Previous Undergraduate Prize Winners

Adam Jackson  (University of Exeter), The Superannuation of Rear-Admirals in the Royal Navy between 1747 and 1827: An Investigation

Christopher Louis  (University of Edinburgh), A Court of War in an Uncertain Peace The Trials and Tribulations of the Sierra Leone Court of Vice Admirality in Britain's Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, 1814-1819

Oliver Maxwell  (University of Aberystwyth), A change in Course: An assessment of how the experience of the Falklands War impacted upon the design of Royal Navy ships,1982-1990

Jack Owens  (Liverpool John Moores University), From Social Democracy to Neoliberalism: An Examination of How Government Industrial Policy Influenced the Deindustrialisation of the British Shipbuilding Industry, 1966-1988

Marcus Tan  (University of Oxford), Merchant-King or Pirate?  The Zheng Diplomatic Encounter with the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) in the 1650s and 1660s

Henry Townsend  (University of York), A Transatlantic Perspective on the Merchants Trading between Britain and North America and their Efforts to Influence Parliament during the British Atlantic Imperial Crisis, c.1765-1775

Ewan McCall (University of St Andrews), The Nabobs of Fife: the Public and Private Lives of the Bruce-Beck Network of Bombay in the late 1780s

Kieran Noble (University of Edinburgh), A Political and Economic Retreat? An Account of the Struggles of British Steamship Companies, on the Upper Yangzi River, from 1920 to 1934

Alexander Pindar (University of Leeds), ‘Nelson would turn in his grave’: A Reassessment of the British Admiralty’s Attitudes and Impact upon the British Submarine’s Development, between 1900-1914

Amy Stokes (University of Plymouth), Minds Lost at Sea: a Study of Mental Illness at Haslar Naval Asylum, 1832-35

Thomas Underwood (University of Portsmouth), Provincial Anarchy: the Limits of State Authority in the Governance of Hampshire’s Piratical Coastal Communities, 1558-1603

Corey Watson (University of Plymouth), Life on the ‘Coffin Squadron’. A Study of the HMS Sybille and the HMS Black Joke of the Royal Navy’s Slavery Suppression Squadron, 1827-30

Simon Brinkley (Birkbeck, University of London), The Strategic Importance of the River Thames, 1642-1651

John Daniel Evans (University of Liverpool), What Measures of Prevention Were Initiated to Combat Theft and Customary Practices on the River Thames between 1780 and 1820?

Ruairi McLoughlin McGrath (University of Exeter), ‘Australia! The Ship! Another Chance for the Old Dreams’: Political Consciousness and Fenian Transportation aboard The Hougoumont

Oliver Moore (University of Plymouth), Coming of Age in Time for War: a Study of Cadet Classes on HMS Britannia (Training Ship), 1882-1892

Hamish Percy (University of Nottingham), ‘As Eminent a Savage as the Most Notorious Character among Them’: Sailors’ Lives, System of Cruelty?

Charlie Smith (University of Cambridge), A Social History of Smuggling in North East England during the Eighteenth Century

John Abernethy (University of St. Andrews), ‘The Specter at the Feast’: The Royalists at Sea in the First Anglo-Dutch War, 1652-54

Adrian Full (University of Plymouth), Eighteenth-Century Sailors and Remittances

Jean-Marc Hill (University of Reading), ‘A Pirate’s Life for Us’: A Cultural and Social Assessment of the Caribbean Pirates of the Golden Age

Tobias Jones (University of Exeter), ‘Rum, Bum, and the Lash’: Homosexual Behaviour Amongst Men in the British Royal Navy during the Second World War, 1939-45

James Andrew McGregor (University of Exeter), The Geniza Merchants: Local, Regional and Extra-Regional Mediterranean Commercial Exchange (1080-1160 AD / 472-544 AH)

Josephine O'Dowd (University of Warwick), Nutmeg: ‘The Headiest and Most Blood Soaked of the Spices’. What Were the Implications of the Nutmeg Trade between 1599 and 1621?

Lee-Jane Giles (University of Plymouth), ‘All that you refuse to do is mutiny’: Contextualising the Marine Mutiny at Plymouth, 1797.

Finn Halligan (University of Warwick), ‘[N]othing can be more uninteresting’: The Social and Cultural Contexts of Navigational Instruments and their Development between c.1600 and c.1800.

Yeming Li (University of Oxford), Steamships and the State: The China Merchants Company, 1911-1927

Stewart Murphy (University of Kent), How was Britain Affected by the Introduction of Napoleon’s Continental System along the Baltic Coast between 1807 and 1814?

