Centre for Port and Maritime History people and expertise

Dr Edmund Chilaka is Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Port and Maritime History at LJMU and Lecturer at the University of Lagos where he is also Head of the Maritime Cluster and Centre for Multimodal Transport Studies. Edmund also works as a freelance writer for Weekly Scope, Guardian, New Nigerian, National Concord and Freight Monitor and is the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of Dredge Drill and Haul.

Research Interests

Edmund has wide ranging research interests in port and maritime history, including: transport studies, inland waterway shipping, cabotage trade, sand mining, harbour dredging, piracy and armed robbery at sea, seafarer and allied manpower capacity development and training, and Nigerian indigenous participation in the international shipping trade.

Recent Publications on port and maritime history

• Chilaka, Edmund (2023), ‘Nigeria’s Lower Niger dredging campaigns, 1909–2014: the politics of a Lugardian inland water transport project versus the global playbook.’ Water History, 1-30.
• Chilaka, Edmund (2022), ‘The Impact of Mega Shipping Line Mergers, Acquisitions and Oligopoly on Nigeria’s Sea Trade’, in Isaac Chii Nwaogwugwu and Clement Atewe Ighodaro, Dynamics of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Nigeria: Issues, Design and Operations. Lagos: Fiscal and Financial Economists Society of Nigeria, pp389-426.
• Chilaka, Edmund (2022), ‘River Port and Deep-Sea Port Developments in Nigeria: Implications for West African Gateways and Hinterland Markets’, American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, Vol. 12 No. 4, April, 531-561.
• Chilaka, Edmund (2021) ‘Dredging and Reclamation Activities in the Expansion of Lagos Metropolitan Territory, 1860-2016 – A Historical Analysis’, in R. T. Akinyele and Modupe M. Omirin (eds.) Land and Development in Lagos, pp.415-452.
• Chilaka, Edmund (2019), The Rise, Fall and Liquidation of Africa's Pioneer Carriers: Nigerian National Shipping Line and Black Star Line, E-book published 3 December.

David Clampin is Subject Leader for History at LJMU and a member of the Board of CPMH. David’s research, related to maritime history, is concerned with the marketing of the British merchant marine from the 1870s through to the 1970s. This builds on previous work in the field of marketing history, brought into focus in collaboration with Merseyside Maritime Museum and their 2014 exhibition, Sail Away. Liverpool Shipping Posters (with White). Underpinning research was published in the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, “Is it essential that a steamship company’s poster must have a ship?”: The shortcomings of British shipping posters c.1840 to c.1970, Vol. 9 Issue: 4 (2017), pp.386-424.

Gillian O'Brien is Professor of Public History with a particular interest in how complex, controversial or distressing history is communicated to a wide audience. She is a board member of the Irish Museums Association and chair of its advocacy committee. Gillian has played a key role in the development of a number of heritage sites and curated and advised on many museum exhibitions. She has published extensively on Dark Tourism, most notably The Darkness Echoing. Exploring Ireland's Places of Famine, Death and Rebellion (Penguin, 2020) which includes a chapter on Ireland's maritime history and (largely neglected) heritage. She has recently published 'Ships, Sugar and Slavery: Catholics, Provisioning, and Eighteenth-Century Cork' in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, vol. 38, (2023) 

Dr Emily Cuming is a member of the CPMH Board and works as Senior Lecturer in English Literature at LJMU. Her research, related to maritime history, is concerned with the family and kinship networks of ordinary merchant sailors and their representation in literary and cultural forms across the long nineteenth century.

Her second monograph is entitled Maritime Relations: Life, Labour and Literature at the Water’s Edge, 1850-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and she is the author of ‘At Home in the World? The Ornamental Life of Sailors in Victorian Sailortown’, Victorian Literature and Culture 47.3 (2019): 463-85.

She held a Caird Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum in 2021 in which she explored seafarers’ personal logbooks as forms of working-class life writing.

Emily has recently worked with the Archives Centre at the Liverpool Maritime Museum to recover a set of oral histories relating to the Royal Liverpool Seamen’s Orphan Institution in Newsham Park (1874-1949), as part of a broader research project that addresses maritime childhood and institutional life stories.

Dr Simon Hill is a Sessional Lecturer and Visiting Research Fellow at Liverpool John Moores University and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester. His research focuses on eighteenth century Liverpool - especially its ties to the 'empire of the seas'. As a result, Simon has conducted research into Georgian Liverpool's ties to trans-Atlantic slavery, privateering and ship-building. Simon is currently researching Liverpool's ties to the Greenland and Southern whale 'fisheries'. 

