact on people is very much a reality.

 

White supremacy

The belief that white people are a superior race and should dominate society, typically to the exclusion of other racial and ethnic groups.

 

Empire

An empire is where a central or main power rules over other territories outside of the main power’s original borders.

 

Chattel Slavery

A form of slavery in which the enslaved person is treated as a piece of property belonging to their owner. An enslaved person under this system has no rights, and they remain enslaved for life. Any children born to an enslaved person are also then enslaved for life.

 

Racism

A belief that one group of people is inferior or superior to another because of their race.

 

Scotland

and

Empire

Between the mid-1600s and the mid-1900s, Britain aggressively developed an overseas empire. People from all over Scotland were participants in, and drivers of, the British Empire both at home and overseas. They were politicians, enslavers, traders, colonial administrators, soldiers, missionaries, voluntary and forced migrants.

Scotland’s wealth grew significantly as a result of its involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery. This wealth was built on exploitation of, and violence committed against, people round the world. Money from slavery, and subsequently Empire, has been invested in many areas of Scottish society, such as industry, agriculture, railways, buildings and our museums. Resources from former British colonies fuelled several of Glasgow’s industries. Many of the counties that were exploited through colonisation remain economically underdeveloped as a result. Racist ideas were used to justify that exploitation, the legacies of which we are still grappling with today.

 

Have your say!

 

The aim of the Kelvingrove Museum of Empire project is to spark discussions about the legacies of slavery and empire, and how they can be represented in future displays in Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

We’ve made temporary additions to existing displays throughout the galleries – have a look around and see if you can find them. Have they had an effect on how you look at things in the museum? We recognise that Kelvingrove’s current perspectives and the stories we tell will require change. How would you like to see us use the city’s collections and spaces to tell the history of slavery and empire?

Share your thoughts by scanning the QR code below or by emailing VisitorStudies@glasgowlife.org.uk

 

 

 

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is a museum of empire. The original museum was housed in the former home of Lord Provost Patrick Colquhoun, a tobacco merchant, who was involved in the enslavement of African people. Wealthy individuals who made their money as a result of British colonialism donated works to the collection. For example: Still-life: Herrings, Cherries and Glassware, which you can see in the Dutch Art Gallery, was one of those given by Cecilia Douglas. Her family owned plantations in the Caribbean that were worked by enslaved people. Some other objects were looted by the armed forces of the British Empire. But there are few objects or artworks depicting Black, Asian and other minoritised people.

 

Glasgow Museums is exploring how Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum can better address the legacies of transatlantic slavery and the British Empire. We want to spark discussions around these legacies, to help shape future displays in Kelvingrove. Throughout the galleries, you’ll see that we’ve highlighted some of the untold stories behind the collections. However, there are many more stories to tell and we’re working towards better understanding how these stories can be told.

 

These words sit above ‘a painting by John Lavery of the 1888 International Exhibition … It was a celebration of Glasgow’s industries and the British Empire. The money raised from ticket sales went towards building the current Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.’

 

 

So far we have worked with

  1. the Shared Cultural Heritage Changemakers – a group of young people exploring the shared cultures and histories of the United Kingdom and South Asia
  2. Kelvingrove Museum of Empire Advisory Group:

 

Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, a strategic anti-racist charity based in Glasgow

 

Curating Discomfort – a project based at the Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, looking at ways outside of traditional museum approaches to explore how we talk about collections, and which take us out of our traditional comfort zones, and

 

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion in Scottish Heritage, University of Strathclyde, funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council

 

 

Glasgow – City of Empire

 

Slavery and colonisation shaped the world we now live in. Wealth flowed into cities such as Glasgow from the exploitation of enslaved and colonised peoples and lands, funding civic development and even the creation of museums such as Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

 

These displays were co-curated with members of Our Shared Cultural Heritage  Changemakers, a group of young people exploring the shared cultures and histories of the United Kingdom and South Asia.

 

Let us know how you think Glasgow Life Museums should address the histories and legacies of slavery and empire by scanning the QR code.

Scan this QR code to listen to a free audio tour and learn more about empire and Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

 

I include an example of a painting I saw on my quick visit in May 2026 as an example:

View of Glasgow and the Cathedral, about 1840

and placed next to the painting:

‘This painting shows Glasgow as seen from the Necropolis. The wealth of its donor, Alexander Dennistoun, came from cotton – an industry reliant on the exploitation of enslaved people until the 1860s.’

Chapter Three

The Museum in the Park

Local and Global History

‘Glocal History’

Some final brief thoughts

 

There is now an information board opposite the Black Boy clock in town with directions for a walk to the unique abolition arch at Paganhill. I suppose in an ideal world in the future there might be directions from there to the Museum in the Park with its linked exhibitions/exhibits.