Louis Osborne (University of Hull), The Impact of the Napoleonic Wars upon Hull’s Foreign Trade, 1803-1815

Sam Wright (University of Hull), The Impact of the Hull Dock Company on the Development of the Port of Hull

Scott Daly (University of Portsmouth), ‘A Beast Named Donald Trail’: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of an 18th-Century ‘Arch-Villain’

Elizabeth Denny (University of Warwick), The Global Luxury of Lacquer: An Exploration into the Eastern Trade Networks and European Reception of Lacquerware in the 18th Century

Jessica Dytham (University of Nottingham), How Successful were the Slave Merchants in Liverpool at Adapting to the Abolition of Legal Slave Trade?

Leah Mason (University of Plymouth), ‘The Turks are Upon our Coasts’: The Effects of 17th-Century Barbary Piracy in Devon and Cornwall

Adam Wyett (University of Hertfordshire), The East India Trade and its Management: Incentives and Controls

Michael Warren (University of Exeter), Ship Technology and Arctic Exploration, 1818-1859

Laura Burkinshaw (University of Hull), To What Extent did the Navy League Influence Popular Naval Enthusiasm between 1894 and 1914?

Brython Wyn Edwards (Bangor University), ‘The Last King of Man’: A study of the reign of King Magnus Olafsson and the relationship of the Kingdom of Man and the Isles with both the Kingdoms of Scotland and Norway during this period

Scott Matthewson (University of Southampton), ‘The Arabs, for their Part, were All in Despair’: An assessment of the second Arab siege of Constantinople, 717-8, and the reasons for its failure

Timothy Moots (Queens University), Economic Decline in the Eastern Port Towns during the Hundred Years’ War

Louis Morris (University of Cambridge), Ambiguous Identities in the US Encounter with Piracy on the Barbary and South China Coasts, 1783-1839

Callum Petty (King’s College London), A ‘Post-Maritime Nation’? British Historicisations of Ships and Seaborne Trade in the Twentieth Century

Michael Joseph (University of Oxford), ‘To be hanged in Chains in the most publick Place where Ships pass and repass’: The Punishment of Maritime Crime at Execution Dock, 1701-1784

Leon Rees Palmer (University of Portsmouth), Pirate or Patriot? Sir Henry Morgan’s Competing Identities and the 1685 Libel Case of ‘Morgan vs Malthus’

Ben Schilperoort (University of Cambridge), A Reflexive Relationship: Liverpool’s Slave Merchants and their Experience of Privateering and Risk, 1776-83

Thomas Schlee (University of St Andrews), Cloth, Cannon, and Consuls: The English Diplomatic and Maritime Presence in the Kingdom of Naples, 1682-1689

Joshua Wesley Smith (University of Hull), Rags and Nails in the Soup: The 1903 Jeune Committee’s Investigation into the Mercantile Marine’s Provisioning System

Adam Sumnall (University of Exeter), ‘Nautical Economies of Power’: Officers’ Attitudes towards Corporal Punishment and Penal Reform in the Late Georgian Navy, 1815-1835

Samuel Wood (University of Glasgow), A Slave Port Forgotten: Lancaster and the British Slave Trade, 1736-1807

Graham Buckton (University of Hull), What Were the Key Challenges Faced by the Society for Promoting Missions to Seamen Afloat at Home and Abroad from its Formation in February 1856 to its May 1858 Merger with the Mission to Seamen off the Coasts of Great Britain?

Chris Chapman (University of Hull), The Hull Sailors’ Home, 1840-1886

James Ellis (University of Exeter), Were the Alterations to the Articles of War in 1749 and 1779 the Result of Changing Perceptions of Cowardice?

Alexander Shorrock (University of Kent),Letters to the Editor: A Study into the Public’s Perception of the Peninsular and Oriental Company through the Letters Pages, 1840-1880

Peter Thomason (University of Nottingham), A Reflexive Relationship: Liverpool’s Slave Merchants and their Experience of Privateering and Risk, 1776-83

Matthew Tozzi (University of Exeter), An Investigation into the Role of the Carronade during the American Revolutionary and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars

Jonathon Grant (Durham University), Pamphlets, Protestantism, and Profiteering: English captivity accounts of the Barbary Coast, 1587-1704

David Hazeel (University of Exeter), Reforming the Lower Decks of the Royal Navy, 1898-1919: The Role and Influence of Lionel Yexley

Alexander Jeffery (University of Oxford), Admiral Sir Benjamin Caldwell, 1739-1820: An Irish Protestant in the Navy

Joseph La Hausse de Lalouvière (University of Cambridge), Joseph-François Charpentier de Cossigny and Enlightened Reform in the French Indian Ocean, 1763-1809

Ian Parker (University of Portsmouth), An Island as Janus: The Two Faces of Jamaica

