Chapter 31

_History._--Bristol (Brigstow, Bristou, Bristow, Bristole) is one of the best examples of a town that has owed its greatness entirely to trade. It was never a shire town or the site of a great religious house, and it owed little to its position as the head of a feudal lordship, or as a military post. Though it is near both British and Roman camps, there is no evidence of a British or Roman settlement. It was the western limit of the Saxon invasion of Britain, and about the year 1000 a Saxon settlement began to grow up at the junction of the rivers Frome and Avon, the natural advantages of the situation favouring the growth of the township. Bristol owed much to Danish rule, and during the reign of Canute, when the wool trade with Ireland began, it became the market for English slaves. In the reign of Edward the Confessor the town was included in the earldom of Sweyn Godwinsson, and at the date of the Domesday survey it was already a royal borough governed by a reeve appointed by the king as overlord, the king's geld being assessed at 110 marks. There was a mint at the time of the Conquest, which proves that Bristol must have been already a place of some size, though the fact that the town was a member of the royal manor of Baston shows that its importance was still of recent growth. One-third of the geld was paid to Geoffrey de Coutances, bishop of Exeter, who threw up the earthworks of the castle. He joined in a rebellion against William II., and after his death the king granted the town and castle, as part of the honour of Gloucester, to Robert FitzHamon, whose daughter Mabel, marrying Earl Robert of Gloucester in 1119, brought him Bristol as her dowry. Earl Robert still further strengthened the castle, probably with masonry, and involved Bristol in the rebellion against Stephen. From the castle he harried the whole neighbourhood, threatened Bath, and sold his prisoners as slaves to Ireland. A contemporary chronicler describes Bristol castle as "seated on a mighty mound, and garrisoned with knights and foot soldiers or rather robbers and raiders," and he calls Bristol the stepmother of England.

The history of the charters granted to Bristol begins about this time. A charter granted by Henry II. in 1172 exempted the burgesses of Bristol from certain tolls throughout the kingdom, and confirmed existing liberties. Another charter of the same year granted the city of Dublin to the men of Bristol as a colony with the same liberties as their own town.

As a result probably of the close connexion between Bristol and Ireland the growth of the wool trade was maintained. Many Bristol men settled in Dublin, which for a long time was a Bristol beyond the seas, its charters being almost duplicates of those granted to Bristol. About this time Bristol began to export wool to the Baltic, and had developed a wine trade with the south of France, while soap-making and tanning were flourishing industries. Bristol was still organized manorially rather than municipally. Its chief courts were the weekly hundred court and the court leet held three times a year, and presided over by the reeve appointed by the earl of Gloucester. By the marriage of Earl John with the heiress of Earl William of Gloucester, Bristol became part of the royal demesne, the rent payable to the king being fixed, and the town shook off the feudal yoke. The charter granted by John in 1190 was an epoch in the history of the borough. It provided that no burgess should be impleaded without the walls, that no non-burgess should sell wine, cloth, wool, leather or corn in Bristol, that all should hold by burgage tenure, that corn need not be ground at the lord's mill, and that the burgesses should have all their reasonable gilds. At some uncertain date soon after this a commune was established in Bristol on the French model, Robert FitzNichol, the first mayor of Bristol, taking the oath in 1200. The mayor was chosen, not, like the reeve whom he had displaced, by the overlord, but by the merchants of Bristol who were members of the merchant gild. The first documentary evidence of the existence of the merchant gild appears in 1242. In addition, there were many craft gilds (later at least twenty-six were known to exist), the most important being the gilds of the weavers, tuckers and fullers, and the Gild of the Kalendars of Bristol, which devoted itself to religious, educational and social work. The mayor of Bristol was helped by two assistants, who were called provosts until 1267, and from 1267 to 1311 were known as stewards, and after that date as bailiffs. Before this time many religious houses had been founded. Earl Robert of Gloucester established the Benedictine priory of St James; there were Dominican and Franciscan priories, a monastery of Carmelites, and an abbey of St Augustine founded by Robert FitzHardinge.