Recent publications

• S. Hill, ‘The Politics of Liverpool’s Northern Whaling Trade 1750-1823’ Mariner’s Mirror, 104, 4 (2018), 439-55.
• S. Hill, ‘The Socio-Cultural Impact of the War of American Independence upon Liverpool 1775-1783’, Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, 40, 2 (2017), 163-80
• S. Hill, ‘The Liverpool Economy during the War of American Independence, 1775-1783’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 44, 6 (2016), 835-56.

Clare Horrocks is Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture and Communication and a member of the CPMH Board. Within the field of maritime history, Clare’s interest is in the social and cultural history of Cunard.

Recent exhibitions and presentations

Life on the Ocean Wave, April 22 – July 8 2015

Clare was senior curator of the exhibition which showcased over 200 items of Cunard ephemera in celebration of 175 years of Cunard.

Three Queens Celebration Event, Merseyside Maritime Museum 24-26 May 2015. 

Clare collaborated with fellow LJMU, CPMH members in a rolling programme of papers connected with the history of Cunard liners on advertising (White), interior design (Roberts) and fashion (Horrocks). This was followed on Monday 25 by an open session led by Horrocks, Roberts and White in which they fielded questions from the public.

Dr Holger Mohaupt is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at Liverpool Screen School, his research is focussing on coastal narratives, heritage and immersive storytelling. In the most recent project ‘Mobile Coast’ he explored the potential of immersive 360 documentary narratives in the context of film and well-being, reaching out to excluded communities. He worked with people living with multiples sclerosis in a respite centre in Scotland.

Publications

Land, Sea, People and Stories – five exhibition films for Coastal Community Museum, North Berwick, Scotland – UK, 2022

Hanna Nsugbe is a current PhD Candidate at Liverpool John Moores University based within the school of International Relations and Politics. Her research explores the concept of retroactive diplomatic immunity and the power structures that enable its application. She also holds an LLB in Law and an LLM in Maritime Law.

Hanna has been the recipient of the Mike Stammers Prize 2022 for her work entitled ‘Maritime memorialisation as justification for environmental disturbance? Examining the application of sovereign immunity to sunken warships in Micronesian waters’ and was the 2023 Three Minute Thesis winner, where she presented a portion of her PhD research.

Hanna currently teaches within the school of Justice Studies at Liverpool John Moores.

Her research interests include international law, international law of the sea, human rights, legal immunities and concepts of power.

My research focuses on the production of capitalist spaces with a focus on contemporary maritime safety and security. In December 2021, I graduated with a PhD in International Studies from Queen’s University Belfast. My thesis was entitled “Navigating Gods and Monsters: The Production of ‘Safe’ Insecure Spatialities in the Deterrence of Risk at Sea”. Through conducting semi-structured interviews with elite-expert participants in both shore and sea-based roles, my research reveals the pivotal role of Protection and Indemnity (P&I) Clubs as third-party maritime insurers in orienting a safety-oriented spatial consciousness in navigating Somali-based piracy.

Since graduating with my PhD, I have worked in intelligence in the private maritime security sector and provided specialised consultancy services to private research projects. I position myself at an intersection of International Relations, Security Studies (Paris School), Human Geography and Metaphysical Philosophy. As a Visiting Research Scholar at the Centre for Port and Maritime History, I look forward to collaborating with other scholars at the centre, contributing to a positive and inclusive research culture, and inspiring intrigue and passion for the sea.

This year, I have contributed to an edited collection called “The Sea and International Relations” with many fantastic academics who specialise in International Relations, Historical Sociology, Blue Humanities and Critical Ocean Studies.

I am currently working on splitting my PhD thesis into two monographs. One of which will cover the historical and theoretical aspects of my research, and the second will cover my empirical research as a pivotal handbook for the maritime security and insurance industry. I am interested in conducting further work on theoretical understandings of time, space, and territory at sea and following industry responses to new and emerging maritime security threats.

Publications

• Simonds, J. (2022). Book Review: Piracy and the Privatisation of Maritime Security: Vessel Protection Policies Compared. International Journal of Maritime Crime and Security, 2(2), pp.114–119.
• Simonds, J. K. (2022) ‘Constructing Insecure Maritime Spaces: Navigational Technologies and the Experience of the Modern Mariner’, Benjamin de Carvalho & Halvard Leira (eds.) The Sea and International Relations. 1st edition Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Simonds, J. K. (2020) How Seafarers are Redirecting Security Consciousness [online]. Available from: http://cimsec.org/in-the-deep-end-how-seafarers-are-redirecting-security consciousness/45070 (Accessed 28 August
• Simonds, J. K. (2017) Report on Piracy in 2016 Launched. [Online]. Available from: https://www.seafarerswelfare.org/news/2017/report-on-piracy-in-2016-launched.