Peter Randle (University of Hull), The Mystically Minded Mariner

Zakir Asver (London School of Economics), The British Privateering Enterprise: Decentralization, Productivity and Incentives during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War, 1739-1763

Edward Gillin (University of Kent), ’Diligent in Business, Serving the Lord’: John Burns, Evangelicalism and Cunard’s Culture of Speed, 1878-1914

Peter Jones (University of Hull), Jack Tar and the Periodical Press: What Periodicals Can Tell Us about the Movement for Reform of Merchant Shipping, 1850-1900

Samuel William Le Pard (University of Nottingham), An Environmental History of Orford Ness

Laura Smith (Newcastle University), Human Intercourse and Human Improvement: the Journey of Seven Japanese Sailors around the World

Joshua Montague-Munson (Queen’s University), The Early Years of the South Sea Company

Max Cosby (Newcastle University), The Politics of Aircraft Carriers and the Royal Navy, 1965-2010

Cameron Dron (University of Glasgow), The Evacuation of St. Kilda: A Reassessment

Ryan Charteris (Queen’s University Belfast), Sir Thomas Lipton and the Americas Cup

Olivia Pengelly (University of Hull), How the Board of Trade reacted to Colour Blindness and the Impact on Safety at Sea, 1877-1914

Heather Stewart (University of Edinburgh), Unintended Consequences: The Scottish Fishing Industry and British Fisheries Policy, 1950-80

Malcolm Venning (King’s College London), The Italian Navy, 1915-1018: Ally or Incubus?

Theodora Burrell (University of Glasgow), Pirates and Piracy; Different representations and attitudes in A General History of the Pyrates (1724 and later editions)

Rebecca Chenery (University of Edinburgh), A whale over time: The value of the catch versus the value of conservation in IWC negotiations, 1946-1974

Richard Dunley (King’s College London), An analysis of Royal Navy mine warfare policy, 1904-1910

Thomas Humphreys (University of Manchester), The ‘Golden Age’ of Piracy and the West African slave trade, 1689-1726

Mark Petersen (University of Oxford), The ‘Baltimore’ Affair and the question of American neutrality during the Chilean revolution of 1891

Max Thompson (University of Nottingham), England and the ‘Golden Age’ of the Barbary Corsairs, c. 1620-1660

Matthew Briggs (London School of Economics), The transition from sail to steam-powered trawlers: How did it affect the living standards of Hull fishermen, 1884-1913?

Andrew Robinson (University of Hull), Better protected than Trafalgar Square: Were the local authorities guilty of over-reaction during the 1893 Hull dock strike?

Matthew Phillips (University of Nottingham), The English navy and merchant shipping, 1377-85

Christopher Fowler (King’s College London), Genuine threat or useful pretext? Extraregional state responses to contemporary maritime piracy in Southeast Asia

Richard Miller (University of Nottingham), Atlantic slavery and the revolution in cotton textile production in Lancashire: A critique of the Inikori thesis

Simon Williams (University of Leicester), The Dardanelles debacle: Forcing the Straits, 1915

Sarah Collinson (University of Oxford), The social world of the female transportee: Power structures and social relations on the Lady Juliana and other First Fleet convict ships, 1787-9

Kelly Davis (University of Exeter), The introduction and development of searchlights in the Royal Navy

Philip Meakins (University of Exeter), The English chart-making trade from 1650-1700, and its reaction to English maritime expansion

Andrew Pritchard (University of Hull), Social reform in the late Victorian mercantile marine: The case of the Merchant Seamen Bill 1878

Thomas Sheppard (University of Exeter), Manpower issues in the Fleet Air Arm, 1939-1945

Scott Sullivan (Durham University), Dreadnought? An examination of the social impact of the 1906 launch of the Dreadnought and the 1909 visit of the Fleet to Southend

James Ainsworth (University of Manchester), The Imperial Maritime League in British politics and society, 1908-1913

Rafael Halpin (University of Oxford), The Titanic Relief Fund (1912) and charity

Daniel Marsden (University of Hull), The dangers of the dockside: Topography and mortality in the sailortown of Hull during the nineteenth century

Andrew Petersen (University of Exeter), The role of the Leeward Islands Squadron in the development of British naval strategy in the West Indies, 1739 to 1763

Jessica Scott (University of Durham), ‘Scum upon scum and dregs upon dregs’: An examination of the female convicts transported to Australia 1788-1840, their experience and the perceptions surrounding them

Please get in touch with details of winners from 2005.

Please get in touch with details of winners from 2004.

Louise Bloomfield (University of Hull), The effectiveness of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1867 in the prevention of scurvy

Please get in touch with details of other winners from 2003.