CPMH Annual Conference 2026
Posted: Wednesday 24th June 2026
Event date: 10 & 11 September 2026
Location: Liverpool
Organisers: CPMH
30th Anniversary Conference
This year the Centre for Port and Maritime History (CPMH) celebrates its 30th anniversary. They have a fantastic programme of events and speakers spread over two days. The conference will take place in Liverpool, at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU)'s John Foster Building.
Registration details
Registration costs £30 waged and £5 unwaged. This includes refreshments and lunch on both days as well as a drinks reception, and performance by the Liverpool Shanty Choir.
Travel burseries
The Centre for Port and Maritime History gratefully acknowledges the support of the Society for Nautical Research. Their sponsorship, along with funding from CPMH, allows us to offer small bursaries to help with travel costs for presenters and delegates who do not have institutional funding. Priority will be given to PGRs. To apply, please email Nick White at n.j.white@ljmu.ac.uk
Programme - download full programme and speaker bios
Thursday 10 September
09:30 Registration and refreshments
10:00 Welcome
Keynote Address - Andy Davies/Nick White – Co-Directors, Centre for Port and Maritime History 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 Visting 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, Liverool 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'
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
Image “High Noon" by ARG_Flickr licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
