Professor Sarah Palmer
BA (Durham) MA (Indiana) PhD (London) FRSA FRHistS
Emeritus Professor
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My academic interests are reflected in other activities, including chairmanship of the Greenwich Forum, membership of the British Commission for Maritime History, involvement in the International Maritime Economic History Association and serving on the judging committee for the Maritime Foundation’s Mountbatten Maritime Award. I serve on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Maritime History, Mariner’s Mirror, The Northern Mariner/Le Marin Du Nord and The Great Circle.
Research interests
My doctoral thesis dealt with the Port of London and I have maintained an interest in port history, but over the course of my career a variety of aspects of the maritime past and present have attracted my attention. My main areas of research are currently as follows:
- Maritime policy and governance. I am interested in the interaction between the political and economic spheres. My 1990 book on the repeal of the Navigation Laws examined how and why Britain dismantled its protective system, but shipping remained one of the most regulated sectors of the economy. In the later nineteenth century regulation of shipping in the interests of safety and welfare began to become an issue for international agreement; a process gathering pace in the later twentieth century as globalisation reduced the ability of flag states to control shipping. At the same time, state promotion of national fleets continues to be an issue, not least in Britain. These aspects are the theme of my article in the International Journal of Maritime History, respective contributions on ‘Navigation Laws’ and ‘Safety’ to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History (Oxford, 2007) and a 2008 chapter on twentieth century British Shipping.
- Urban History. The physical development of the Port of London since 1800 is fairly well understood, but many questions still remain as to how the port operated as a business and workplace. The role of central government in shaping the capital’s port from the construction of the dock system in the early 1800s up to the final closure of the docks in the 1980s is among aspects I am exploring. My current research into the governance of the Thames environment since the 1960s provides an intellectual link with my interest in other public policy areas.
Select Publications
‘British shipping from the late nineteenth century to the present’ in Lewis R. Fischer and Evan Lange (eds.) International Merchant Shipping in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: the Comparative Dimension. Research in Maritime History No.37 (St John’s Newfoundland, 2008)
‘Kent and the sea’, Archaeologia Cantiana, CXXVIII (2008), 263-279
‘Afterword’ in Freda Harcourt, Flagships of Imperialism: the P&O Company and the Politics of Empire (Manchester, 2006)
‘Leaders and followers: the development of international maritime policy in the nineteenth century’, International Journal of Maritime History, XVII (2005), 1-11
‘The labour process in the 19th century Port of London’ in J.Barzman and Eric Barre, (eds.) Environments Portuaire ( Le Havre, 2004)
‘Port economics in an historical context: the 19th century Port of London’, International Journal of Maritime History, XV (2003), 27-67
‘Women in the war’ in C.J.Wrigley, (ed.), The International Impact of the First World War (Routledge, 2000)
‘Ports 1840-1970’ in M.J.Daunton, (ed.), The Urban History of Britain, Vol III (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
‘Shipbuilding in southeast England’ in S. Ville, (ed.) Shipbuilding in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century: A Regional Approach (St John’s Newfoundland, 1993),
Politics, Shipping and the Repeal of the Navigation Laws (Manchester, 1990)