Doctoral & Masters prize winners announced!

Posted: Monday 18th April 2022

Congratulations to this year's BCMH prize winners which were announced at the New Researchers in Maritime History Conference held at Chatham Dockyard. 

Masters Prize

The winning MA dissertation submitted for 2021-22 was Corey Watson's Tales from the ‘Desolating Coast’: An exploration of the Narratives of the Naval Surgeon Peter Leonard on the Anti-Slavery Squadron, 1821-1832 (University of Plymouth).

Cory's dissertation uses the narratives of the naval surgeon, Peter Leonard, to uncover and understand attitudes towards sailors, empire, race, slavery and naval squadron life in the context of a West Africa. He uses  up-to-date scholarship to consider the role of African mariners in the life of the squadron, and the impact on Europeans of encounters on land. The study situates Leonard’s writing within  contemporary British attitudes to race, patriotism and abolitionism. 

Doctoral Thesis

Awarded to Lewis Wade for his thesis: Privilege at a Premium: Insurance, Maritime Law and Political Economy in Early Modern France, 1664-c. 1710 (University of Exeter).

This is an impressive study of two French insurance institutions. Using the data sets that are available from these institutions the author explores how the insurance market worked in Paris and what this means for our understanding more generally of early modern insurance markets. He has also been able to develop a framework for using the data in an examination of absolutism in France. The study raises questions about the reach of French absolutism and how the state used the market to shift risks of its policies onto its subjects.

Find out more about our annual BCMH prizes here. 

Pictured: Cory Watson receiving his award from Professor Richard Harding