 

The west country stretching from Bristol and Bath northwards through Gloucestershire was, of course, populated by a large number of enslavers who benefitted so much from abolition of chattel slavery. The Stroud area, too, of course. It might be salutary, I think, to see that information somewhere. But where?

 

Similarly, some Stroudwater mills did very well out of their contracts with the East India Company. Again, I think it would be educative for people to be able to discover this easily.

 

Then there are the connections between the cloth trade, uniforms, war, the British Empire, colonialism and the locality. I have written extensively on these topics at www.radicalstroud.co.uk and even started to develop educational resources at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/decolonising-stroud-and-the-five-valleys/

 

As regards migration and railways, I noticed the old sign post for the crossing at St Mary’s at Chalford – there is a fascinating history here that could, perhaps, feature quite soon. The following family history has been created into a collage with the family and that collage would be a brilliant addition: it’s a unique tale.

Roydel Duncan and Zettelyn Duncan

Life on the Railway

Roydel Clifton Duncan (Roy):

Dad came to England from St Catherine Jamaica in 1956. He started working for British Rail in the early 1960’s at Stroud station as a station porter. He also did ticket office and shunting work and lighting the signal lamps. Dad would walk from Stroud Station through to Sapperton short and long tunnels. Dad had to leave his railway job because the wage was not sufficient for the family of my mum, my older brother and my sister.

 

Zettelyn Duncan

Zettelyn Zoana Duncan (Zetty):

Mum came to England from Westmoreland Jamaica in 1962.

Dad was notified of job vacancy on the railway. British Rail wanted a resident crossing keeper at St Mary’s level crossing. Dad and Mum were living at Horns Road Stroud at the time with my brother Carlton and sister Sharon. Mum was expecting a third child: brother– Tony in 1965. Tony would join Network Rail in 2001, based at St Mary’s level crossing and then Alstone Level crossing.

But Mum decided to apply for the job. The interview was at Bristol. British Railways accepted Mum’s application for the job. Mum would work at St Mary’s level crossing for the next 43 years under the guises of British Rail, Railtrack, and Network Rail. Mum worked the Crossing 24/7 except Thursday, when the railway gave mum a few hours off duty- what they called shopping hours. They would get a colleague to cover the Level crossing. Mum worked day and night all seasons, sun, rain or snow, working with levers to control the semaphore to Annetts Keys. She saw the change of the railway from steam trains to diesel trains operating on the railway lines.

Mum went to Railway Management about her working conditions; they eventually changed her working hours. In 1991 Mum got a 25th Anniversary award. Mum was presented with a clock by the British Railway regional manager. When Mum retired in March 2009, I took Mum’s position and presently work and live at St Mary’s level Crossing.

 

Isaac

Isaac Duncan

 

Back to overall context: obviously, the last thing I want to do is to create traction for any ‘culture-wars’, I’m just trying to see how a few gaps might be filled in the heritage jigsaw: I wonder if we could create a pop-up museum and seek funding from somewhere alongside Black Ark Media. Perhaps SVA could provide space … thoughts for the future.

 

I conclude with an article from Good on Paper that I wrote for our exhibition at SVA. I use much of this piece as an introduction to talks I give to local history societies and other groups.

Thank you for your time,

Stuart

 

Stroud Scarlet Exhibition SVA November Radical Stroud

 

I can’t truthfully say I’m a local. I wasn’t born here. My gran was in 1891, though, and Granny Bingham’s family stretch back to Steanbridge and Slad and the early 18th century. They were handloom weavers and spinners – so I suppose you could say that my family have been connected to Stroud scarlet for centuries. It was family history that brought me to Stroud: I like to feel connected to a place through time.

Then when I read about weavers’ strikes and direct action and how Lieutenant Wolfe (the future General Wolfe who would be killed in the redcoats’ storming of Quebec in 1759) led redcoat soldiers against the people who made the cloth for their redcoats, my interest in the world-famous Stroud scarlet took me way beyond the familial and the parochial. To the global.

But before that, here are some observations from Colonel Wolfe about our locality: ‘The people are so oppressed, so poor and so wretched, that they will, perhaps, hazard a knock on the pate for bread and clothes.’ ‘The poor half-starved weavers…beg about the country for food…the masters have beat down their wages too low to live upon, and I believe it is a just complaint.’ ‘Those who are most oppressed have seized the tools and broke the looms of others who would work if they could.’

