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'''[https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/eportfolios/hypmad/ Dr Benjamin Redding], a naval historian at the University of Warwick, is collaborating with [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Tools:_Warwick_biographies#Colin_Greenstreet Colin Greenstreet], co-director of MarineLives, to co-facilitate palaeography training for University of Warwick History students. The collaboration kicked off in late 2017 and is now in its third month.
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Two of the six Warwick students participating in the group share their experiences below.'''
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[[File:Celine Profile.JPG|250px|thumb|left|Celine Romano, second year history student, University of Warwick]]
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==MarineLives research agenda for 2022==
  
'''<u>Celine Romano</u> is a second year History student at the University of Warwick. Her interests in history range from early modern material history and its socio-political importance, to the philosophy of the Enlightenment.'''
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'''Marine Lives celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2022. To mark reaching the remarkable digital age of ten we are planning several initiatives, which we will be announcing in January 2022. These initiatives will be linked to our research agenda for the year, which is as below:
  
"I remember I was sitting waiting for one of my lectures, when someone came to the front and announced this volunteer project within the history department. I didn’t catch much, but when Dr. Redding mentioned engaging with primary sources I perked up, and I’m glad I did. Marine Lives has been a really valuable experience as it’s taught me a new palaeographic skills. Some people complain about student handwriting; I can now assure them, they are clearer than some 17th century scripts!
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1. Developing and optimising keyword search algorithms for C17th Secretary Hand in English language English High Court of Admiralty manuscript documents.
  
I had just finished a week on maritime empires for one of my history modules, in which we discussed the bill of rights system and roguish sailors swapping flags. It seemed interesting, but the [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Introduction_to_the_High_Court_of_Admiralty High Admiralty Court] was still quite abstract. Through Marine Lives, I’ve gained a better understanding of the actuality of maritime trade and legal spheres than through secondary texts: it was something real, that individuals engaged with.[[File:Arak.jpg|thumbnail|right|[http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/HCA_13/72_f.581r_Annotate Extract from HCA 13/72 f.582r]]]
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2. Completing the next phase of our metadata for the HCA 13/ series. Currently, we have metadata for 22,000 deponents from the years 1570 to 1688, supported by 50,000 digital images held offline.
  
The sources themselves have expanded my awareness of how to engage with Early Modern History. For example, we studied the exchange of foodstuffs and dietary cultures across oceans in class. At the same time, I was transcribing [[HCA_13/72_f.581r_Annotate|HCA 13/72 f.581r]], which is a catalogue of all the provisions the crew would need for their trip. In it, I found mention of 'Arack', or 'Arak' – mostly because I didn’t know if it was a real word or how to spell it. With some research, I realised that it was a Middle Eastern liqueur, in a European ship in the East Indies (Batavia, or modern day Jakarta).
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3. Publishing a [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/HCA_30/636_Project_Home_Page#Work_product_by_the_HCA_30.2F636_team hybrid digital edition of three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s], taken from HCA 30/636.
  
Marine Lives has been an eye opening experience to the interconnectedness of the seas and the communities that surround it. It has also helped me learn palaeography, which I look forward to using in my career as a historian."
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4. Organising two workshops with the Oldenburg Prize Papers team on (a) Developing a broadly applicable digital C16th and C17th commercial document ontology (b) Forming and developing an online international community to study mariner letters.
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[[File:Joshua Callaway.JPG|250px|thumb|left|Joshua Callaway, second year history student, University of Warwick]]
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'''<u>Joshua Callaway</u> is currently a second year student at the University of Warwick, studying History with Italian. He has a keen interest in Early Modern European History, particularly aspects of the Military Revolution debate. He is considering a MA in Italy after his undergraduate degree to pursue these ideas further.'''
 
 
"Warwick University’s collaboration with MarineLives has equipped us with a new range of palaeographical and transcription skills, and invited us to broaden our general academic and historiographical approach. Engaging with documents in the new way that MarineLives offers, we have been able to garner a far more personal and intimate appreciation of the mid-17th Century, and the multitude of characters that helped to influence it. After several weeks initially developing our basic understanding of calligraphic styles, we have been given the opportunity to collaborate on documents from the [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Tools:_Huntington_Library_transcription_experiment Huntingdon Library Collection].
 
