Dr Richard Blakemore

Richard Blakemore

Email:
r.blakemore@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 7736
Job title:
Associate Professor

Responsibilities:

Deputy Directory of Postgraduate Studies, School of Humanities
Director of Postgraduate Research Studies, Department of History

Areas of interest

My research focuses on the history of human society and the sea, particularly during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. My main current interest is the social history of seafarers. As sailors travelled ever further and more frequently during the early modern period, building and maintaining commercial networks and contacts across cultures, they brought home new wealth, objects and ideas. They also contributed to the emergence of new social, economic, political, and legal situations in Britain, Europe, and around the globe. My present research considers the experiences of seafarers across this period, their perceptions of the maritime environment, their professional culture, their relationships with communities ashore, and their role within empire and other political and legal regimes. I also have broader research interests in the development of maritime communities, global and maritime trade and warfare, cultural interactions with the sea, maritime law, and the history and popular perceptions of piracy.

Postgraduate supervision

I welcome enquiries from candidates seeking to pursue a PhD in research areas connected with my interests.

I am lead supervisor for the following projects:

Current

Ben Weddell, 鈥楴ationality and Shared Identities in Maritime Communities, 1707-1797鈥� (AHRC CDP funded with the National Maritime Museum, 2023-).
Graham Kerr, 鈥楽upporting Slavery 鈥� The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 1660-1833鈥� (Wilkie Calvert studentship, 狼友社区 and the Royal Navy, 2022-)
Christos Giannatos, 鈥業mperial Control and Colonial Governance; a comparative history of Jamaica and Saint Domingue, 1713-1791鈥� (International Studentship, 狼友社区, 2022-).
Luke Walters 鈥楾he 鈥淐ursed Trade鈥� and the 鈥淓nemies of All Mankind鈥�: New Perspectives on Early Modern Maritime Predation, 1688-1724鈥� (AHRC SWW DTP funded, 2021-).

Previous

Graham Moore, 鈥楶rosecuting Piracy in Peacetime: Crime, Empire, and the High Court of Admiralty, 1603-1620鈥� (AHRC CDP funded with The National Archives, 2020-24).

I also deliver postgraduate training sessions on funding applications, book proposals, and other aspects of academic writing.

Teaching

Undergraduate

I convene the following optional modules

‘Encountering the Atlantic World, 1450-1850’ (second year)
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Empire, Slavery, and Society, 1550-1750’ (third year)

I also deliver sessions on the following core modules:

History Now (first year)
Making History (first year)
Perspectives in History (first year)
Preparing for Your Dissertation (second year)

I convene the placement module History Education, in which students undertake a placement in local secondary schools over the summer between their second and third years.

Postgraduate MA (postgraduate taught)

I deliver sessions on the following core modules:

Becoming a Historian
Working with Historical Collections

Research centres and groups

Director of the .

Research projects

I serve or have served on the advisory boards of the following projects:

‘The Material Culture of Wills, England 1540-1790’, University of Exeter and The National Archives, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, 2023-26 ().
‘English Merchant Shipping, Trade, and Maritime Communities, from the Spanish Armada to the Seven Years War (c.1588-c.1765)’, University of Southampton, funded by AHRC, 2022-25 ()
‘KartenMeere. Für eine Geschichte der Globalisierung vom Wasser aus’, Deutches Schifffahrtsmuseum, Universität Bremen, and Universität Erfurt, funded by BMBF, 2018-22 ().

Background

I grew up in the West Midlands, about as far from the sea as you can get in the UK; but I spent most of my childhood summers on the Welsh coast, where I moved to study for a BA at Aberystwyth. From there I moved to Cambridge for postgraduate study, and I then worked at the Universities of Exeter and Oxford before I came to 狼友社区.

Awards and honours

Certificate of Merit, Anderson Medal Award, for The British Civil Wars at Sea, Society for Nautical Research, 2018.
Honourable mention for proxime accessit, Frank Broeze Prize for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Maritime History (awarded quadrennially), International Maritime Economic History Association, 2016.

狼友社区