YEAR Six students from St John’s Church of England Primary School in Midsomer Norton recently visited Bristol to explore the city's Georgian history and its connections to the transatlantic slave trade.
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In September, the Year Six class undertook a trip to Bristol to examine the city’s Georgian history. The children discovered that the Georgian era was a period of industrialisation for Bristol, driven by its access to the Atlantic Ocean and emerging global trading networks.
As part of their investigation, they journeyed by boat along the Harbourside to learn more about Bristol’s connections to the transatlantic slave trade from the perspective of a young Bristolian sailor.
They learned that many Bristolian merchants profited significantly from the trafficking of enslaved people, who were taken from Africa and transported across the Atlantic to the Americas. Much of this money was subsequently reinvested into the city to build public buildings such as hospitals and schools.
The trip also included a visit to the M Shed, where the children had the opportunity to act as information detectives, gathering further information about Georgian Bristol. There, they saw the Colston statue lying horizontally in the museum, having been toppled at the Harbourside in 2020.