Now to the global – I began to wonder if Stroud scarlet might have been carried to Bristol and then on to Africa as part of the Atlantic slave trade. I knew the cloth had been traded with the Iroquois; and traded with other First Nations peoples, way beyond the Mississippi, and was fundamental to the dark arts of the East India Company on the other side of the world. But it was difficult to categorically prove that Stroud scarlet went directly to Africa even though it felt counter-intuitive that it would not have done. After all, coaches and carts travelled from here to Bristol, and vessels from Gloucester to Bristol: and Bristol was for a while in the 18th century, the foremost port involved in the enslavement of African peoples.

But my focus shifted after reading more widely on enslavement, the enslaving plantocracy in the West Indies, and the military infrastructure that ultimately underpinned plantocratic power in the British colonies in the Caribbean via martial law. For not only would you have found regiments clad in red – but plantation owners and the like would often deliberately wear red clothing to intimidate the enslaved. Vincent Brown in his Tacky’s Revolt The Story of an Atlantic Trade War mentioned the observations of one James Knight: ‘’When [the slaves] see the White People Muster or Exercise, it strikes an awe or terrour into them.” ‘Brown wrote that ‘Slaves generally avoided anyone wearing a red coat, like those worn by grenadiers’ …  and in consequence “some Gentlemen put on a coat of that Colour when they Travell” to deter trouble on the roads.’

Further, it is a salutary thing, perhaps, to reflect on the following when visiting the abolition arch in Paganhill: the enslaved were not free immediately after the 1834 Abolition Act; instead, a four year ‘apprenticeship’ followed. Direct action followed from freedom-seekers in Guiana, Montserrat, Nevis, and Jamaica, and as Padraic X. Scanlon reported in Slave Empire How Slavery Built Modern Britain ‘redcoats’ were used as last resort to quell these demands for freedom: for example, in Jamaica, the 39th Regiment was called into action: two companies under the command of Sir Henry Macleod: ‘The strikers, faced with ranks of armed redcoats, returned to work, and Macleod left behind one of his two companies to maintain order.’

The 18th and 19th centuries were a time of almost endemic war for this country. Warfare against France; warfare against other European powers, war at sea, war on land, and colonial warfare across the globe. Our exhibition will reflect this age of imperial expansion – not just by remembering Stroud scarlet cloth and redcoats, but also with poems from Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipliing and Sir Henry Newbolt. It might have been said that ‘The sun never sets on the British Empire’ but as the Chartist poet, Ernest Jones commented, ‘And the blood never dries.’

Our exhibition reflects this interweaving of the local, the national, and the global (can such a thing as ‘local history’ really exist?) and will also advert to the age of the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, and Ecocide. The dye for the Stroud scarlet cloth came from the cochineal beetle: a sessile parasite that lives on the moisture and nutrients of cacti, that die when removed from the prickly pear, to be dried for the resultant carmine dye. And all that meant ‘slash and burn’ in the Americas, so as to cultivate the prickly pear, so as to extract the carminic acid from the female cochineal beetle (about one fifth of the body weight), by immersing the female cochineal in hot water, steam, ovens or sunlight in an exploitation of both fauna and flora: One lb. of carmine dye needed 70,000 insects.

Our exhibition will reveal this broad canvas of history, with contributions from Charlotte Rooney, Jon Seagrave (aka Jonny Fluffypunk), Paul Southcott, Deb Roberts, and myself. The exhibition is on at SVA from Friday November 11th  – Saturday November 19th  (10-3pm; closed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) .  There will be a spoken word event on Friday 11th at 7.30 in the bar; a walk (meet at SVA) Sunday November 13th 11-2, and a talk in the gallery Wednesday 16th November 11 a.m. Full details at  https://www.sva.org.uk/events/stroud-scarlet-war-and-empire

 

Stuart Butler

Addendum

Visited today:
“Global Plymouth – a new journey

This gallery is changing. The Box is having conversations with audiences, artists and communities to create change in how we interpret and display objects from the collection. Feedback given so far highlights the importance of talking about the continuing impacts of colonialism. What can objects tell us about Plymouth’s role in the British Empire? How have colonisation and Empire impacted global communities and environments? You can be part of the conversation too.
Thousands of artefacts from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania are stored here at The Box. Most of them arrived in Plymouth in the late 1800s and early 1900s, at the height of the British Empire. If objects could speak, every one of them would have stories to tell about who made them and why they were significant to their community, and also about colonial violence, racism or exploitation. But their story has often been told from just one perspective – that of the colonisers. We want The Box to be a place where we explore different stories. What can we learn from our shared global past to create a better future together?”
All the best,
Paul

Paul Wyeth