Maritime History & Culture Seminar
Join us for our next seminar, ‘Mental Health at Sea, 1740-1820’, on Tuesday 26 February. Dr Catherine Beck (Pearsall Fellow, Institute of Historical Research) will explore experiences of mental illness in the Royal Navy and the efforts of ships’ surgeons and courts martial to respond.
The event is free and takes place from 5:15pm to 6:30pm. In a change to our usual venue, this seminar will be held in Room W2.06, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, Bloomsbury, London, WC1H 0AL. Everyone is welcome and there is no need to book. Further details can be found here: https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/mental-health-sea-1740-1820
Caird Library Research Seminars 2019
A series of seminars convened by the Greenwich Maritime Centre (University of Greenwich) and the National Maritime Museum. Seminars take place on Mondays 15.30–16.30 in the Caird Library. They are free of charge and there is no need to book.
4 March Sinecures and smuggling: the Royal Yachts at Greenwich 1713–39
Dr Chris Ware, Greenwich Maritime Centre, University of Greenwich
1 April The lives and afterlives of John Webber’s images of the Pacific (1776–84): pictures as performances of cross-cultural exchange
Ben Pollitt, Caird short-term fellow
Queen’s House lunch time concerts in association with Trinity Laban
Wednesday, 6 March 2019 (guitar) 13.00-14.00, Great Hall
Wednesday, 20 March 2019 (harp) 13.00-14.00, Great Hall
Wednesday, 8 May 2019 13.30–14.30, Great Hall
Wednesday, 22 May 2019 13.30–14.30, Great Hall
Conference: Naval Dockyard Society
Saturday, 30 March 2018
‘We stand on guard for thee’: dockyards and naval bases in North America, the Atlantic and the Caribbean
This one-day conference will examine the role of naval bases in North America, the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. Were bases built to defend colonies, to control colonies, or to act as springboards for attacking the enemy? How useful were bases in the 17th–20th centuries? Some bases expanded in the world wars. How much was this for local defence and how much to defend convoys? Many landscapes of war have become business and leisure spaces.
11.00-16.30, Lecture Theatre, National Maritime Museum
Programme
Conference: Maritime Animals: telling stories of animals at sea
Thursday–Saturday, 25–27 April 2019
A two and a half day international conference with keynote speakers Thom van Dooren and William Gervaise Clarence-Smith
In maritime narratives of humans, ships and the sea, animals are too often absent, or marginalised in passing references, despite the fact that ships once carried, and were populated by, all kinds of animals. Horses, mules and other ‘military’ animals crossed the sea to their battlefields, while livestock were brought on-board to be killed and eaten. Sailors and passengers kept animal companions, ranging widely from cats and parrots to ferrets and monkeys. Animal stowaways, such as rats, termites and shipworms, did tremendous damage to ships’ structures and stores, especially during the age of sail. Moreover, countless animals – seabirds, dolphins, porpoises, etc. – would visit and accompany ships, filling many sea narratives with the wonder of oceanic animal encounters.
The conference seeks to shed fresh light on maritime history by placing animals centre stage. Papers are sought which uncover all aspects of animals’ involvements (and entanglements) with ships and their activities. It calls upon the power of story-telling to repopulate maritime history with animals, by telling, and listening to, surprising stories about them.
For the conference programme and registration details, please visit the Museum’s conference website.