 
Our first session involved coming to grips with the Huntingdon’s Ellesmere Collection, which drew our attention to the interesting case of merchant Humphrey Slaney and Captain Thomas King. The document, which was presented in the form of a series of preparatory legal notes, elucidates the nature of naval quarrels, and how they were legally dealt with. The second document was an analysis of the state of the English navy; its decay, charges and future prospects. Personally, I found the different style of both of these documents paleographically challenging. However, cooperation between the Warwick transcribers has allowed us to develop our transcribing skills even further. We are appreciative of the historical opportunities that this project has given us, and we are looking forward to continuing to work on material from the Huntingdon’s collection."
 
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==About MarineLives==
 
  
[[File:About MarineLives 22012018.JPG|800px|thumb|left|MarineLives volunteers, past and present, 2015-2018. [[Tools: Biographies|Read more about them here]]]]
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==Fantasy Early Modern book competition==
  
[[File:Jan 2018 Bio Pics 11012018.JPG|400px|thumb|right|Two of our seven latest MarineLives volunteers, starting in January 2018. Planned activities include working on the [[Tools: Textiles, garments, & dyes glossary|Textiles, Garments & Dyestuffs glossary]], transcribing textiles & dyeing inventories, and generally improving C17th manuscript transcription skills, with [[Tools: January 2018 volunteer group goals & background|plenty more potential activities available]]]]
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'''Announcing a one week FANTASY EARLY MODERN BOOK COMPETITION.'''
  
'''MarineLives is a collaborative volunteer driven project. The project started as a spinoff from a National Archives hackathon in early 2012. We are dedicated to the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts from the English High Court of Admiralty, 1627 to 1677, together with thematically related manuscripts from international manuscript and printed document collections'''
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'''Rules: List the chapter titles of a fantasy book you WISH EXISTED and post to the [https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg @Marinelivesorg Twitter] account.'''
  
Currently, we have {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} text pages and {{NUMBEROFFILES}} images available and nearly six million words of full text transcriptions on the MarineLives wiki.
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'''Winner(s) will be those book titles/chapters which get MOST LIKES ON THE [https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg @Marinelivesorg Twitter]  account.'''
  
'''In autumn 2017 and spring 2018 we will be working together with current graduates and second and final year undergraduate members of the University of Warwick History department to make a start on transcribing [[HCA 13/53|a volume of witness statements from 1637 and 1638]].'''
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Here is my starter:
  
'''We also welcome non-university based volunteers from all occupations and will give you the same training and facilitation our Warwick graduate and undergraduate volunteers will be receiving. Our volunteers have included former merchant sailors, teachers, archivists, homemakers and web designers.'''
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TITLE: <u>Early Modern Economic Lives</u>
  
'''Our [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Tools:_January_2018_volunteer_group_goals_%26_background latest group of volunteers started working in January 2018], and we still have room for more people to join this group.'''
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CHAPTER 1: Talking about work: Early Modern workers describing their occupations and work places
  
[[Tools: Basic wiki skills & palaeographical tips|Sample our training material to see if this could be for you.]]
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CHAPTER 2: The melding of work and home and its implications for participation of men and women in commercial life
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==This week's Feature: Communal C17th Textiles, Garments & Dyestuffs glossary==
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[[File:Clothing Of Common Sort Spufford Mee 2017 18012018.JPG|450px|thumb|left|Dr Susan Mee, member of the glossary sub-group, is co-author of the recently published book, [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-clothing-of-the-common-sort-1570-1700-9780198807049?cc=us&lang=en&# Margaret Spufford & Susan Mee, The Clothing of the Common Sort, 1570-1700 (Pasold Studies in Textile History, Oxford University Press, 2017)]]]
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CHAPTER 3: Everyone lies: The importance of accurate record keeping
  
[[File:Textiles & Garments Sleuths 18012018.JPG|600px|thumb|right|[https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg Tweet us] or [http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact Email us] your contributions. To learn more about the Textiles, Garments & Dyestuffs volunteer sub-group which is coordinating this glossary [[Tools: Textiles, garments & dyestuffs glossary sub-group|click here]]. Do please consider joining]]
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CHAPTER 4: The role of the Early Modern bookkeeper [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Accounting-Growth-Stripping-Camouflage-Accounts/dp/0712652809 accounting for growth]
  
