City of Sanctuary? Seeking refuge in Bristol

by Colin Thomas

Bristol has been host to refugees for centuries—but just how welcoming has the city been?

The events of the first week of August 2024 follow a pattern that stretches back centuries—refugees and asylum seekers seeking refuge in Bristol and encountering hostility from some, but a welcome from others.

Colin Thomas’s short history charts the reception given to those fleeing war and persecution from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first, outlines the stories of organisations that have developed to support these refugees in Bristol and, finally, poses some difficult questions we have to ask.