Previous Masters Prize Winners

2023-24 - Taylan Campbell (University of Aberdeen)

British Newspapers and Transatlantic Ocean Liners, 1906-1916: Representations of Launches, Maiden Voyages, and Disasters.

This year, the award goes to an M.Litt. study of how newspapers reported significant events in the competitive world of the ocean liner between 1906 and 1916. Using local and national newspapers, the author is able to identify why different responses to launches, maiden voyages, and international diplomacy occurred. Although the Titanic and its fate, is by far the most famous story of the time, reporting on the great ocean liners was common place. Not only were the liners great technological achievements, imbued by the press with national and local pride, but the newspaper industry itself was still in the throes of industrial change which was altering its relationship with the readership. As such this dissertation provides interesting insights into both the maritime world and the media industry.

2022-23 - Emma Haddon (University of Portsmouth)

The Hulks of the Hamoaze: A Study of the Receiving Ships of Plymouth during the Napoleonic Wars.

The award of the prize this year was a difficult task, as the candidates represented both high quality of work and the rich diversity of subject that can be tackled in maritime history. Emma Haddon’s dissertation made a mature contribution to the contested subject of the manning of naval vessels during the Napoleonic War. The research was placed clearly in the context of the current debate The evidence was laid out and subjected to excellent analysis. The contribution the work makes to the debate and the additional lights it shed on the lives of those who came within the walls of the receiving gave it additional value.

2021-22 - Corey Watson (University of Plymouth)

Tales from the ‘Desolating Coast’: An exploration of the Narratives of the Naval Surgeon Peter Leonard on the Anti-Slavery Squadron, 1821-1832

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.