FROM SMALL STATE TO MARITIME EMPIRE: UNLOCKING THE DATA

By the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, Britain was on its way from being a peripheral player in European trade to becoming a maritime superpower. Research at Southampton is challenging pre-existing notions of how and why this happened.

Comings and goings at the country’s ports have been meticulously recorded since ‘port books’ were introduced in 1565. In each county head-port, the customs officials recorded the name and home port of every ship that entered or left the harbour, the name of the shipmaster, the cargo carried, and the names of the merchants freighting the goods. The port books largely exist in an unbroken sequence, meaning that developments in shipping capacity, trade, and seafarers’ careers can be measured precisely.

Historians at the University of Southampton are examining these records in detail –contained in some 20,000 books – for the first time. The three-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council that started in 2022 – ‘English Merchant Shipping, Trade, and Maritime Communities from the Spanish Armada to the Seven Years’ War’ – aims to uncover the full story behind Britain’s rise to become a global maritime power.

Dr Craig Lambert, Associate Professor of Maritime History, and lead researcher on the project, said: “There were huge changes in the volume and pattern of the country’s trade between the Spanish Armada and the Seven Years’ War. Through this project, we’re hoping to add more granular detail to our understanding of what exactly changed, why, and how.”

The project features three strands:

• Merchant shipping: enumerating the ships in the fleet and how this changed over the course of two centuries

• Maritime trade: mapping trade routes and how these evolved and expanded

• Maritime communities: understanding the ways in which maritime trade and commerce affected the lives of people in port towns and beyond.

Dr John McAleer, Associate Professor of History and co-investigator on the project, outlined: “The maritime community stretched far beyond a ship’s crew. A whole host of people and communities were involved in supplying, repairing, and facilitating the merchant fleet. The impact of Britain’s maritime activities stretched far inland and touched many lives and livelihoods.”

Old meets new

The research team is fusing history with stateof-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve its aims.

Research fellow Dr Gary Baker is spending four months photographing the pages of the 20,000 port books, held at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew. The result will be about 500,000 photographs.

Working with Jason Sadler, Principal Research Fellow in the University’s GeoData Institute, and machine learning company Osiris-AI, the team will produce a database of hundreds of thousands of voyages, which will be publicly available via the project website.

Craig said: “We’re applying some real science to this. Using AI, we’ll be able to see not just where British ships went but to map when they were sailing, who was on board, and what these vessels were carrying.”

But the historic records have already thrown up some unexpected and unusual challenges. Some of the books have been found to contain mould and must be quarantined and checked by conservation specialists at TNA before they can be photographed. Others are faded and almost impossible to read. Perhaps counterintuitively, the older records are easier to decipher, as Craig explained: “Before 1620, the records were written on vellum [animal skin], a high-quality material that survives well. These records are extremely well preserved. After 1620, however, the records were kept on paper and some have faded a lot.”

Trade tales

The detail of trade movements that the records contain will give the team a clearer picture of how Britain’s maritime trade changed.

“One of the most interesting aspects of the story will be the change in consumption patterns,” said John. “British consumers developed a taste for luxury items, such as tea and spices from Asia, as well as tobacco and cotton from America, and sugar from the Caribbean. That affected maritime trade. Historians have known this for a long time, but this project should provide much more detail.”

Finding stories

The project is also set to throw up fascinating human stories.

“We hope our research will help us to understand a lot more about the people from the time and overturn some myths about the maritime community in the process,” explained John. “We’ve already found a great deal of variety in the ages and backgrounds of crew on board ships, as well as plenty of evidence of women acting as ship owners and merchants. Maritime communities were much more diverse than the stereotypical image of the salty old sea dog with a wooden leg.”

The team will produce three enriched case studies to bring some of these historical stories to life, working with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the SS Great Britain in Bristol, the Golden Hinde in London, and a range of groups in Southampton, including the Sarah Siddons Fan Club theatre group.

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