In the reign of John, Bristol began the struggle to absorb the neighbouring manor of Bedminster, the eastern half of which was held by the Templars by gift of Earl Robert of Gloucester, and the western half, known as Redcliffe, was sold by the same earl to Robert FitzHardinge, afterwards Lord Berkeley. The [v.04 p.0581] Templars acquiesced without much difficulty, but the wealthy owners of the manor of Redcliffe, who had their own manorial courts, market, fair and quay, resisted the union for nearly one hundred years. In 1247 a new course was cut for the river Frome which vastly improved the harbour, and in the same year a stone bridge was built over the Avon, bringing Temple and Redcliffe into closer touch with the city. The charter granted by Henry III. in 1256 was important. It gave the burgesses the right to choose coroners, and as they already farmed the geld payable to the king, Bristol must have been practically independent of the king. The growing exclusiveness of the merchant gild led to the great insurrection of 1312. The oligarchical party was supported by the Berkeleys, but the opposition continued their rebellion until 1313, when the town was besieged and taken by the royal forces. During the reign of Edward III. cloth manufacture developed in Bristol. Thomas Blanket set up looms in 1337, employing many foreign workmen, and in 1353 Bristol was made one of the Staple towns, the office of mayor of the staple being held by the mayor of the town.

The charter of 1373 extended the boundaries of the town to include Redcliffe (thus settling the long-standing dispute) and the waters of the Avon and Severn up to the Steep and Flat Holmes; and made Bristol a county in itself, independent of the county courts, with an elected sheriff, and a council of forty to be chosen by the mayor and sheriff. The town was divided into five wards, each represented by an alderman, the aldermen alone being eligible for the mayoralty. This charter (confirmed in 1377 and 1488) was followed by the period of Bristol's greatest prosperity, the era of William Canyng, of the foundation of the Society of Merchant Venturers, and of the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot. William Canyng (1399-1474) was five times mayor and twice represented Bristol in parliament; he carried on a huge cloth trade with the Baltic and rebuilt St Mary Redcliffe. At the same time cloth was exported by Bristol merchants to France, Spain and the Levant. The records of the Society of Merchant Venturers began in 1467, and the society increased in influence so rapidly that in 1500 it directed all the foreign trade of the city and had a lease of the port dues. It was incorporated in 1552, and received other charters in 1638 and 1662. Henry VII. granted Bristol a charter in 1499 (confirmed in 1510) which removed the theoretically popular basis of the corporation by the provision that the aldermen were to be elected by the mayor and council. At the dissolution of the monasteries the diocese of Bristol was founded, which included the counties of Bristol and Dorset. The voyages of discovery in which Bristol had played a conspicuous part led to a further trade development. In the 16th century Bristol traded with Spain, the Canaries and the Spanish colonies in America, shared in the attempt to colonize Newfoundland, and began the trade in African slaves which flourished during the 17th century. Bristol took a great share in the Civil War and was three times besieged. Charles II. granted a formal charter of incorporation in 1664, the governing body being the mayor, 12 aldermen, 30 common councilmen, 2 sheriffs, 2 coroners, a town clerk, clerk of the peace and 39 minor officials, the governing body itself filling up all vacancies in its number. In the 18th century the cloth trade declined owing to the competition of Ireland and to the general migration of manufactures to the northern coalfields, but the prosperity of the city was maintained by the introduction of manufactures of iron, brass, tin and copper, and by the flourishing West Indian trade, sugar being taken in exchange for African slaves.

The hot wells became fashionable in the reign of Anne (who granted a charter in 1710), and a little later Bristol was the centre of the Methodist revival of Whitefield and Wesley. The city was small, densely populated and dirty, with dark, narrow streets, and the mob gained an unenviable notoriety for violence in the riots of 1708, 1753, 1767 and 1831. At the beginning of the 19th century it was obvious that the prosperity of Bristol was diminishing, comparatively if not actually, owing to (1) the rise of Liverpool, which had more natural facilities as a port than Bristol could offer, (2) the abolition of the slave trade, which ruined the West Indian sugar trade, and (3) the extortionate rates levied by the Bristol Dock Company, incorporated in 1803. These rates made competition with Liverpool and London impossible, while other tolls were levied by the Merchant Venturers and the corporation. The decline was checked by the efforts of the Bristol chamber of commerce (founded in 1823) and by the Municipal Reform Act of 1835. The new corporation, consisting of 48 councillors and 16 aldermen who elected the mayor, being themselves chosen by the burgesses of each ward, bought the docks in 1848 and reduced the fees. In 1877-1880 the docks at the mouth of the river at Avonmouth and Portishead were made, and these were bought by the corporation in 1884. A revival of trade, rapid increase of population and enlargement of the boundaries of the city followed. The chief magistrate became a lord mayor in 1899.

