Invitation to a full-day workshop on High Court of Admiralty Records that will take place at The National Archives on 20 June 2023. Dr Oliver Finnegan is organizing the workshop (oliver.finnegan@nationalarchives.gov.uk). Tickets for this Postgraduate Archival Skills Training (PAST) Workshop focused on the High Court of Admiralty’s records (including, of course, the Prize Papers) at The National Archives on 20 June are still available. The High Court’s archives are a rich source for global, colonial and maritime history c.1550-c.1850 but have been little-used by scholars due to the collection’s complexity and limited cataloguing. The event is also an opportunity to network and meet other scholars interested in similar or related fields!
Work at The National Archives in recent years has drastically increased the accessibility of the collection and this PAST Workshop aims to provide postgraduate students and ECRs with the skills required to navigate these newly accessible HCA records. This vast body of sources are in all major European (and some semitic) languages and are particularly valuable for those studying overseas trade, migration, women’s history, the transatlantic slave trade, life at sea, material culture, piracy, privateering and coastal cultures, as well as Caribbean, early American, Atlantic and Indian Ocean histories. The workshop will take place over a full day on 20 June 2023 at Kew and a limited number of tickets are still available on Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/past-records-workshop-high-court-of-admiralty-registration-483077466707.’ No prior experience of archival sources is required, although basic palaeography skills for your period of interest will help you to get the most out of the session.