'''Purpose'''
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CHAPTER 5: Service driven functional literacy: How Early Modern international trade drove and was a product of literacy
  
'''On December 24th, 2017, The MarineLives team launched a [[Tools: Textiles, garments, & dyes glossary|communally created glossary of textiles, garments, & dyes]], with terms and examples  taken from early and mid-C17th English High Court of Admiralty documents, second half of the C17th Chancery Court documents relating to commercial disputes, second half of the C17th Prerogative Court of Canterbury merchants' inventories, and a London coastal portbook from the 1650s.'''
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CHAPTER 6: Risk and probability: How people thought about individual and group risk, and how it affected their commercial decision making
  
The terms are referenced to primary manuscript sources, typically linked to manuscript images and full text transcriptions. As of 18/01/2018, the glossary contains ca. 1000 terms, with contributions from thirty individuals.
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CHAPTER 7: Free will, contract, indentured labour, enslavement: Concepts underpinning the Early Modern labour market
  
'''Contributing to the glossary'''
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CHAPTER 8: How to make Early Modern money (and keep it)
  
We are using the [https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg @Marinelivesorg] Twitter account to solicit new commentary and edits on specific terms, which we are incorporating into the glossary. We will acknowledge all contributions, but reserve the right (with the agreement of contributors) to make small editorial changes. Recent tweets related to the glossary can be found at [https://twitter.com/search?q=%23C17textilesglossary&src=tyah #C17textilesglossary]
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'''Here's a possible plan. Assemble a group of authors, recruited through Twitter, who will write and publish the Fantasy EM book as an open source online book. The book would be peer reviewed by its readers, and will go through various iterations as readers comment, suggest and offer to improve.'''
  
'''Contributors'''  
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'''If we go with Early Modern Economic Lives (and I'm happy to go with a different Fantasy EM book), I (Colin Greenstreet) would be happy to write a draft of chapters three, four and five, but would need collaborators to write the remaining chapters.'''
  
In alphabetical order:
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'''What do you think?'''
 
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Dr Kimberly Alexander, Dr Aaron Allen, Dr Carolyn Arena, Cynthia Chin, Nicola Clarke, Freyalynn Close-Hainsworth, Eglantine, Dr Karwan Fatah-Black, Helen Good, Colin Greenstreet, Tracey E Griffiths, Viveka Hansen, Dave Henderson, Dr Stefan Hessbrüggen-Walter, Jeffrey Hopper; Heather Knight, Dr Marcin Krygier, M.L. Logue, Dr Angela McShane, the pseudonymous Mapnut, Paula Marmor, Menno Jonker, Angela Middleton, Frances Owen, Tim Parry-Williams, Mark Ponte, Dr Michael Pearce, Elizabeth Pimblett, Dr Sophie Pitman, Dr Jo Pugh, Dr Deborah Sherlock, Dr Stephen Snelders, Ian Stoll, Peter Taylor, Dr Samantha Thompson, Rebecca Unsworth
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==Our vision: Lives touched by the marine, 1627-1677==
 
  
[[File:New ML Vision Rev 21102017.JPG|700px|thumb|left|[http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact We have a new vision for the next five years and are interested in talking to international archives and libraries about partnership.]]]
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==New Year's wishes 2022==
  