See J. Corry, _History of Bristol_ (Bristol, 1816); J. Wallaway, _Antiquities_ (1834); J. Evans, _Chronological History of Bristol_ (1824); Bristol vol. of _Brit. Archaeol. Inst._; J.F. Nicholl and J. Taylor, _Bristol Past and Present_ (Bristol and London, 1882); W. Hunt, _Bristol_, in "Historic Towns" series (London, 1887); J. Latimer, _Annals of Bristol_ (various periods); G.E. Weare, _Collectanea relating to the Bristol Friars_ (Bristol, 1893); Samuel Seyer, _History of Bristol and Bristol Charters_ (1812); _The Little Red Book of Bristol_ (1900); _The Maior's Kalendar_ (Camden Soc., 1872); _Victoria County History, Gloucester_.

BRISTOL, a borough of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the Delaware river, opposite Burlington, New Jersey, 20 m. N.E. of Philadelphia. Pop. (1890) 6553; (1900) 7104 (1134 foreign-born); (1910) 9256. It is served by the Pennsylvania railway. The borough is built on level ground elevated several feet above the river, and in the midst of an attractive farming country. The principal business houses are on Mill Street; while Radcliffe Street extends along the river. Among Bristol's manufacturing establishments are machine shops, rolling mills, a planing mill, yarn, hosiery and worsted mills, and factories for making carpets, wall paper and patent leather. Bath Springs are located just outside the borough limits; though not so famous as they were early in the 18th century, these springs are still well known for the medicinal properties of their chalybeate waters. Bristol was one of the first places to be settled in Pennsylvania after William Penn received his charter for the province in 1681, and from its settlement until 1725 it was the seat of government of the county. It was laid out in 1697 and was incorporated as a borough in 1720; the present charter, however, dates only from 1851.

BRISTOL, the shire-township of Bristol county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., about 15 m. S.S.E. of Providence, between Narragansett Bay on the W. and Mount Hope Bay on the E., thus being a peninsula. Pop. (1900) 6901, of whom 1923 were foreign-born; (1905; state census) 7512; (1910) 8565; area 12 sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Rhode Island Suburban railways, and is connected with the island of Rhode Island by ferry. Mount Hope (216 ft.), on the eastern side, commands delightful views of landscape, bay and river scenery. Elsewhere in the township the surface is gently undulating and generally well adapted to agriculture, especially to the growing of onions. A small island, Hog Island, is included in the township. The principal village, also known as Bristol, is a port of entry with a capacious and deep harbour, has manufactories of rubber and woollen goods, and is well known as a yacht-building centre, several defenders of the America's Cup, including the "Columbia" and the "Reliance," having been built in the Herreshoff yards here. At the close of King Philip's War in 1676, Mount Hope Neck (which had been the seat of the vanquished sachem), with most of what is now the township of Bristol, was awarded to Plymouth Colony. In 1680, immediately after Plymouth had conveyed the "Neck" to a company of four, the village was laid out; the following year, in anticipation of future commercial importance, the township and the village were named Bristol, from the town in England. The township became the shire-township in 1685, passed under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in 1692, and in 1747 was annexed to Rhode Island. During the War of Independence the village was bombarded by the British on the 7th of October 1775, but [v.04 p.0582] suffered little damage; on the 25th of May 1778 it was visited and partially destroyed by a British force.

