Posted on August 18, 2026 by Fay Curtis.

Jazzing up the archives: The beginnings of jazz in Bristol

In today’s blog, Hugh highlights the Bristol-based jazz scene that John Berry documented in his interviews.

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Fay Whitfield.

Jazzing up the Archives: Bristol’s Wartime Jazz Scene

By Mary Milton, Rights Clearance and Cataloguing Mentor, Sounds of the South West Project In today’s blog, Mary discusses John Berry and his interviews exploring the jazz scene in Bristol during the Second World War. John is a Bristol musician and …

Posted on May 13, 2026 by Fay Whitfield.

Jazzing up the archives: introducing John Berry

By Mary Milton, Rights Clearance and Cataloguing Mentor, Sounds of the South West Project Sounds of the South West (SotSW) is a National Lottery Heritage funded project, run by Archives South West at Bristol Archives. The project is digitising, cat…

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Saffron Smolka.

Summer family fun round up: Roman feasts and railway adventures

What a summer it’s been! Over the last month, our six Bristol Museums sites welcomed families for a packed programme of family fun activities. From Roman history to railway heritage, we offered something for everyone – and we loved seeing so many o…

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Fay Whitfield.

Exploring the Empire: My Work Placement at the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection

By Justine Aleria, University of Bristol Department of Anthropology and Archaeology work placement (2024) As an Anthropology and Archaeology student at the University of Bristol, an interest in histories of empire and colonialism comes with the t…

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Fay Whitfield.

Researching Art, Sculpture, Design and Print using the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection

By Ellie Pridgeon, BECC Senior Archivist I have learnt much about British Empire & Commonwealth Collection (BECC) and its diverse and fascinating contents since joining as Senior Archivist in September 2023. Having a background History of Art mean…

Posted on August 27, 2024 by Saffron Smolka.

Sounds Good? Meet the Sounds of the South West team

Earlier this year Bristol Archives received the good news that The National Lottery Heritage Fund had awarded them £175,000 for Sounds of the South West, a new regional audio digitisation project. Archives, currently stored on outdated formats such as re…

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Fay Whitfield.

Keeping connected with the BECC online catalogue

By Frances Davies, Documentation Assistant, British Empire & Commonwealth Collection Back in 2021 we launched a new British Empire & Commonwealth Collection (BECC) online catalogue – it acts as the gateway and first-port-of-call to find out wha…

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Alice Bush.

New discoveries: Artwork by Risham Syed

It’s wonderful when we uncover new bits of information about our collections as has happened with an artwork within the British Empire & Commonwealth Collection (BECC). Recent visitors to the museum store spotted the work and suggested it was by t…

Posted on July 4, 2023 by Alice Bush.

Rare witness statement reveals tragic story of executed gay couple

By Mary Milton, Archives Officer, Bristol Archives Staff at Bristol Archives have made an important discovery about the case of William Critchard and Richard Arnold, two men executed in 1753 for what was then described as “the detestable crime of buggery…

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