Bristol
Bristol names 7 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Bristol a city of England
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a city of England. It lies 118 miles due west from London. It is situated on the Avon, seven miles from the Severn, at the head of tidewater navigation. Bristol is noted for its capacious docks. The tides rise to the extraordinary height of forty feet, the greatest in Europe. The city has long had an extensive commerce with all parts of the world. Large coal mines are found near by. Glassware, pottery, and soap are manufactured in large quantities and exported to the British colonies. The total foreign business of the year is valued at about $65,000,000. There are large shipbuilding interests. The Great Western, the first steamship to make regular voyages across the Atlantic, was built here. Sebastian Cabot was born at Bristol. In his day Bristol was the chief seaport of Great Britain . Bristol ships visited the Newfoundland seal fisheries each year long before any European settlements were made in North America , and, indeed, Bristol merchants had been interested in explorations in the Atlantic before Columbus. The city and its business are growing rapidly. The present population is about one-third of a million. See England Within its comparatively narrow limits, Bristol must have been in general character and aspect not unlike what it is today--a busy, bustling, closely-packed city, full of the eager, active, surging life of commercial enterprise. Ostmen from Waterford and Dublin, Northmen from the Western Isles and the more distant Orkneys, and even from Norway itself, had long ago learnt to avoid the shock of the "Higra," the mighty current which still kept its heathen name derived from the seagod of their forefathers, and make it serve to float them into the safe and commodious harbour of Bristol, where a thousand ships could ride at anchor. As the great trading center of the west Bristol ranked as the third city in the kingdom, surpassed in importance only by Winchester and London. The most lucrative branch of its trade, however, reflects no credit on its burghers. All the eloquence of S. Wulfstan and all the sternness of the Conqueror had barely availed to check for a while their practice of kidnapping men for the Irish slave-market; and that the traffic was in full career in the latter years of Henry I, we learn from the experiences of the canons of Laon.--K. Norgate. Next to the capital, but next at an immense distance, stood Bristol, then the first English seaport. . . Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restoration, was struck by the splendor of the city. But his standard was not high; for he noted down as a wonder the circumstance that, in Bristol, a man might look round him and see nothing but houses. . . A few churches of eminent beauty rose out of a labyrinth of narrow lanes built upon vaults of no great solidity. If a coach or cart entered those alleys, there was danger that it would be wedged between the houses, and danger also that it would break in the cellars. Goods were therefore conveyed about the town almost exclusively in trucks drawn by dogs; and the richest inhabitants exhibited their wealth, not by riding in carriages, but by walking the streets with trains of servants in rich liveries and by keeping tables loaded with good cheer. The hospitality of the city was widely renowned, and especially the collations with which the sugar refiners regaled their visitors. . . . This luxury was supported by a thriving trade with the North American plantations and with the West Indies . The passion for colonial traffic was so strong that there was scarcely a small shopkeeper in Bristol who had not a venture on board of some ship bound for Virginia or the Antilles. Some of these venturers indeed were not of the most honourable kind. There was, in the Transatlantic possessions of the crown, a great demand for labor; and this demand was partly supplied by a system of crimping and kidnapping at the principal English seaports. Nowhere was this system in such active and extensive operation as at Bristol. . . . The number of houses appears, from the returns of the hearth-money, to have been, in the year 1685, just 5,300. . . . The population of Bristol must therefore have been about 29,000.--Lord Macaulay.