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'''2022 is the tenth anniversary of the founding of Marine Lives. So here are our New Year's wishes for the next ten years for Marine Lives and for Early Modern studies generally.'''
==Volunteering with MarineLives==
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<u>New Year's Wish One</u>
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Our volunteers</div>
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<div style="font-size: normal;">'''Our volunteers make the MarineLives project special. Do please [http://marinelives.org/contact-us.html contact us] if you would like to discuss volunteering, or if you have ideas to improve our wiki.'''</div>
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We would like to recognise and thank all those who have contributed to our project (in alphabetical order), whether as volunteer transcribers, annotators, commentators, glossary contributors, advisors, interviewees, or PhD Forum participants.
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Dr Aquiles Alencar-Brayner
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Dr Kimberly Alexander
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Dr Aaron Allen
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Elizabeth Ames
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Dr Roberta Anderson
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Dr Carolyn Arena
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Deborah Ashby
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Dr Gary Baker
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Rachel Bates
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Rowan Beentje
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Nga Bellis-Phan
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Michael Bennett
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Amber Berkeley
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Dr Richard Blakemore
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Lior Blum
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Ffion Boyd
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Katie Broke
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Dr James Brown
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Dr Andy Burn
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Elio Calcagno
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Joshua Calloway
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Michelle María Early Capistrán
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Rachel Carter
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Cynthia Chin
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Nicola Clarke
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Freyalyn Close-Hainsworth
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Dr Giovanni Colavizza
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Dr Justin Colson
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Thierry Daunois
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Dr John Davies
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Thomas Davies
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Jonathan Dent
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Melvyn Dresner
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Dr Stuart Dunn
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Professor Kai Eckert
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Bob Egan
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Eglantine
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Dr Charlene Eska
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Louise Falcini
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Emilie-Jane Farrimond
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Dr Karwah Fatah-Black
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Dr Janet Few
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Christian Folgar
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Sara Fox
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Dr Anthony Firth
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Erin French
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Dr Ian Friel
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Professor Cheryl Fury
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Steve Garnett
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Dr Perry Gauci
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Marja Geesink
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Jaap Geraerts
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Helen Good
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Dr Jamie LH Goodall
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Guy Grannum
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Colin Greenstreet
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Francesca Greenstreet
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Tracey E Griffiths
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Dr Adam Grimshaw
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Karen Gunnell
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Yerevag Hagopian
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Finn Halligan
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Viveka Hansen
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Dr Liam Haydon
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Phillipa Hellawell
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Dr Helmer Helmers
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Dave Henderson
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Dr Stefan Hessbrüggen-Walter
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Professor Tim Hitchcock
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Dr Philip Hnatkovich
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Rachel E. Holmes
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Jeffrey Hopper
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Dr Jenni Hyde
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Steve Ives
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Alex Jackson
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Stefan Jäggi
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Elin Jones
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Sue Jones
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Menno Jonker
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Dr Sam Kaislaniemi
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Ross Keel
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Dr Patricia Keller
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William Kellett
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Sara J Kerr
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Heather Knight
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Dr Marcin Krygier
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John Kuhn
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Dr Craig Lambert
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John Layt
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Dr Sjoerd Levelt
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John Levin
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M. L. Logue
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Grace Mallon
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Paula Marmor
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Simon Marsh
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Dr Alan Marshall
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Dr Angela McShane
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Angela Middleton
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John Miller
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Anne Mills
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Kate Morant
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[http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/User:MatthiasMuellerProve Matthias Müller-Prove]
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Professor Steve Murdoch
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Dr Shavana Musa
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Frances Owen
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Harriet Richardson
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Gordon O'Sullivan
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Dr Katherine Parker
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Tim Parry-Williams
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David Pashley
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Dr Michael Pearce
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Dr Cathryn Pearce
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Elizabeth Pimblett
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Dr Sophie Pittman
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Professor Simone Paolo Ponzetto
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Mark Ponte
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Dr Jo Pugh
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Patrizia Rebulla
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Dr Benjamin Redding
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Bethan Reynolds
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Daniel Richards
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Andrew Richens
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Dr Mia Ridge
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Dr Dominique Ritze
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Dr Gavin Robinson
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Axel Hee Rømer
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Celine Romano
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Dr Margaret Schotte
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Steven Schrum
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Laura Seymour
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Dr Deborah Sherlock
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Ida Sjoberg
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Dr Edmond Smith
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Tilly Smith
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Dr Stephen Snelders
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Dr Craig Spence
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Daniel Stewart-Roberts
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Ian Stoll
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Dr Chad Stolper
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Peter Taylor
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Dr Samantha Thompson
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Roger Towner
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Dr Alexis Truax
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Dr William Tullett
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Oliver Turner
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Rebecca Unsworth
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Dr Brodie Waddell
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Rebecca Want
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Samuel Watson
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Dominic Webb
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Jill Wilcox
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Royline Williams-Fontenelle
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Ad van der Zee
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Dr Kathrin Zickermann
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Dr Suze Zijlstra
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Dr Cäcilia Zirn
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and the ever helpful but anonymous [https://twitter.com/_mapnut @_mapnut]
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</div>
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</div>
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Digitisation and open licence publication of the C17th manuscript records of the [https://search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/LMA_OPAC/web_detail/REFD+CLA~2F004?SESSIONSEARCH Mansion House Justice Room] and of the [https://www.westminster-abbey.org/about-the-abbey/library-research/muniment-collection Westminster Abbey Muniments].
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Collaboration with University of Warwick</div>
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;"></div>
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[[File:MarineLives Warwick Skills Programme 18102017.JPG|left]]
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<u>New Year's Wish Two</u>
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Graduate and undergraduate experience of volunteering with MarineLives</div>
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;"></div>
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[[File:Katherine Parker 14052015.PNG|250px|thumb|left|Katherine Parker]]
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'''Katherine Parker was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. She has now completed her dissertation entitled “Toward a more ‘perfect knowledge': British geographic knowledge and South Seas exploration in the eighteenth century. She participated in the MarineLives Ph.D. forum in 2013, and the MarineLives summer programme in 2014:'''
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Development of AI-enabled search tools for discovery within and synthesis of large scale digitised manuscript collections, bypassing the need for the manual creation of archival metadata.
  
