Bridgwater’s popular ‘History Day’ is set this year for Saturday 23rd November and will run from 10am until 4pm at the Bridgwater Arts Centre. No tickets are needed, just turn up, and there’s a free (historical) lunch as well. The event is sponsored by Bridgwater Town Council and Bridgwater & Taunton College and has now been running for 10 years with capacity audiences on each occaision. Different local historians will take to the stage and present aspects of Bridgwater’s interesting history while stalls will be available in the gallery space with a historical theme. This years event includes talks rannging from Bridgwater’s role in the English Civil war to Bridgwater’s place in the Beat Music scene of the 1960’s. Speakers will include County Archaelogist Bob Croft, Bridgwater College History lecturer Sarah Ball and Town Council Leader Brian Smedley. There will also be seevral short films from historians Miles Kerr-Peterson and Tony Woolrich covering Bridgwater in the 1790’s, John Chubb, the Castle and Bridgwater’s oldest pub. Food will be provided by Lesley Gates who this year will do a ‘Civil war’ theme. Town Council Leader Brian Smedley says “Bridgwater people love their history and quite rightly so. This is the town which was the first to call for the ending of the Slave Trade, the first to call for an end to appeasement in the 1930s, the last battle on English soil and the first place where 18 year olds could vote. These evets are really popular and every year there’s something new to uncover in our radical, revolutionary, riveting, rebel past!”
Compere for the 2024 event will be Bridgwater’s Deputy Mayor Cllr Kathy Pearce
1030 Opening by Mayor of Bridgwater Cllr Jacqui Solomon
1035-1115 Sam Astill (Chief Executive of Southwest Heritage Trust) will be speaking on “Harry Salter, the Bridgwater soldier who was ‘shot at dawn’ in Gallipoli 1915.”
1115-1120 Film ‘Who was John Chubb?’ (Tony Woolrich)
1120-1200 Bob Croft, County Archaeologist, will talk about “ Archaeological discoveries at Hinkley Point”– Bob Croft (SWHT)
1200-1205 Film ‘Bridgwater in the 1790s’ – based on Chubb’s Lithographs (Tony Woolrich)
1205-1245 Sarah Ball, Bridgwater CollegeHistory Lecturer will speak on “Bridgwater and the Civil War”
1245-1345 historical Lunchbreak
1345-1425 Former Bridgwater Arts Centre Manager and archivistDave Edneywill present “The Top Twenty Club. – When Bridgwater was Fab.” The story of the Town Hall Beat club of the 1960s
1425-1430 Film ‘How big was Bridgwater Castle? (Miles Kerr-Peterson)
1430-1520 Brian Smedley, Town Council Leader, will do an interactive session on ‘Bridgwater’s Top 10 Radicals’
1520-1525 Film ‘What’s the Oldest Pub in Bridgwater?’ (Miles Kerr-Peterson)