BRISTOL, a city of Sullivan county, Tennessee, and Washington county, Virginia, U.S.A., 130 m. N.E. of Knoxville, Tennessee, at an altitude of about 1700 ft. Pop. (1880) 3209; (1890) 6226; (1900) 9850 (including 1981 negroes); (1910) 13,395, of whom 7148 were in Tennessee and 6247 were in Virginia. Bristol is served by the Holston Valley, the Southern, the Virginia & South-Western, and the Norfolk & Western railways, and is a railway centre of some importance. It is near the great mineral deposits of Virginia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina; an important distributing point for iron, coal and coke; and has tanneries and lumber mills, iron furnaces, tobacco factories, furniture factories and packing houses. It is the seat of Sullins College (Methodist Episcopal, South; 1870) for women, and of the Virginia Institute for Women (Baptist, 1884), both in the state of Virginia, and of a normal college for negroes, on the Tennessee side of the state line. The Tennessee-Virginia boundary line runs through the principal street, dividing the place into two separate corporations, the Virginia part, which before 1890 (when it was chartered as a city) was known as Goodson, being administratively independent of the county in which it is situated. Bristol was settled about 1835, and the town of Bristol, Tennessee, was first incorporated in 1856.

BRISTOW, BENJAMIN HELM (1832-1896), American lawyer and politician, was born in Elkton, Kentucky, on the 20th of June 1832, the son of Francis Marion Bristow (1804-1864), a Whig member of Congress in 1854-1855 and 1859-1861. He graduated at Jefferson College, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1851, studied law under his father, and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1853. At the beginning of the Civil War he became lieutenant-colonel of the 25th Kentucky Infantry; was severely wounded at Shiloh; helped to recruit the 8th Kentucky Cavalry, of which he was lieutenant-colonel and later colonel; and assisted at the capture of John H. Morgan in July 1863. In 1863-1865 he was state senator; in 1865-1866 assistant United States district-attorney, and in 1866-1870 district-attorney for the Louisville district; and in 1870-1872, after a few months' practice of law with John M. Harlan, was the (first appointed) solicitor-general of the United States. In 1873 President Grant nominated him attorney-general of the United States in case George H. Williams were confirmed as chief justice of the United States,--a contingency which did not arise. As secretary of the treasury (1874-1876) he prosecuted with vigour the so-called "Whisky Ring," the headquarters of which was at St Louis, and which, beginning in 1870 or 1871, had defrauded the Federal government out of a large part of its rightful revenue from the distillation of whisky. Distillers and revenue officers in St Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and other cities were implicated, and the illicit gains--which in St Louis alone probably amounted to more than $2,500,000 in the six years 1870-1876--were divided between the distillers and the revenue officers, who levied assessments on distillers ostensibly for a Republican campaign fund to be used in furthering Grant's re-election. Prominent among the ring's alleged accomplices at Washington was Orville E. Babcock, private secretary to President Grant, whose personal friendship for Babcock led him to indiscreet interference in the prosecution. Through Bristow's efforts more than 200 men were indicted, a number of whom were convicted, but after some months' imprisonment were pardoned. Largely owing to friction between himself and the president, Bristow resigned his portfolio in June 1876; as secretary of the treasury he advocated the resumption of specie payments and at least a partial retirement of "greenbacks"; and he was also an advocate of civil service reform. He was a prominent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1876. After 1878 he practised law in New York City, where he died on the 22nd of June 1896.

See _Memorial of Benjamin Helm Bristow_, largely prepared by David Willcox (Cambridge, Mass., privately printed, 1897); _Whiskey Frauds_, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., Mis. Doc. No. 186; _Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring_ (Chicago, 1880), by John McDonald, who for nearly six years had been supervisor of internal revenue at St Louis,--a book by one concerned and to be considered in that light.

BRISTOW, HENRY WILLIAM (1817-1889), English geologist, son of Major-General H. Bristow, who served in the Peninsular War, was born on the 17th of May 1817. He was educated at King's College, London, under John Phillips, then professor of geology. In 1842 he was appointed assistant geologist on the Geological Survey, and in that service he remained for forty-six years, becoming director for England and Wales in 1872, and retiring in 1888. He was elected F.R.S. in 1862. He died in London on the 14th of June 1889. His publications (see _Geol. Mag._, 1889, p. 384) include _A Glossary of Mineralogy_ (1861) and _The Geology of the Isle of Wight_ (1862).

