CMPH 30th Anniversary Conference
10 & 11 September 2026
John Foster Building, 80-98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ
The Centre for Port & Maritime History (CMPH) has announced the full programme for their 30th Anniversary Conference, taking place in Liverpool this September.
PROGRAMME
Thursday 10 September 09:30 Registration and refreshments
10:00 Welcome
Andy Davies/Nick White – Co-Directors, Centre for Port and Maritime History
Keynote Address:
Stig Tenold, Professor of Economic History at the Department of Economics, NHH (Norwegian School of Economics)
Shipping’s environmental challenges — what can we learn from maritime history?
11:00 Break and Refreshments
11:15 Panel One: Archives, Memory and Creative Commemorations
Holger Mohaupt, Liverpool John Moores University
Mobile Archive - From the Mersey in Liverpool to Paddy Fields in Indonesia
Simona Palladino, Liverpool Hope University
The effects on wartime xenophobia and discriminations after several generations: memories of the Arandora Star sinking on 3rd generation Italians in the UK
Sebastian F. Croft, University of Warwick
Bomb Voyage: The USS Indianapolis Disaster in American Cinema, Culture, and Post-War National Memory
12:30 Lunch
13:15 Cedric Loughran
Trinity House
13:45 Break
13:55 Panel Two: Mariners and Merchants – Chair Nick White
Kristy Warren, University of Lincoln
Art, Archives & Affinity: Seeking Bermudian Merchant Mariners
Laura Gillespie, Liverpool John Moores University
Laboring for Freedom: Black Sailors in the Union Navy during the American Civil War
Simon Hill, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool's Whaling Industry - A Largely Forgotten Trade Kay MacGregor, PhD candidate, Liverpool John Moores University Liverpool’s Memory of Slavery and Merchant Flexibility via James Aspinall
Valerie Mock, Research Professor, Suffolk University, Boston, USA and Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, CPMH, Liverpool John Moores University
George and Anne Holt’s 1851 Observations on Slavery in the American South
16:05 Break and refreshments
16:25 Ocean Liners and Modern Literature
Faye Hammill, University of Glasgow and Emily Cuming, Liverpool John Moores University, will discuss Faye’s new book published in CPMH’s LUP series, Studies in Port and Maritime History.
17:05 Close
Friday 11 September
9:00 Registration and refreshments
9:15 Panel Three: Maritime Networks and Spatialities
Aanya Agarwal, University of Glasgow
"Fake It Till You Make It": Authentication, Trust, and the Glocalisation of Ceramics at Bandar Abbas (1615–1700 CE)
Sultan Serter, Independent Scholar
Maritime Diplomacy Between Empires: An Analysis of Ottoman–British Relations in Light of Archival Documents
Anne-Sophie Coudray, CIRESC (International Research Centre on Slaveries and Post-Slaveries), Paris, France
Mobility under Dependency: The Role of Thomas A. Codd in the Regulation of Migration Networks of Azorean and Cape Verdean Seamen in New Bedford (1838–1900)
Valeria Giacomin, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Pirelli, Rubber Grades, and the Maritime Logistics of an Interwar Value Chain
10:50 Break and refreshments
11:05 Keynote: Jo Stanley, Honorary Research Fellow at Blaydes Maritime Centre, University of Hull Beyond the binary of ‘passenger’ or ‘seafarer’: nuancing maritime historiography
11:55 Break
12:00 Panel Four: Port Communities
Hannah Bradbury-Crowther, University of Plymouth
Gendered Labour and the Port Economy: Women Contractors in Early Modern Naval Dockyards
John Maguire, Independent Scholar
Dramatising the Dockside: Kitty: Queen of the Washhouse as an Artistic Intervention in Maritime Social History
Siobhan Hayes, Cardiff University
South Wales Dock Communities – title tbc
13:15 Lunch
14:00 Panel Five: Liverpool and the Mersey region: reconstructions and influences
Stephen Roberts, Honorary Research Fellow, Liverpool John Moores University
'Twixt Mersey and Dee and the Irish Sea: Emerging Themes in the Maritime History of Wirral
John Lamb, Independent Scholar
Comparisons between the Lairds of Birkenhead built Confederate Warship CSS Alabama and the Lairds of Birkenhead built submarine Nautilus in Jules Verne’s Novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas
Ed Farrel, Independent Scholar
Liverpool: A New Illustrated History
Guy Collender, University of Portsmouth
Learning from Liverpool: How the Port of London Authority replicated the successes of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board 5
15:40 Break and refreshments
15:55 Keynote:
Martin Bellamy, Glasgow Life Museums
Burrell, Wokery, and how facts can fight the Culture War
16:55 Mike Stammers Memorial Prize for the best paper by a PGR, thanks and conference close
17:00 Drinks reception and performance by the Liverpool Shanty Choir, Victoria Gallery and Museum
Registration opens soon.
Zone North