Bristol received a royal charter in 1155. It was part of Gloucestershire until 1373 when it became a county in its own right. From the 13th to the 18th century, it ranked among the top three English cities after London, along with York and Norwich, until the rapid rise of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham in the Industrial Revolution.

Bristol’s prosperity has been linked with the sea since its earliest days. The Port of Bristol was originally in the city centre before being moved to the Severn Estuary at Avonmouth. The town of Brycgstow (‘the place at the bridge’) appears to have been founded by 1000 and by c1020 was an important enough trading centre to possess its own mint. Under Norman rule the town acquired one of the strongest castles in southern England.

By the 12th century Bristol was an important port, handling much of England’s trade with Ireland. Bristol also became a centre of shipbuilding and manufacturing. Between a third and half of the population were lost during the Black Death of 1348–49.

In the 15th century, Bristol was the second most important port in the country, and the starting point for many important voyages such as John Cabot’s 1497 voyage of exploration to North America.

Renewed growth came with the 17th century rise of England’s American colonies and the rapid 18th century expansion of England’s role in the Atlantic trade of Africans taken for slavery in the Americas. During the height of the slave trade, from 1700 to 1807, more than 2,000 slaving ships were fitted out at Bristol, carrying a (conservatively) estimated half million people from Africa to the Americas and slavery.

Fishermen from Bristol began settling in Newfoundland permanently in larger numbers in the 17th century, establishing colonies at Bristol’s Hope and Cuper’s Cove.

Competition from Liverpool from c1760, the disruption of maritime commerce caused by wars with France (1793) and the abolition of the slave trade (1807) contributed to the city’s failure to keep pace with the newer manufacturing centres of the north of England and the West Midlands.

Nevertheless, Bristol’s population (66,000 in 1801) quintupled during the 19th century, supported by new industries and growing commerce. It was particularly associated with engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London, two pioneering Bristol-built oceangoing steamships, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge. John Wesley founded the very first Methodist Chapel, called the New Room, in Bristol in 1739.

Exclusive census data provided by www.TheGenealogist.co.uk shows many people working as mariners and dock porters or labourers across the 19th century. The site’s census analysis reveals that common surnames in the city in the 19th century included Morgan, Harris, James, Baker, White and Hill. In 1841, Phillips, Price, Webb and Allen were common; as were Clark, Bryant, Bennett, Cox and Pearce in 1911.

By 1901, some 330,000 people were living in Bristol and the city would grow steadily as the 20th century progressed. The city’s docklands were enhanced in the early 1900s with the opening of Royal Edward Dock.

Bristol suffered badly from Luftwaffe air raids in World War II, claiming some 1,300 lives of people living and working in the city, with nearly 100,000 buildings being damaged. See www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/bristol-record-office/ for details of Bristol Record Office. For further details of research resources and heritage sites to visit in the county, visit www.heritagehunter.co.uk/ .

In the print edition
Read about researching Channel Islands roots, and industry in South Wales, in Issue 4 of Discover Your Ancestors, out nowdiscoveryourancestors.co.uk