Research Activities
Current projects
Sailing into modernity: Comparative Perspectives on the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century European Economic Transition
This project, led by Dr Maria Fusaro, will analyse the economic transition in Early Modern Europe through a comparative study of the contractual conditions and economic treatment of sailors active in the Mediterranean, this will be done with an innovative interdisciplinary approach employing tools from legal, economic and social history.
Early projects
The first collective contribution of members of the
Centre was in
producing the two-volume The New Maritime History of
Devon (Conway
Maritime Press, 1992, 1994). The research for this
project was funded by
a large Leverhulme grant. The New Maritime History of
Devon included
articles from 54 British, American, Australian, Canadian
and South
African scholars.
In the mid 1990s, another large Leverhulme grant
supported the research
into the changes and adaptations of the maritime sector
of the British
economy since 1880. This project resulted in the
following publications by Exeter
University Press:
- David J Starkey & Alan G Jamieson (eds) "Exploiting the Sea", (1998);
- D.J. Starkey, Shipping Movements in the Ports of the United Kingdom 1871-1913, (1999);
- A.G. Jamieson, Ebb Tide in the British Maritime Industries: Change and Adaptation 1918-1990 , (2003).
Maritime History Records Database
The Leverhulme Trust also supported the cataloguing of
the sources for
maritime history in the Maritime Archives of England and
Wales, the
results of which is now available to everyone via the ELMAP
database.
The database was developed to meet the widely felt need for a guide to
the very considerable sources for maritime history in the local archives
of the United Kingdom . It was originally assembled over three years
by the Leverhulme Research Fellow, Dr Todd Gray, with the generous co-operation
of the Association of County Archivists which provided both financial
assistance and the support of an advisory panel of County Archivists
: Margery Rowe (Devon), Christine North ( Cornwall ) and Bryn Parry (Gwynnedd).
Completion was delayed by local government reorganisation and the departure
of Dr Gray into a career as a successful publisher. His work however
has been the basis for continuing the project and developing it into
a searchable database, revived and advanced to its present state by the
enthusiastic efforts of Dr Helen Doe, supported by postgraduates of the
Centre, and with the editorial assistance of Karen Toulalan.
AHRC grant: Guide to Naval Records
The most recent large grant has been from the Arts and
Humanities
Research Council to co-operate with the National Archive
in producing a
guide to its holdings of naval records, published as A
Guide to the
Naval Records in the National Archives of the UK, edited
by R. Cock and
N.A.M. Rodger (2006).
Naval History of Britain
Extensive funding has also been received from the Oxford
Maritime Trust,
The Navy Records Society and the Society for Nautical
Research to assist
Professor Nicholas Rodger to research and publish his
internationally
acclaimed Naval History of Britain - Volume 1 of which,
The Safeguard of
the Sea, 1660-1649 appeared in 1997 and Volume 2, The
Command of the
Ocean. 1649-1815, in 2004.
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