{"title":"Hospital ships of the Royal Navy in World War One: From pre-war planning to the aftermath of Jutland","authors":"Edward J. Wawrzynczak, Jane V. S. Wickenden","doi":"10.1177/08438714251389558","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714251389558","url":null,"abstract":"In World War One, naval hospital ships played an essential role, which has been generally underappreciated, in the medical care of seamen. The Admiralty had made plans to convert merchant vessels into hospital ships and carriers to provide immediate support to the Grand Fleet, especially at its Scottish bases: Scapa Flow, Cromarty Firth and Rosyth. The prolongation of the war required continuity of medical care to be developed, crucially so given the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Naval hospital ships were vital to the repatriation of sick and wounded seamen from the Mediterranean. Moreover, in late 1914 and at Gallipoli in 1915, naval hospital ships contributed significantly to the military medical effort. This article describes the principal naval hospital ships and the specific, unique and varied activities they undertook throughout the war, as well as the medical, naval, military and mercantile factors that influenced their organisation and deployment.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"37 4","pages":"708-741"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147915329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marine resource procurement as everyday resistance in Ireland during the Great Hunger (1845-1852).","authors":"Emily Schwalbe, Rory Connolly, Sophia Chapple, Poul Holm","doi":"10.1177/08438714251356343","DOIUrl":"10.1177/08438714251356343","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article seeks to challenge dominant narratives surrounding the Great Hunger in Ireland (An Gorta Mór, 1845-1852) by focusing on the often-overlooked aspect of marine resource exploitation. Traditional historiography of the famine typically centres on the failure of the potato crop, British colonial policies and the resulting socio-economic devastations. However, this narrative largely omits the daily survival strategies and forms of resistance employed by the Irish populace, particularly in their interaction with the marine environment. This study explores how coastal communities turned towards the sea as a resource for sustenance, autonomy and resistance against oppressive conditions imposed by the crop failures and British colonial rule. By critically engaging with the role of colonial control, external aid efforts and local resistance in primary accounts, the authors argue that marine resources played an important role in the everyday survival of Irish communities in the face of systemic failures.</p>","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"37 3","pages":"492-516"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12373266/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144972893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From warships to whaleships: Former Royal Navy vessels entering the South Seas fishery in the post-Napoleonic period, 1815–1845","authors":"Julie Papworth, Roger Dence","doi":"10.1177/08438714241282428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241282428","url":null,"abstract":"During Britain's conflicts between 1793 and 1815, the Royal Navy changed markedly. New classes of smaller warships were introduced, with numerous vessels built to Admiralty (King's Yard) designs in private shipyards rather than the Royal Dockyards. Many were sloops-of-war, flush-decked and unrated vessels, carrying 20 guns or fewer, that proved versatile in operations around the world. After 1815, the size of the fleet was reduced. Initially many vessels were kept in reserve, but eventually most were sold for mercantile service or breaking, some of the latter also then being resold for merchant use. These vessels proved attractive to long-established whaling owners and new entrants to the whaling trade alike. Such warship-to-whaleship transitions are examined through vessels entering the British southern whale fishery in the post-Napoleonic period between 1815 and 1845.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"36 4","pages":"842-873"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147916288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond docks, below decks: Austrian seafarers’ shipboard collective protests in the age of industrial shipping","authors":"Matteo Barbano","doi":"10.1177/08438714241271805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241271805","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores collective resistance actions among Austrian seafarers between the late nineteenth century and First World War, shedding light on the seaborne dimension of their struggles and investigating possible connections between the developmental stages of the seafarers’ labour movement in Trieste and their engagement in collective action at sea. In doing so, the research focuses particularly on the crews of Austrian Lloyd, the most powerful shipping company in the Habsburg merchant marine, which played a leading role in shaping labour relations between Austrian seafarers and shipowners. By analysing data extracted from the Black Book, the company’s tool for blacklisting seafarers, this article identifies seaborne collective resistance as a distinctive mode of struggle found in specific phases of the industrial relations between Lloyd and its seagoing personnel, underscoring the relevance of the ship as a significant stage in maritime labour conflicts in the age of industrial shipping.