BRITAIN (Gr. [Greek: Pretanikai nêsoi, Brettania]; Lat. _Britannia_, rarely _Brittania_), the anglicized form of the classical name of England, Wales and Scotland, sometimes extended to the British Isles as a whole (_Britannicae Insulae_). The Greek and Roman forms are doubtless attempts to reproduce a Celtic original, the exact form of which is still matter of dispute. Brittany (Fr. _Bretagne_) in western France derived its name from Britain owing to migrations in the 5th and 6th century A.D. The personification of Britannia as a female figure may be traced back as far as the coins of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (early 2nd century A.D.); its first appearance on modern coins is on the copper of Charles II. (see NUMISMATICS).

In what follows, the archaeological interest of early Britain is dealt with, in connexion with the history of Britain in Pre-Roman, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon days; this account being supplementary to the articles ENGLAND; ENGLISH HISTORY; SCOTLAND, &c.

PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN

Geologists are not yet agreed when and by whom Britain was first peopled. Probably the island was invaded by a succession of races. The first, the Paleolithic men, may have died out or retired before successors arrived. During the Neolithic and Bronze Ages we can dimly trace further immigrations. Real knowledge begins with two Celtic invasions, that of the Goidels in the later part of the Bronze Age, and that of the Brythons and Belgae in the Iron Age. These invaders brought Celtic civilization and dialects. It is uncertain how far they were themselves Celtic in blood and how far they were numerous enough to absorb or obliterate the races which they found in Britain. But it is not unreasonable to think that they were no mere conquering caste, and that they were of the same race as the Celtic-speaking peoples of the western continent. By the age of Julius Caesar all the inhabitants of Britain, except perhaps some tribes of the far north, were Celts in speech and customs. Politically they were divided into separate and generally warring tribes, each under its own princes. They dwelt in hill forts with walls of earth or rude stone, or in villages of round huts sunk into the ground and resembling those found in parts of northern Gaul, or in subterranean chambered houses, or in hamlets of pile-dwellings constructed among the marshes. But, at least in the south, market centres had sprung up, town life was beginning, houses of a better type were perhaps coming into use, and the southern tribes employed a gold coinage and also a currency of iron bars or ingots, attested by Caesar and by surviving examples, which weigh roughly, some two-thirds of a pound, some 2-2/3 lb, but mostly 1-1/3 lb. In religion, the chief feature was the priesthood of Druids, who here, as in Gaul, practised magical arts and barbarous rites of human sacrifice, taught a secret lore, wielded great influence, but, at least as Druids, took ordinarily no part in politics. In art, these tribes possessed a native Late Celtic fashion, descended from far-off Mediterranean antecedents and more directly connected with the La-Tène culture of the continental Celts. Its characteristics were a flamboyant and fantastic treatment of plant and animal (though not of human) forms, a free use of the geometrical device called the "returning spiral," and much skill in enamelling. Its finest products were in bronze, but the artistic impulse spread to humbler work in wood and pottery. The late Celtic age was one which genuinely delighted in beauty of form and detail. In this it resembled the middle ages rather than the Roman empire or the present day, and it resembled [v.04 p.0583] them all the more in that its love of beauty, like theirs, was mixed with a feeling for the fantastic and the grotesque. The Roman conquest of northern Gaul (57-50 B.C.) brought Britain into definite relation with the Mediterranean. It was already closely connected with Gaul, and when Roman civilization and its products invaded Gallia Belgica, they passed on easily to Britain. The British coinage now begins to bear Roman legends, and after Caesar's two raids (55, 54 B.C.) the southern tribes were regarded at Rome, though they do not seem to have regarded themselves, as vassals. Actual conquest was, however, delayed. Augustus planned it. But both he and his successor Tiberius realized that the greater need was to consolidate the existing empire, and absorb the vast additions recently made to it by Pompey, Caesar and Augustus.

ROMAN BRITAIN