The British Group of Early American Historians will hold its annual conference at the University of Portsmouth, 31 August – 3 September 2017. Drawing on Portsmouth’s historic significance as a port town this year’s conference theme is: “Land and Water: Port Towns, maritime connections, and oceanic spaces of the early modern Atlantic World.” Portsmouth was […]
Studying the history of port cities and their relationship to maritime endeavour and enterprise is a diverse and interdisciplinary practice, which draws on research methods from literary studies, sociology, anthropology and archaeology, and brings together aspects of social, economic and cultural history. In April 2017, the Centre for Port and Maritime History will hold its […]
‘Sailortown’ is often described as a liminal space, the border between land and sea, work and home. Writing in 1923, C. Fox Smith highlighted this with ‘Dockland, strictly speaking, is of no country—or rather it is of all countries.’[1] There are few places where one can see the rise and fall of this phenomenon so […]
Though historians have begun to reassess the extent of anti-German feeling in Britain in the years preceding the outbreak of the First World War, it is nevertheless interesting to take note of an incident where a Russian naval blunder became the site of Anglo-German antagonism.[1] Taking place in the thick of the Russo-Japanese War, the […]
We are delighted to welcome Dr Ryan Handley of the University of Oxford to give a talk on Black Preachers in Georgian Portsmouth. The talk is supported by Dr Jodi Burkett’s Citizenship, ‘Race’ and Belonging (CRaB) network and raises some interesting ideas about migration and cultural clashes in a naval port town. This is especially […]
Would you know how to survive in the slums of Portsmouth’s sailortown? Do you know a ‘Dockyard Tortoise’ from a ‘Crocadillapig’?[1] In the sweltering heat of late July a lucky group of participants took part in our specially-designed youth outreach workshop, ‘Sickly Slums and Sailortowns.’ The event was coordinated by the University of Portsmouth’s UP for […]