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Amfioen Societëit (1745–1794): Opium, intra-Asian trade and the commercial world of Batavia in the eighteenth century","authors":"Noelle Nadiah Richardson","doi":"10.1177/08438714241275569","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241275569","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the emergence of the Amfioen Societëit (1745–1794) and its impact on the market for opium in eighteenth-century Java. It engages with a limited body of historiography to challenge assumptions that the Societëit was a wholly colonial institution designed to serve an elite – namely, European – set of interests. In reassessing how the Societëit worked in theory and in practice, it is argued that this institution was born from the necessary collaborative engagement of a European and a local commercial class with different but vested interests in the opium trade. Moreover, the article situates the Societëit among other finance institutions that existed in eighteenth-century Java to serve the credit needs of the local commercial milieu. In doing so, it lays the foundations for a deeper and more nuanced history of the opium trade and the local economy of early modern Java in a period about which very little is known.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Practices and representations of gender: Autochthone women in the Portuguese State of India, 1500s–1600s","authors":"Amélia Polónia, Rosa Capelão","doi":"10.1177/08438714241272520","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241272520","url":null,"abstract":"Interactions between Europeans and the societies and cultures of contact during the early modern process of empire-building depended on the agency of women. This seems particularly apparent in the Portuguese case. Even if many of these interactions were imposed, women were crucial elements in the dynamics and outcomes of European colonization. This affected Portuguese and autochthone women alike, even if on different scales and levels. This article focuses on the latter. Between resistance, conflict, cheating, defection, intermingling and assimilation, those women performed as intermediaries between different worlds. Their presence and agency were vital to economic flows, as they were essential in negotiation processes. They were influential in social organization, through their role in the family, and in the reconfiguration of colonial settings. The concept of intersectionality underlines this analysis by describing the ways by which systems of inequality based on gender, race, ethnicity and other forms of discrimination intersected to create unique historical dynamics.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Japan’s Ocean Borderlands: Nature and Sovereignty by Paul Kreitman","authors":"Niki J. P. Alsford","doi":"10.1177/08438714241272663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241272663","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Melding technologies? Shipbuilding around the Indian Ocean after the arrival of European ships","authors":"Richard W. Unger","doi":"10.1177/08438714241272548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241272548","url":null,"abstract":"When Portuguese sailors confirmed that there was an all-sea route to South Asia from Europe, they introduced new ship designs and building methods to the Indian Ocean World. They found sophisticated maritime skills and a long history of trade over water, both local and long distance. The meeting of the two successful technologies led to some borrowing of different methods and materials, and European use of vessels of Asian design. There were cases of borrowing specific design features, mostly by Asian shipbuilders, but there was surprisingly little melding of aspects of construction. There was some specialization, with Europeans concentrating on building and using larger seagoing cargo carriers. The arrival of steam propulsion for ships after 1800 changed all maritime technologies beyond recognition.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Belonging to the Company’: Transporting and documenting unfree labour in the Indian Ocean, 1719–1790","authors":"Margaret E. Schotte","doi":"10.1177/08438714241272583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241272583","url":null,"abstract":"Over the course of the eighteenth century, French East India Company ships carried numerous sailors, soldiers, passengers and unfree labourers to and from various ports of trade in the Indian Ocean. Although European merchant companies developed extensive documenting systems, certain elements received little attention in the records. When it came to tracking unfree labourers, Company employees used terminology with ambiguous meanings and categories that were codified in the Atlantic context and therefore not initially applicable in the Indian Ocean. In order for historians to interpret these records more accurately, this article reviews specific terminology and pertinent French legislation about racialized labourers. This contextual information helps to uncover previously overlooked groups of unfree labourers working for – and, at times, trying to escape from – the French East India Company in the Indian Ocean and beyond.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The roles of Dutch skippers as partners and principals in colonial endeavours: Lessons from Amsterdam to New Netherland (1639–1664)","authors":"Julie van den Hout","doi":"10.1177/08438714241262258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714241262258","url":null,"abstract":"While Atlantic skippers were vital to seventeenth-century Dutch imperial expansion, few histories address the roles of skippers in colonial ventures. Drawing on archival records in Amsterdam and New York, this study examines the activities of skippers along roughly 200 voyages between Amsterdam and New Netherland from 1639 to 1664. In Amsterdam, skippers in relationships with voyage outfitters functioned as trusted partners who offered continuity for operations. As principals at sea, skippers navigated hazards and managed contingencies during inherently risky transatlantic passages. In the colony, skippers collaborated with local merchants to facilitate trade, and with colonial authorities to provide maritime support. With an impact on every stage of the endeavour, skippers were key players in the colonial complex, which depended on them for its functioning. Beyond New Netherland, these findings have applications for evaluating other European colonial undertakings, and for understanding the wider mechanisms of imperial expansion into the Atlantic.","PeriodicalId":43870,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Maritime History","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142191703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}