Bristol a cathedral city of England
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a cathedral city of England, a municipal and a parliamentary borough, situated partly in Gloucestershire, partly in Somersetshire, but forming a county in itself. It stands at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Frome, which unite within the city, Avon) whence the combined stream (the pursues a course of nearly 7 miles to the Bristol Channel. The town is built partly on low grounds, partly on eminences, and has some fine suburban dison the opposite tricts, such as Clifton, side of the Avon, and connected with Bristol by a suspension bridge 703 feet long and 245 feet above high water mark. Notable among buildings are the exhibiting cathedral, founded in 1142, various styles of architecture, and recently restored and enlarged; St. Mary Redcliff, said to have been founded in 1293, and perhaps the finest parish church in the kingdom. Among modern buildings are the exchange, the guild hall, the council house, the post- The charities are exceedingly numerous, the most important being Ashley Down Orphanage, for the orphans of Protestant parents, founded by the late George Müller. Bristol has a number of endowed schools, the principal of which are the grammar school, Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, the Red Maids' School (which educates and provides for 80 girls, and gives them marriage portions), Colston's Hospital, the Trade School, and the Cathedral School. Among the educational institutions are the University College, the Theological Colleges of the Baptists and Independents, Clifton College, and the Philosophical Institute. There is a school of art, and also a public library. Bristol has glass works, potteries, soap works, tanneries, sugar refineries, and chemical works, ship building and machinery A SELF-REVISING REFERENCE WORK WITH LOOSE-LEAF FEATURES IN TEN BOUND VOLUMES WITH 515 ILLUSTRATIONS AND NINETY-SIX MAPS, SUPPLEMENTED BY A LOOSE-LEAF VOLUME VOLUME THREE P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY NEW YORK List of Illustrations CONSTANTINOPLE-Colored Frontispiece Opposite page 36 COMMUNAL HOUSE-CLIFF DWELLERS MINING COAL-ALABAMA LOADING COAL-CHARLESTON COAL BINS AND COAL TRAINS
Bristol town, port of entry
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
town, port of entry, and county-seat of Bristol co., R. I.; on Narragansett Bay and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad, 15 miles S. E. of Providence. It has an excellent harbor, facilitating a large daily passenger and freight service for Fall River and Providence. It is the seat of the widely known Herreshoff shipbuilding works, where a number of noteworthy sailing and steam yachts and torpedo boats have been constructed; and also of the Saunders & West yacht building yards. The town has large market gardening and coast trade interests and manufactories of rubber, woolen, and cotton goods. Bristol is the site of the residence of King Philip, the great Narragansett chief. Pop. (1910) 8,565; (1920) 11,375.
Bristol a city in Sullivan co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a city in Sullivan co., Tenn., and Washington co., Va.; on several railroads; 130 miles E. by N. E. of Knoxville. The boundary line between Tennessee and Virginia runs E. and W. main street of the city. along the Bristol is the seat of King's College (Presbyterian), Sullins College, and the Southwest Virginia Institute for young ladies; and is principally engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, cotton and woolen goods, iron, lumber, and leather. Pop. (1910) 7,148; (1920) 8,047.
Bristol a borough in Bucks co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a borough in Bucks co., Pa.; on the Delaware river, the Pennsylvania railroad and the Pennsylvania canal; 21 miles N. E. of Philadelphia. It has a National bank, high school, electric light and street railroad plants, and a noted mineral spring, and manufac- office, etc. tories of carpets, hosiery, and foundry products. It is in a rich fruit and truck farming region, and is the center of considerable trade. Pop. (1910) 9,256; (1920) 10,273.
Bristol FRANK MILTON, Methodist Episcopal bishop
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRANK MILTON, Methodist Episcopal bishop, born in Orleans co., N. Y., in 1851. He studied for the ministry and held important pastorates in Chicago and Washington. He was elected bishop in 1908. He is an eloquent preacher and voluminous writer. Among his publications are "Shakesand America," "Providential peare Epochs," and "The Ministry of Art."
Bristol a town in Hartford co.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a town in Hartford co., Conn.; on the New England railroad, 17 miles W. of Hartford. It has a public raillibrary, electric light and street road plants; National and savings banks; manufactories of clocks, brass goods, table ware, tools, woolen and knit goods, and bicycle and other bells, Pop. (1910) 13,502; (1920) 20,620.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 account of a city whose business was growing rapidly, with a third of a million people, has been overtaken: Bristol now has roughly 470,000 residents, the old city docks stopped handling commercial cargo in the 1970s (the trade moved downriver to Avonmouth and Royal Portbury), and aerospace at Filton replaced glass, pottery and soap, turning out Concorde in the 1960s. Both entries pass over the source of much of that eighteenth-century wealth, and the city has since confronted it: in June 2020 protesters toppled the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston and rolled it into the harbour, and it is now displayed lying down in a museum. Collier's 1921 landmarks largely survive, despite heavy bombing in the Blitz of 1940-41 - the Clifton Suspension Bridge still carries traffic, St Mary Redcliffe still stands - and Brunel's SS Great Britain came home in 1970 to be restored in the dry dock where she was built. Of the other Bristols gathered on this page, the American namesakes in New England, Pennsylvania and the Tennessee-Virginia border town have each gone their own way, the last best known now for stock-car racing rather than the industries the encyclopedias listed.
Written for this edition, 2026.