"On summer research trips to London in 2011 and 2012, I had looked at a few HCA documents and knew that the cases recorded in them offered rich material for social, economic, and naval history. Over the course of several skype meetings, I and other PhD students got to give our opinions about the proposed platform and methodology for transcription. Working with a team created a strong community aspect to the project from the beginning; I have always been impressed by the inclusiveness and openness that drives MarineLives. Also, it was refreshing to have my opinion valued as a PhD student, as sometimes that stage in one’s education is isolating and transitional—you are not yet qualified as an expert, but also not unknowledgeable about certain fields.
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<u>New Year's Wish Three</u>
  
The value MarineLives placed on the voices of the PhD forum made me want to participate further, even though the works being transcribed were not strictly within the chronological bounds of my dissertation project. Thus, when the summer transcription project was created, I jumped at the opportunity to use paleographic and transcription skills I had gained after a year in London archives on a Social Sciences Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2013-14).
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Implementation of federated search using AI-enabled search tools across multiple large scale digitised manuscript collections
  
Writing styles change over time, just like clothing and furniture styles. Thus, the letters inscribed within HCA volumes from the mid-seventeenth century posed a challenge for me, as I am used to the fluid, upright cursive (often written by a trained scribe or clerk) of the mid-eighteenth-century Admiralty. I came to enjoy the challenge of squinting at the digital pages in front of me, willing the words to make sense, filling in paragraphs slowly until suddenly they all made sense."
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<u>New Year's Wish Four</u>
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[[File:Thomas Davies 14052015.PNG|250px|thumb|left|Thomas Davies]]
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'''Thomas Davies was a third year history undergraduate student studying at Bath Spa University. In the summer of 2014, Thomas was a member of a four person virtual team of volunteers transcribing Admiralty Court witness statements from 1658 to 1660, facilitated by Dr. Philip Hnatkovich in Pennsylvania:'''
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Development of Early Modern Material Lives to complement Early Modern Marine Lives, broadening scope from marine to land based occupations, and emphasising the interaction of Early Modern workers with the physical world.
  
"MarineLives created a Bath Spa student section that helped me significantly, showing templates of letters and the different forms they have. This allowed me to tackle the many different writing styles the clerks used. Once I was able to distinguish between letters more clearly with considerable practise, I found I could transcribe enough of the page to get a good idea of what was being said in the documents. Then, I could alter words that did not fit within the context of the deposition, or using the context as a guideline as to what certain words should be.
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'''[http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_wishes,_2018 Click here] to see our 2018 New Year's wishes.
  
