Maritime History and Culture Seminars at the IHR
‘Taming the Tropics’: Naval surgeons, Tropical Medicine and Colonial India
Date: Tuesday, 21 January
Venue: Wolfson Room NB01, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London WC1 7HU
Time: 17.15-18.30
Cost: Seminars are free and there is no need to book
Tropical diseases, particularly amongst those voyaging to Asia, were a major concern for the British Empire. Keeping sailors healthy and free from disease was essential since Britain relied on them for its military and commercial needs.
Manikarnika Dutta (University of Oxford) will use new research to show how naval surgeons shaped tropical medicine and hygiene in the 1800s. Years of working in the Indian Ocean enabled surgeons to conduct surveys of and experiments on ailing seamen. Their ideas often refined and even challenged medical knowledge back in Britain, and were part of a wider imperial aim of ‘taming the tropics’. Covering fevers, plague and cholera, this paper will draw upon the writings of naval surgeons, medical journals, newspaper reports and a wide range of other sources.
2020 Research Seminars
Date: Monday, 3 February
A building of one’s own: displaying the Meridian Building of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich since the 1960s
Venue: Caird Library
Time: 15.30-16.30
Daniel Belteki. University of Kent
Cost: Seminars are free and there is no need to book
The Meridian Building of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich has undergone major structural changes since its origin in 1675. Combined with the frequently changing functions of its rooms, the building poses challenges on how to present its history to visitors. The talk examines the changing displays of the building and how curators have exhibited the building’s history since the 1960s.
More seminars in this series:
Monday, 2 March (Lecture Theatre)
‘His Majesty’s Negroes’: Freedom, slavery and the Royal Navy in Jamaica, 1785–1834
Aaron Graham – University of Oxford
Monday, 6 April (Lecture Theatre)
Unserviceable, being insane: tolerance and stigma in the British Royal Navy 1740-1820
Catherine Beck
School of Advanced Studies, University of London and Caird Short-term Fellow
Conferences
Cutty Sark 150th Anniversary Conference
Global trade, global lives: the maritime community since the nineteenth century
Date: Thursday and Friday, 6-7 February
Venue: Lecture Theatre, National Maritime Museum
Cost: £50 (full) | £40 (RMG Members, people over 60 and students)
2019 marked 150 years since the launch of Cutty Sark. Over her long life, the ship has formed part of Britain’s vast merchant fleet, and later provided the setting for training new generations of mariners. Cutty Sark now stands as a memorial to the Merchant Navy and a national museum site, shaping how we understand maritime trade and the human experience of being at sea.
Built for the China tea trade, Cutty Sark would go onto trade in Australian wool before becoming a Portuguese general cargo carrier. More than 600 men from over 30 different nations served on the ship which would also visit nearly every major port in the world. Today, as the sole surviving extreme clipper ship on the globe, she is a representative of international trade, maritime communities, the merchant marine in the age of sail as well as the subject of innumerable cultural interpretations and much more beyond.
This conference will take the opportunity offered by Cutty Sark’s 150th anniversary to provide a forum for interdisciplinary research and new perspectives on the merchant marine and maritime communities from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Draft programme attached. Online bookings will open on Monday, 20 January: https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/exhibitions-events/cutty-sark-150-anniversary-conference or register your interest by e-mail: research@rmg.co.uk
Darkrooms and representations: histories of photography, film and exploration
Date: Thursday and Friday, 2-3 April
Venue: Lecture Theatre, National Maritime Museum
Time: 09.00-17.00 (tbc)
Cost: £80 (full) | £60 (concessions)
The role of photography and film has often been relegated to that of illustration, yet its uses – as a visual record, in scientific research, education and travelogues – have been varied and at times ingenious. From experimentation with technologies in extreme environments (telephoto lenses, glass plate negatives, flashlight photography, chrono-photography, photomicrography, cinematography) to the practices that have emerged through ethnographic studies, meteorology, astronomy, oceanography, cartography and the documentation of wildlife, the mediation of photography and film has made otherwise inaccessible geographies visible. Yet, this ‘window’ on to the world is constructed, it is made using materials and techniques which tell a story: from a physical trace of the environment to a record of scientific and cultural practices. This interdisciplinary conference examines the history of maritime exploration through film, photography and photographers, scientific techniques, artistic practices and in the mediation and display of museum collections for exhibition: from photographic materials and technologies to the darkroom practices that shape visual representations and underpin or counter voyage narratives.
Keynote Speakers: Geir Kløver (Director, The Fram Museum), Dr Lawrence Napper (Senior Lecturer, King’s College London), Bryony Dixon (Curator of Silent Film, British Film Institute).
Online bookings for this conference will open on Monday, 20 January or register your interest by e-mail: ldejager@rmg.co.uk
Naval Dockyard Society Conference
Where Empires Collide: Dockyards and Naval Bases in and around the Indian Ocean
Date: Saturday, 4 April
Venue: Lecture Theatre, National Maritime Museum
Time: 10.00-16.00 (tbc)
This one-day conference will examine the role of naval bases and naval support facilities in and around the Indian Ocean. For more information, a programme and how to book: https://navaldockyards.org/
Lunchtime Concerts in the Queen’s House
Dates: Wednesdays 26 February, 4, 11 and 18 March
Venue: Great Hall
Time: 13.00-14.00
Cost: Concerts are free and there is no need to book
Join students of Trinity Laban’s Conservatoire of Music for informal lunchtime concerts. Rehearsals from 11.00.
Queen’s House Lecture Series
Woburn Treasures
Date: Thursdays, 27 February to 2 April
Venue: Orangery and South Parlours, Queen’s House
Time: 11.00-12.30 (refreshments from 10.30)
Cost: £8.00 (full) | £6.00 (RMG Members, people over 60 and students)
Delve into the history of Woburn Abbey and its world-famous art collection with a series of insightful lectures by leading scholars and curators to accompany the Woburn Treasures Exhibition.
27 February
Ducal collecting, patronage and display – Victoria Poulton, Woburn Abbey
This lecture will examine the 5th and 6th Dukes of Bedford and their impact on the Woburn Abbey Collection. This includes the assembling of themed picture hangs by the 5th Duke and the artistic patronage and community fostered by the 6th Duke including important 19th century artists such as Landseer and their impact on life at Woburn.
5 March
De Morgan Collection objects in the Queen’s House (title to be confirmed) – Sarah Hardy, Curator-Manager, De Morgan Foundation
12 March
Fair Oriana: Anna of Denmark and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder – David Taylor, National Trust
19 March
The portraits of Lucy Harington (title to be confirmed) – Karen Hearn, University College London
26 March
The Armada portraits (title to be confirmed) – Charlotte Bolland, National Portrait Gallery
2 April
How to run a stately home – Matthew Hirst, Woburn Abbey
Online bookings for the lecture series will open on Monday, 20 January or register your interest by e-mail: ldejager@rmg.co.uk
