‘Disability’ and Stuart Seafarers, 1600-1750 (JOWITT_24HISAHRC)
Key Details
- Application deadline
- 9 May 2024
- Location
- UEA/National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
- Funding type
- Competition funded project (Home and International)
- Start date
- 1 October 2024
- Mode of study
- Full-time or part-time
- Programme type
- PhD
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Project Overview
The National Maritime Museum (NMM), part of Royal Museums Greenwich, and the University of East Anglia (UEA) are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded Collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2024. The award is made under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnerships (CDP) scheme and as part of the REACH CDP consortium.
By researching the role and perception of disabled officers, seamen, and dockyard workers who served in the Stuart navy, the project will explore their treatment, as well as representations and understandings of them, at a time of institutional and national change.
This project will be jointly supervised by Prof. Claire Jowitt and Dr Benjamin Redding (UEA) and Dr Robert Blyth (NMM) and the student will be expected to spend time at both UEA and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK.
The studentship can be studied either full or part time.
Project Overview
This project focuses on how impaired Stuart seafarers became identified as ‘disabled’. Engaging with critical disabilities studies where ‘disability’ is understood as a historically and culturally variable category, the project explores how early modern attitudes towards specific physical and sensorial impairments in effect disabled Stuart naval personnel, changing their lived experiences through this categorisation. Researching the lives of impaired battle survivors and dockyard workers is valuable in demonstrating their continued service in the British navy. The project is jointly supervised by the University of East Anglia and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.
The student will study the development of state infrastructure that supported disabilities, focusing on the accounts of the Chatham Chest held at NMM and elsewhere, and key events such as the founding of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, the first hospital for disabled and disadvantaged navy veterans in 1694. The student may wish to extend the project to the 18th century to examine how late Stuart seafarers were supported in their retirement, benefiting from NMM’s more extensive Greenwich Hospital records.
The project is divided into two key strands. Study of the Chatham Chest accounts and related materials to explore the social conditions and relief efforts available to impaired seamen. The project will also use visual and textual material, including broadsides, plays, poems, artwork, and material artefacts, to research and analyse how physically and mentally disabled Stuart naval workers were perceived, understood, and represented.
Research outputs will include a doctoral thesis, a Chatham Chest database, a research guide for NMM disability sources, and potentially a related small pop-up or digital display at NMM.
Research questions include:
• How common was it for seamen and dockyard workers who served in the Stuart navy to be maimed?
• How were sailors’ disabilities perceived by the navy and wider society, including whether seamen’s impairments were perceived differently from those with disabilities on land?
• What roles did members of crew with physical and mental disabilities hold?
• What are the key changes in how disability was understood and treated across the period?
University and Museum partnership
This research studentship is one allocated to UEA by the AHRC to support the work of the NMM under the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership scheme. The successful student will be expected to spend time carrying out research and gaining relevant experience with NMM in Greenwich as part of the studentship, as well as at UEA.
We want to encourage the widest range of potential students to study for a CDP studentship and are committed to welcoming students from non-standard pathways and different backgrounds to apply. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian, and other Global Majority backgrounds as they are currently underrepresented at this level in this area. We also welcome applications from those with lived experience of disability. We are happy to discuss any reasonable adjustments individuals may require in the recruitment process, on commencement, or once in post.
Queries to: Prof. Claire Jowitt and Dr Robert Blyth (NMM)
Applicants should have or expect to receive a Masters-level qualification in a relevant subject such as History, Literature, Museum Studies, or Art History prior to taking up the studentship, or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience in a professional setting.
Applicants must be able to demonstrate an interest in the heritage and research sectors and show potential and enthusiasm for developing skills more widely in related areas.
AHRC CDP doctoral training grants fund full-time studentships for 4 years or part-time equivalent up to a maximum of 8 years.
The award pays tuition fees up to the value of the full-time home UKRI rate for PhD degrees. Research Councils UK Indicative Fee Level for 2024/25 is £4,786*
The award pays full maintenance for all students both home and international students. The UKRI National Minimum Doctoral Stipend for 2024/25 is £19,237, plus a CDP maintenance payment of £600 per year, plus an allowance of £1000 per year, giving a total of £20,837 per year.
The student is eligible to receive an additional travel and related expenses grant during the term of the project courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, worth up to £850 per year for 4 years.
The successful candidate will be eligible to participate in events organised for all Collaborative Doctoral Partnership students who are registered with different universities and studying with cultural and heritage organisations across the UK.
To be classed as a home student, candidates must meet the following criteria:
• Be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or
• Have settled status, or
• Have pre-settled status (meeting residency requirements), or
• Have indefinite leave to remain or enter.
Further guidance can be found here.
International students are eligible to receive the full award for maintenance as are home students.
The International student tuition fee for 2024/25 is £19,250. UEA currently has a partial fees exemption in place for 2024/25 starters so only the Home tuition fee would be charged to the training grant.