The biggest challenge I faced in the transcription itself was becoming accustomed to the peculiar writing and distinguishing letters. Some letters look very similar, such as f’s and s’s, r’s and c’s not to mention t’s and l’s. I began transcribing effectively by taking it slow and working out the letters individually instead of looking at the word as a whole as we do with modern writing. I found this approach to be very effective.
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'''Please Tweet your comments on our New Year's wishes to [https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg @Marinelivesorg] and share your own New Year's wishes for technologies to support historical research'''
  
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==The Silver Ships research project==
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==New MarineLives project: Researching three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s: HCA 30/636/==
  
'''Three large ships (The ''Salvador'', the ''Sampson'' and the ''Saint George''), of supposed Lubeck and Hamburg build and ownership, were captured by the English in 1652 with highly valuable cargos of silver bullion.'''
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[[File:Ship Diamond August 1637 Setting Out To Mallaga f,61r Ratcatcher Image 20212029 145150.JPG|620px|thumb|left|Item: Paid the Ratcatcher: 4''s'' - 4''d'', Account book of the ship the ''Diamond'': setting out expenses to Mallaga, 1637; HCA 13/635/2]]
  
'''The ships were on their way from Cadiz with bullion from the Spanish West Indies going northwards. It was disputed in the English Admiralty Court as to whether the ships were bound legally for the Spanish Netherlands, or illegally for Amsterdam.'''
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[[File:Account Books 13102021.JPG|800px|thumb|left|HCA 30/636 in all its glory, just waiting for some collaborative work by volunteers]]
  
The case was endowed with political as well as commercial weight - the Commonwealth, and then the Protectorate, was keen to have the bullion declared lawfull prize, but the Spanish government contested this.
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'''Are you interested in a startup collaborative online project to look at, partially transcribe and understand three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s? You have come to the right place. Marine Lives is launching a new project and is seeking volunteer collaborators. This will be a project about co-creation of a public resource, which will be published on the Marine Lives wiki and made available to all - public and academic historians alike (and those just intrigued by our past).'''
  
The many and varied court depositions and other English Admiralty (and English and Spanish State Paper) records give very granular and highly colourful accounts of Seville and Cadiz, Hamburg and Lubeck, the Spanish Netherlands, the by-ways between the Spanish Netherlands and Amsterdam by which bullion could be smuggled overland and by canal, and the River Thames, where the ships and sailors were held following seizure.
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HCA 30/636 is a document category which has been created to cover certain papers generated by the Prize Court jurisdiction of the English High Court of Admiralty papers. It contains nine sub-references. We have imaged all the documents within HCA 30/636 and will be making these available to volunteer collaborators online. Documents include three beautifully leather bound account books of various sizes, further paper bound account books, a letter copy book of letters written from on board ship, and various miscellaneous accounting documents relating to multiple voyages. In all we have over one thousand images.
  
Thomas Violet, a rather dodgy goldsmith, was involved as an agitator on behalf of the State, and published a pamphlet pleading for reimbursement of his efforts, which supplements the Admiralty Court material on the MarineLives wiki.  
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We are in start up mode. Our current thinking is to make the images available on DropBox or OneDrive and to use this MarineLives wiki as our collaboration platform - to share ideas, to provide support, and to be the vehicle to publish our transcriptions and synthesis.  But we are open to your ideas about how to organise this project and nothing will be finalised until we have our team in place. You can get up to speed on our thinking by reading this [https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg/status/1448320605384753156 Twitter Thread].
  
The Silver Ships project was launched by participants in the MarineLives 2015 summer transcription training programme and continues to be driven by volunteers.
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We have had expressions of interest from people from many places - Mexico, Michigan, Texas, London, Newcastle to list a few - which is perfect given the virtual nature of our project and the broad geographic scope of the papers which include multiple voyages from England to the West Indies, the Mediterranean and to Northern Europe.
  
'''Click to [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Tools:_Three_Silver_Ships#Narrative read more]''' about the Silver ships and the historical and legal context of the resulting disputes.
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We will be sending out an email to everyone who has expressed this interest this weekend (Saturday, October 16th 2021), and will invite people in that email to take a look at some sample images and to tell us about their research interests, skills and ideas for this project.
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==How to make money in C17th commercial shipping?==
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'''The MarineLives project team continues to look at the drivers of profit and loss in C17th commercial shipping. We are publishing as we go and welcome comments, contradiction, and offers of help and data.'''
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This is going to be a very relaxed project running through to the middle of 2022 in which people are welcome to dip in and out, and to do as little or as much as they have time and interest for.
  