Professional

• November 2022 Liverpool John Moore’s University. Crossing the Line: Producing ‘Safe’ Insecure Spatialities in the Navigation of Somali-Based Piracy
• October 2022 Oxford Geography Society: The University of Oxford. “Navigating Gods and Monsters: Producing Space and Place in the Deterrence of Maritime Risks”.
• April 2022 The George Mitchell Institute for Conflict, Peace and Security, Queen’s University Belfast. “Monsters, Myths and Maritime Security: The Zonation of Modern Dangers”.
• December 2021 Guest Lecturer and TTX Moderator: NATO Maritime Security Centre of Excellence (COE), Istanbul, Turkey.
• April 2021 International Studies Association, Annual Conference, Las Vegas “The Sea and International Relations: History, Theory and Prospects”.
• March 2020 ISA Annual Conference, Honolulu (Cancelled due to COVID-19) “Entanglements of Time, Sovereignty and Space: Insuring (In) Security in the Deterrence of Somali Based Piracy”.
• September 2019 European International Studies Association (EISA) Annual Conference, Sofia, Bulgaria “Theorizing (In) Security in the High-Risk Area: An IR Perspective of State and Industry Security Assemblages”.
• July 2019 EISA Annual Workshops, Krakow, Poland: Paper workshop on ‘The Sea’
• September 2018 British International Studies Association (BISA) US Foreign Policy Working Group Conference. “United States Maritime Foreign Policy in the Era of the Post-Piratical”, Liverpool John Moores University.
• November 2018 BISA Workshop on ‘The Sea’, London School of Economics and Political Science.

Dr. Emma Roberts is Associate Dean for Global Engagement in the Faculty of Arts, Professional and Social Studies at LJMU.  She is also Programme Leader of BA History of Art and Museum Studies, is a practising Art Historian and an Enrichment Lecturer on board cultural cruise lines.  Emma’s research interests, related to maritime history, are focused upon Cunard Line and its interior design and acquisition of art works.  Additionally, she is interested in the history of art works associated with the sea and shipping, which extends even to folk art and maritime antiques.  A theme throughout Roberts’ work within maritime studies is an interest in space and its transformative potential (liminal, carnivalesque, hedonistic, for example).

Notable publication on maritime history

• Roberts, Emma (2020) ‘The Superliner and Liminal Space’ in: Braasch, B.  & Schnurmann, C.  (2020) Off Shore.  Perspectives on Atlantic Pleasure Travel Since the 19th Century (Atlantic Cultural Studies, Vol.12), Lit-Verlag, Hamburg.  (ISBN- 13 978-3-643-91246-6)
• Roberts, Emma (2016), ‘Edward Carter Preston's Figurehead of Admiral Nelson' in: Sculpture Journal.  vol.  24, issue 2, 2015, pp.  83-99.  ISSN: 136-2724 / 1756-9923.

FRHistS, FRSA, Assoc RINA, is Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the History Department at LJMU, and Honorary Research Fellow at Blaydes Maritime History Centre, University of Hull. She is a writer, broadcaster, networker, and museum consultant who is actively promoting greater recognition of the role of minorities in maritime history. This includes women, LGBTQI+ people and BAME people working in those heterotopic institutions, ships, and in port life. Maritime cultural history guru Marcus Rediker described Jo as ‘a national treasure’ because of the unusual treasure she has discovered.

An expert on oral history and lifestory narratives, Jo’s particular research interests include the impact of maritime mobility on travellers’ mental motility; voyagers’ subjective identity can be transformed as in no other occupation.  She is also interested in affective and emotion labour on ships and the narrative process involved in seafarers’ constructing autobiographical summaries.

A STEM Ambassador and creative explorer, Jo is currently writing brief plays focusing on female STEM pioneers in maritime life. They include Victoria Drummond and Eily Keary. These performed plays will be on YouTube as part of the Women’s Engineering Society centenary celebrations and the University of Leeds Electrifying Women project.

An active user of social media, Jo’s information can be seen on her website.

Topical material appears regularly on her blog.

