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.

Registration now open!

Please complete the Eventbrite form to Register your place and purchase your tickets here: 

New Researchers in Maritime History Conference 2025 Tickets, Fri 11 Apr 2025 at 14:30 | Eventbrite

Ticket sales commence at 15:00 on 18/03 and close at 17:00 on 08/04

[Price is £35 Full, £30 Student, £0 free for presenters + this year's prize winners - all attendees need to Register using Eventbrite]

Conference Programme

Friday 11 April

From 14:30 & 15:30 free guided tours of Hull's maritime hertiage with accredited tour guide Dr Sam Wright.   

17:00-17:45 Registration

18.00: Keynote Lecture: Robb Robinson (University of Hull)

19.45: Evening - optional dinner at The Minerva (not included in ticket price)

Saturday 12 April

8:30 – 9:15: Registration

9:15: Conference Organisers Welcome, Dr Martin Wilcox (University of Hull)

9:30 – 10:45 SESSION ONE: MARITIME SPACE

Peter Wells (University of East Anglia), ‘“No Land Nor Ice in the Way”: Captain John Wood’s 1676 Search for the North-east Passage’.

Saanika Patnaik (Ashoka University), ‘Expelling Pirates, Acquiring Sovereignty: The East India Company at Malvan, 1765-1812’.

Matilda Sidel (University of Oxford), ‘Customary law of the sea seen through literature: 'Naufragios' and troubles at the coastline of Spanish America’.

10.45-11.15 Coffee

11.15 -12.30 SESSION TWO: MARITIME HISTORIES FROM BELOW

Eliška Bujkova (University of New Brunswick), ‘Bodies of labour and labouring bodies: colonial structures of care and bodywork in the British Atlantic c 1650 c 1780’.

Kit Barton (University of Exeter), ‘Reconstructing the World of the British Sailmakers; 1688-1714’.

Hannah Bradbury-Crowther (University of Plymouth), ‘Examining the role of female contractors at Plymouth Dock, 1692-1763’.

12.30-13:30 Lunch

13:30 Presentation of awards

13:45 to 14.45 SESSION THREE: NEW NAVAL HISTORIES

Kieron Hoyle (Canterbury Christ Church University), ‘The Maison Dieu and the Narrow Seas’.

Dave Brooks (University of Hull), ‘Patronage and Capability in the British Royal Navy 1815-1870’.

Paul O’Donnell (Birkbeck College, University of London), ‘The Vegetarian Dreadnought: the ship that was built for Liberals’.

14.45 to 15.15 Tea

15.15 to 16.30 SESSION FOUR: FROM THE LOCAL TO THE NATIONAL

Jason Mazzocchi (Canterbury Christ Church University), ‘Faversham’s Maritime Community and Oyster Disputes in late Elizabethan and Early Jacobean Kent’

Tom Gayton (University of Exeter), ‘Paid “like drops of blood”: Popular Allegiance in Dorset’s Ports in the Early Seventeenth Century’

Sophia Bella Chapple, Johannes Rom Dahl, Cianna Devitt (Trinity College Dublin), ‘Marine Resource Use During Times of Adversity: A Mixed Methodological Approach to Studying 17th Century Scottish Adaptation’

16.30: Closing remarks

16.45: Conference ends

Find out more about New Researchers in Maritime History Conferences here: New Researchers in Maritime History Conference