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News and Events

Prizes for achievement in maritime history

Boydell & Brewer

Each year, the British Commission for Maritime History and Boydell & Brewer award a joint prize for the best doctoral thesis in maritime history completed in the preceding academic year.  More details can be found here. Centre winners include:

  • Dr. Jake Dyble, General Average in the Free Port of Livorno, 1600-1700 (2022)
  • Dr Lewis Wade, Privilege at a Premium: Insurance, Maritime Law and Political Economy in Early Modern France, 1664-c. 1710  (2020-21)
  • Dr Elin Jones (Queen Mary, London) Masculinity, Materiality and Space Onboard the Royal Naval Ship, 1756-1815 (2016-2017)
  • Dr Joan Abela, The Impact of the Arrival of the Knights of the Order of St John on the Commercial Economy of Malta, 1530-1565 (2012-13)
  • Dr Coriann Convertito, The Health of British Seamen in the West Indies, 1770-1806 (2011-12)

Maritime Foundation

Two honorary research fellows and one former graduate student of the Centre - Martin Robson, Duncan Redford, and Mike Farquharson-Roberts - have been shortlisted for the 2014 Mountbatten Maritime Awards by the Maritime Foundation.

South West Maritime History Society

The South West Maritime History Society, in pursuance of its charitable status remit to encourage research into maritime history in the South West, awards two £250 research travel bursaries to the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies annually.

  • Tim Woodward, MA student and J. Grant Repshire, MA student (2012)
  • Derek Janes, PhD student (2011)
  • Anne Pond, MA student and Ed Fox, M.Phil student (2010)
  • Joanna Thomas, MA student and Richard Hammond, M.Phil student (2009)
  • George Stephenson, MA student and Jeremiah Dancy, M.Phil student (2008)
  • Josh Newton, MA student and Britt Zerbe, MA student (2007)

The British Commission for Maritime History

The British Commission awards a small number of £75 prizes each year to undergraduate dissertations in the field of maritime history. The Commission aims to encourage students to pursue maritime questions in their final year research, and to reward the best of that work. Subjects eligible for consideration include shipping, seafaring, ports, seapower, maritime labour, coastal communities, trade, exploration, shipbuilding, navigation and fishing, and embrace a wide range of political, economic, social, technological and cultural approaches.

  • David Hazeel for 'Reforming the Lower Decks of the Royal Navy, 1898-1919: The Role and Influence of Lionel Yexley' (2012)
  • Kelly Davis for 'The introduction and development of searchlights in the Royal Navy', Philip Meakins for 'The English chart-making trade from 1650-1700, and its reaction to English maritime expansion' and Thomas Sheppard for 'Manpower issues in the Fleet Air Arm, 1939-1945' (2007)
  • Andrew Petersen for 'The role of the Leeward Islands Squadron in the development of British naval strategy in the West Indies, 1739 to 1763' (2006)

Economic History Society

Each year, the Economic History Society awards prizes for the best papers in the New Researchers' session at their annual conference. 

  • Kate Hamblin for 'Challenging the Old Order: exploring the rise of the engineer in commercial shipping in Britain, Germany and France since 1830', PhD student (2007).

Workshops

'International Contacts, Multiple Identities and Shifting Allegiances: the Caravane Maritime and its Protagonists in the Early Modern Southern Mediterranean'

Caravane Maritime is the term designating the use of Western European/'Christian' shipping to carry Muslim goods and passengers between ports in the Ottoman Empire, including North Africa. By extension, it can include the inter-port carrying trade in the whole Mediterranean, whether by English, Dutch, French, Venetian/Italian or 'Greek' vessels. In December 2007, the Centre for Maritime Historical Studies in association with the Centre for Mediterranean Studies at the University of Exeter and the Maritime Historical Studies Centre at the University of Hull hosted a two-day AHRC funded workshop to explore the the Caravane Maritime and its period more fully. More information about the Caravane Maritime research can be found at the resource database Intute.