Ada Vachell: a life
The story of feminist and champion of the rights of disabled people, Ada Vachell, and how she created the Bristol Guild.
Our evacuation diary, 1939
Ann, a volunteer researcher in Liverpool, shares excerpts from a handwritten diary that was kept by students of the Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool upon their evacuation in 1939.
Launch of our film about the Guild in Bristol
Young people involved in creating a film about the ‘Guild of the Brave Poor Things’ in Bristol presented the film they created and discussed how to approach the language of the past.
No drinking, brawling or blasphemy
Some of the rules imposed on those using almshouses were common sense, others seem draconian to us now, but places were limited, and people who were accepted probably felt very lucky.
Sensing the past: reimagining life in a now empty building
At last our researchers get to see inside the building they have been learning about in the archives for eight months – and respond to it creatively.
‘Poor pilgrims falling sick’
Ann continues tracing almshouses beyond the medieval period, and discovers what happened to pilgrims who fell mortally ill.
‘Out brothers and in sisters’: 600 years of Eastbridge Hospital
Some hospitals survived for hundreds of years, providing sanctuary – and gathering idiosyncratic rules and one or two myths.
Tender of their persons, and zealous of their rights: William Somner, a Canterbury hero
At a time of huge national upheaval during and after the Civil War, was there anyone around who still cared about England’s almshouses? Yes.
Liberation architecture: Maggie Davis and the birth of independent living
Maggie and Ken Davis were told it was impossible for them to live anywhere except in an institution. But 40 years ago today, they moved into the home they designed themselves. It marked the beginning of the Independent Living Movement.
Restless sleepers
An epidemic of ‘sleepy sickness’ swept through the US and Europe between 1916 – 27, immortalised by Oliver Sacks’ ‘Awakenings’. Some survivors attended the Guild in Bristol, with a variety of post-encephalitic symptoms. Grace Morgan-Tait investigates.