From Ships to Systems: Rethinking Maritime Britain

On 17th April, Craig Lambert, I had the pleasure of delivering the keynote lecture at the British Commission for Maritime History’s New Researchers Conference. It was an excellent event, bringing together early-career scholars working across a wide range of maritime topics, and it was particularly rewarding to engage with such a thoughtful and engaged audience.

My talk, From Ships to Systems: Rethinking Maritime Britain, c.1550–c.1650, explored how recent work from the Maritime Britain Project is reshaping our understanding of England’s maritime development. Rather than treating maritime history as a series of isolated ports, voyages, or regions, I argued that we need to think in terms of systems: interconnected networks of ships, routes, commodities, and people that structured how England functioned as a maritime society.

A central theme of the lecture was the importance of regional structure. The evidence shows clearly that maritime Britain in the sixteenth century was not dominated by London in any simple sense. Instead, capacity was distributed across multiple regions, with the East and South West playing particularly significant roles. London, while smaller in terms of ship numbers, stood out for the size and carrying capacity of its vessels. This points not to a hierarchy of ports, but to a differentiated and interdependent system, in which different regions performed distinct functions.

The talk also emphasised the foundational role of coastal trade. Far from being marginal, domestic and short-sea shipping formed the backbone of maritime Britain. The majority of recorded voyages were coastal, linking ports, markets, and regions into a dense and highly routinised network. Overseas trade, while important, rested on this internal infrastructure and was itself regionally varied, with different parts of the coast oriented towards different maritime worlds.

Alongside this structural analysis, I also explored the human dimension of maritime life. Reconstructing the maritime workforce makes it clear that this was a large and socially complex community, encompassing not only shipmasters and merchants but also sailors, fishers, carpenters, gunners, and watermen. Career patterns suggest a degree of specialisation, with many individuals operating in either coastal or overseas trade rather than moving freely between the two. At the same time, evidence from musters, taxation records, and legal documents reveals the varied experiences of those who lived and worked at sea, from middling shipmasters to labourers and soldiers, and from male-dominated crews to the often-overlooked presence of female merchants.

The broader conclusion of the lecture was that maritime Britain was not peripheral to England's development but central to it. Maritime activity connected regions, enabled the circulation of goods, structured labour markets, and created both opportunity and risk. By approaching this world as a system, rather than a collection of isolated elements, we can begin to see more clearly how maritime activity shaped the economic and social fabric of early modern England.

It was a pleasure to share this work with such a lively group of researchers, and I look forward to seeing how their own work continues to develop new perspectives on the maritime past.