Non accredited courses

You can take a dip into maritime history through two online courses which are a good introduction to the subject.

Steaming Ahead: British Merchant Shipping 1810-1914

Steam and iron were the great technological game-changers for nineteenth-century shipping, they had a profound impact on all aspects of the industry and by 1914 British shipping dominated world trade.

This was a new era of fast Atlantic travel, the dawn of the luxury liner and the beginning for well-known companies such as P&O and Cunard. It was also the time of great engineers such as Brunel and Scott Russell and of famous ships, from the Comet, Great Britain and Great Eastern – to the Titanic.

On this course you will explore the impact of new technology and trade, and the benefits and challenges these created for ports, shipbuilders, shipowners, investors, mariners and passengers.

To find out more go to https://learnforpleasure.com/ or contact contact@learnforpleasure.com

The Lost World of the Sailing Ship 1780 -1880

For much of the nineteenth century the sailing ship was supreme. Ports and harbours of all sizes around the coasts of Britain and Ireland were home to the wooden sailing ship, locally built, locally owned and crewed by local men. Today's attractive holiday resorts were once home to these vessels, the quays busy with people loading and unloading goods, the shipyards noisy with the sound of hammers, caulking mallets and saws. Places such as Whitby, Kings Lynn, Whitehaven and Fowey were very different in the nineteenth century and traces of their past can still be seen today if you look. Merchant shipping expanded rapidly in that century to handle the increasing volumes of trade from all corners of the globe. Wooden sailing ships could be built relatively easily and cheaply and there were plenty of men wanting to work on them.

This course examines the merchant trading fleet, which performed such a critical task of transport for the economy. It was part of an industrial sector that encompassed many trades: from shipwrights to sailmakers, mariners to merchants, investors to innkeepers and many more. Men and women were fully involved in the carriage of goods and people around the coast and across the seas.

To find out more go to https://learnforpleasure.com/ or contact contact@learnforpleasure.com