At this annual conference, the British Commission supports emerging scholars who wish to share their work in a supportive environment and build relations with other maritime historians. We encourage applications from research degree students and warmly encourage participation by independent scholars. Contributions can address all aspects of maritime history in its broadest sense.
It is held in the spring of each year, and the location moves around Britain, as the conference is hosted by a variety of universities and museums and is sponsored by the Society for Nautical Research.
New Researchers in Maritime History Conference at the University of Strathclyde 22-23 March 2024
The British Commission for Maritime History (BCMH), in association with the University of Strathclyde, warmly invite you to the twenty-ninth conference for new researchers. This annual conference organised by BCMH is supported by the Society for Nautical Research.
Provisional Programme
Friday, 22 March 2024
Note that for those arriving earlier on Friday, there will be an opportunity to undertake a tour of the new City of Empire display at Kelvingrove Museum in the afternoon. More details TBC.
17:00 – 17:45: Registration and reception, McCance 301, University of Strathclyde
17:45: Welcome, Dr Helen Doe, Chair, British Commission for Maritime History
18.00: Keynote Lecture: Prof Alison Cathcart, Professor of Early Modern Scottish and Archipelagic History at the University of Stirling, “The ‘scattered isles in the polar ocean’: Scotland and the sea in the (long) sixteenth century.”
19.45: Conference Dinner (Details TBC)
Saturday, 23 March 2023
8:00 – 9:00: Registration
9:00: Conference Coordinator’s Welcome, Dr James Davey/Dr David Wilson
9:15 – 10:45 Session One: ROUTES AND RESOURCES
Robert MacLean (University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections), ‘The Glasgow Soaperie Company’s role in Mediterranean and Atlantic Trade’.
Sabrina Fröhlich & Kamil Muratov (Helmut-Schmidt University/ University of the Federal Armed Forces, Hamburg), ‘No wood, no ships’: The Royal Navy's Timber Problem from a Diplomatic and Craftsmanship Perspective
Guy Collender (University of Portsmouth), ‘From a ditch to a global waterway: How the metamorphosis of the Clyde influenced port development from London to Manchester and Chicago to Calcutta'.
10.45 – 11.15 Coffee
11.15 – 12.45 Session Two: WOMEN AND THE SEA
Hannah Gibbons (University of Exeter), ‘Maritime Matriarchs: women, credit, goods and services in the dockland communities of eighteenth-century London’.
Grace McNutt, (Dalhousie University), ‘The Failure of Victorian Domesticity? Emily J. Spicer and the Making of Home at Sea, in Port, and on Shore, 1888-89’.
Zara Money (University of Portsmouth), ‘In service of the sea: Women’s maritime roles in late-nineteenth to early-twentieth century Britain’.
12.45 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 Presentation of awards
13.45 – 14.45 Session Four ENCOUNTERS AT SEA
Laura Birkinshaw (University of Hull), ‘Disease transmission and inhibition during the transatlantic slave trade’.
Alexandra Ward (University of Leeds), ‘Living in “Constant and Immediate Proximity to the Dead”: “Liberated African” Health On Board Emigration Vessels, 1840 – 1872’.
14.45 – 15.15 Coffee
15:15 – 16.45 Session Three: THE SEA AND IDENTITY
Hannah Bradbury-Crowther (National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth), ‘HMS Madagascar: Tackling the controversial history behind the figurehead’.
Muskaan Gandhi (National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool), ‘HMS Trincomalee: Encounters with the First Nations People of the Pacific’.
Jane Stewart (The Courtauld Institute, University of London), ‘Elizabethan Sea Burial: the Monument to Sir James Hales in Canterbury Cathedral’
16.45: Closing remarks
Registration
Further information
Download the (provisional) full Programme and further details for delegates here.