Bristol Pride parade 2023
Celebrate and discover Bristol LGBTQ+ lives from the past!
OutStories Bristol present a day of fascinating talks at Bristol’s M Shed Museum featuring stories of LGBTQ+ people in the Bristol region over the last 150 years.
- John Addington Symonds (1840-1893), a Bristol-born literary scholar who wrote pioneering texts on homosexuality,
- Bristol Ballroom community – a dance culture that particularly welcomes queer, trans and people of colour,
- a Bristol-born seafarer who became a gay rights activist,
- the BLAST! Collective who have been capturing the history of lesbian self-organised groups in Bristol,
- 30 years of Bristol LGBTQIA+ group Freedom Youth.
Saturday 14th February 2026, 10:30am to 4:30pm
M Shed, Princes Wharf, Wapping Road, Bristol BS1 4RN
Getting there Access
The event will be held in the Studio Room on the first floor, upstairs from the main entrance.
Entry is free and open to everyone. Booking is not required – just come and go as you wish.
There will also be information stalls for various local LGBTQ+ community groups.
Programme
10:30am Event opens
10:45am – 11am Welcome Andrew Foyle, OutStories Bristol
11am – 11:40am Alex Taylor: The Life of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)
11:50am – 12:30pm Bristol Ballroom Community
12:30pm – 1:30pm Lunch break
1:30pm – 2:10pm Dr Jo Stanley: Gay Bristol seafarer shapes UK LGBTQ+ history
2:20pm – 3pm The BLAST! Collective: Creating a lesbian archive for Bristol
3:10pm – 3:50pm Jack Shoulder: 30 years of Freedom Youth
3:50pm – 4pm Closing thanks
4:30pm Event closes. Visitors must leave the building before 5pm.
About the talks
“The life we live inwardly is the true life, that which we live in open day is but its outward shadow”. The life of John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)
This talk will explore the life of John Addington Symonds through the lens of his personal papers held at the University of Bristol Special Collections. Between September 2024 and July 2025, the Symonds papers were re-catalogued following a generous philanthropic donation.
Outwardly, Symonds appeared the archetypal Victorian man of letters: married with four children, published widely, and connected to prominent intellectual and literary circles of the day. Inwardly, Symonds’ thoughts and feelings were radically transgressive. He wrote and printed privately pioneering texts on classical and contemporary homosexuality, engaged in extra-marital affairs with same-sex lovers and fashioned an international community of like-minded queer people. This talk aims to illuminate Symonds’ career as literary scholar, his connection to the city of Bristol, and his personal life as a queer man.
The talk will be given by Alexander Taylor, an archivist working at the University of Bristol. Between 2024-2025 he catalogued the personal papers of Symonds.
Bristol Ballroom Community
A local dance culture that particularly welcomes queer, trans and people of colour
(details of their presentation are to be provided later).
Gay Bristol seafarer shapes UK LGBTQ+ history
Mick Belsten
Historian Dr Jo Stanley presents a highly-illustrated talk about the late Mick Belsten (1934-90), a seafarer who grew up in Shirehampton and became a gay rights activist. A P&O steward to Australia in the 1960s, Mick went on to lead Gay Liberation Front media activism in pre-Pride London and to work for Gay Times.
Dr Jo Stanley is a Research Fellow at the Universities of Hull and Liverpool, and a historian, writer and consultant on the gendered seas. She has researched Mick’s family and friends. From her oral history work with LGBTQI+ seafarers from 1940s-1990s, she gives the background to Mick’s pioneering generation of gay activists from the 1960s. With Paul Baker, Jo co-wrote Hello Sailor! The Hidden History of Gay Life at Sea, and co-curated the path-breaking exhibition of the same name at Merseyside Maritime Museum. She chairs the Global Seas in Maritime Museums Global Working Party. Her social media includes www.jostanley.biz and https://genderedseas.blogspot.com.
Note: Jo’s talk will be specially relayed to the venue via webcast.
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Creating a Lesbian Archive for Bristol
The BLAST! Collective has brought together memories and memorabilia that tell the stories of some of the self-organised lesbian activities in Bristol from the 1980’s to 2020. These materials will initiate Bristol’s first Lesbian Archive. During our presentation we will talk about:
- why creating a Lesbian Archive for Bristol is so important.
- what we did to collect materials.
- what our collection tells us so far about lesbian life in Bristol over the decades.
- how you can contribute to the Archive in the future.
The talk will be presented by members of the BLAST! Collective. We are a group of older lesbians involved in a range of self-organised lesbian groups over the decades in Bristol (and beyond).
30 years of Freedom Youth
Freedom Youth has been working to support LGBTQIA+ young people in Bristol since 1995, making it one of the longest continually running support services of its kind in the world. We will explore some of the stories from the last 30 years and the impact the group has had on Bristol.
There will be a mini-display of objects and memories from the last 30 years as part of the event, and a chance for people to share their memories of the group too.
Jack Shoulder is a project coordinator at Freedom, working with LGBTQIA+ young people aged 11-18 and their parents and carers. He curated the Freedom: Past, Present and Future exhibition to celebrate the group’s 30th anniversary. He is also a writer, researcher and historian of queer histories; he can often be found in museums and galleries sharing these histories with people like you!
Our thanks to …. Bristol Museums for hosting this day of talks at M Shed.
We regret that we are unable to webcast this event or provide a recording.