Notable publication on maritime history

• Jo Stanley, ‘Frocks versus guns: UK seafaring women and queered people sailing the South Atlantic in the 1982 Malvinas/ Falklands conflict’, in Birgit Braasch and Claudia Andrea Müller (Eds), Off Shore: Perspectives on Transatlantic Pleasure Travel since the 19th Century, Lit-Verlag, Hamburg,  2020, pp. 61-98.
• Jo Stanley,  ‘UK armed forces’  and ‘UK merchant marine’, in Howard Chiang et al  (Eds)   The Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History, Macmillan Reference, New York, 2018, Vol 3, pp. 1066-1069.
• Jo Stanley, Women and the Royal Navy, IB Tauris/ National Museum of the Royal Navy, London and Portsmouth, 2017.
• Jo Stanley, From Cabin ‘Boys’ to Captains: Women seafarers from 1750 to the present, History Press, Stroud, 2016.
• Jo Stanley, ‘They thought they were normal - and queens too: gay seafarers on British liners 1945-1985’, in Duncan Redford (Ed), Maritime History and Identity: The sea and culture in the modern world, IB Tauris, London, 2013, pp. 230-250.
• Paul Baker and Jo Stanley, Hello Sailor: The hidden history of gay life at sea, Pearson Education/ Longman, London, 2003.
• Jo Stanley ‘The Swashbuckler, the Landlubbing Wimp, and the Woman in between: Myself as Pirate(ss)’, in Pauline Polkey (Ed) Women’s Lives into Print: The Theory, Practice and Writing of Feminist Auto/Biography, Macmillan, London, 1999, pp. 216-228.
• Jo Stanley (Ed and contributor) Bold in her Breeches: women pirates across the ages, Pandora / HarperCollins, London, 1995, 1996; Toyoshorin, Japan, 2003.

Although a Bachelor of Science and Economics, a Master of Arts, a Doctor of Education and a Doctor of Philosophy, I’m actually a Historian. I have been an active member of the Centre for Port and Maritime History since 2019 and was honoured to be invited to present the inaugural Peter N Davies Seminar (2021) on the theme of ‘Maritime Education in the 1890s: microhistories from the Liverpool Nautical College’.

I’m author of the chapter “Illuminating the History of the Training Ship HMS Conway through Stained Glass Windows” in (Emma Roberts ed.) ‘Art and the Sea’ (2022). Also author of the published thesis: The ‘proper means of efficient nautical education’? The Liverpool Nautical College (1892-1900) and the late-Victorian port city (0394DE88-790C-4BCD-B191-BFE7BD4D5574). This latter publication is the culmination of a PhD research project into the early years of the Liverpool Nautical College (LNC), from which the institution emerges as a fragile, tenuous, fledgling experiment in designing and delivering an innovative programme of nautical education. The College was a divisive and disruptive political issue amongst the various maritime communities in late-Victorian Liverpool, launched with ambitious goals in relation to widening access, innovative delivery and raising educational standards each of which proved challenging and remained unfulfilled in the LNC’s first decade.  Yet the LNC survived, adapted and thrives today as a constituent element of Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU).

Nick White is Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History in the History Department at LJMU.  He is Co-director of CPMH and a Trustee of the British Commission for Maritime History (BCMH). Nick’s research interests, related to maritime history, are focused upon British international shipping lines in the twentieth century and especially their responses to decolonisation and globalisation after 1945. His particular geographical expertise lies in East and Southeast Asia but, Nick’s research is also concerned with the Port of Liverpool and its relative decline.  These interests, international, imperial and local led to the Heritage Lottery Funded, Homeward Bound: A Liverpool West-Africa Heritage project for which Nick was principal investigator.

Notable publication on maritime history

• Niels P. Petersson, Stig Tenold, Nicholas J. White (Eds), Shipping and Globalisation in the Post-War Era: Contexts, Companies, Connections, Palgrave, 2019, including a chapter by White, ‘Thinking Outside “The Box”: Decolonisation and Containerization’, pp. 67-99. (This book is available open access).
• Anthony Webster and Nicholas J. White (Eds), Singapore – Two Hundred Years of the Lion City, Routledge, 2019, including a chapter by White, ‘The Economics of Singapore’s Exit from Malaysia’, pp. 96-116. (This book is freely available here during the Covid-19 pandemic).
• Nicholas J. White and Catherine Evans, ‘Holding back the tide: Liverpool Shipping, Gentlemanly Capitalism and Intra-Asian Trade in the Twentieth Century’ in Ulbe Bosma and Anthony Webster (Eds), Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade Since 1750, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 218-240.
• ‘Ferry off the Mersey”: The Business and the Impact of Decolonisation in Liverpool’, History, Vol. 96, No. 2 (April 2011), pp. 188-204.
• Sherllynne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J. White (Eds), The empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, MUP, 2008, including a chapter by White, ‘Liverpool shipping and the end of empire: the Ocean group in East and Southeast Asia, c. 1945-73, pp. 165-187.