Please [http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact contact us] if you would like to learn more about this research and how you can help, or if you would more generally like to learn about the work of MarineLives volunteers.
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If you are interested in learning more, '''[https://twitter.com/Marinelivesorg follow Marine Lives on Twitter]''', tweet your interest and we will get in touch with you by Twitter direct mail.
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You can also '''[http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/HCA_30/636_Project_Home_Page access our HCA 30/636 account book project home page here]''', which we are starting to populate. Come join us and help us fill in the blanks.
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Help us think about commercial ship value data</div>
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''How can we improve our understanding of commercial ship value data? Please share your ideas and suggestions for additional data sources'''</div>
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[[File:Hull vs Tackle Apparel Furniture Costs Per Ton 16102017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]
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[[File:What worth per ton burthen Ver2 15102017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">We would like your input into a quantitative history skills programme we are developing</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Developing and using databases? Charting data? Looking at different distributions of data? Modelling? Simulating?'''</div>
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[[File:Quantitative Skills Programme 13102017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]
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</div>
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Huge differences in labour intensity between coastal bulk carrying ships and transoceanic vessels</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The MarineLives C17th ship database enables you to ask and answer questions about crew intensity, ship tonnage and trading routes.'''</div>
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[[File:Power Of C17th Data 05102017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]
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</div>
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</div>
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==Women and Early Modern record keeping==
  
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'''In November 2021, MarineLives participated in an online seminar on Women and Early Modern recordkeeping, co-hosted by [https://oieahc.wm.edu/fellowships/fellows-since-1945/postdoctoral/caylin-carbonell/ Caylin Carbonell] and [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Volunteer_research_interests_and_goals#Colin_Greenstreet Colin Greenstreet]. We hope to develop some of the themes of this seminar in 2022'''
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">What and who were shipped where in C17th commercial ships?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The MarineLives C17th ship database (ver. 8.9.13) enables you to look ask and answer complex questions about material history.'''
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The shipment of commodities (and people) can be analysed by port of departure and arrival as well as for multi-port voyages; by nationality of ship ownership; by size and crewing of ships; and the value of cargos at cost and sale prices on both outward and return voyages.</div>
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[[File:Goods And People 03102017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">We would like your advice on where to take our work</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Over the last three months we have built a powerful database of C17th commercial shipping, supplemented with some private men of war and naval ships.'''</div>
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[[File:Database Poster Ver6 05102017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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'''The charts accompanying the database hint at the power of this approach, which integrates the micro and the macro, and which covers shipping across multiple countries, seas and oceans.'''
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'''We would greatly appreciate your input on where to take this work'''
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* Research questions to ask
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* Ways to explore and structure the data
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* Institutions who may be interested in supporting our work, whether with data, expertise or other resources
+
* Individuals and charitable bodies, who may wish to support our work
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'''Please tweet us or [http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact email us] with your ideas and to request copies of the latest database, which is available to all, free of charge.'''
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</div>
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</div>
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 +
Our contribution to the seminar was to a series of case studies from C17th English High Court of Admiralty depositions, in which [http://www.marinelives.org/wiki/Women%27s_investment_activities_and_record_keeping '''women testify about their investment activities and record keeping.''']
 
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==About MarineLives==
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Cost of victuals and wages per man/month in mid-C17th commercial and naval ships</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We have updated and summarised our earlier work, drawing on data from English Naval Estimates as well as from the English High Court of Admiralty'''</div>
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[[File:Victuals Wages Sea Harbour Ver2 21092017.JPG|930px|thumbnail|left|]]
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Sources: (1) English High Court of Admiralty - HCA 13/64 unfol., HCA 13/67 unfol., HCA 13/71 f.649v<ref>[[HCA 13/71 f.649v Annotate|HCA 13/71 f.649v]]</ref> (2) English Naval Estimates, September 1650<ref>'House of Commons Journal Volume 6: 12 September 1650', in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 6, 1648-1651 (London, 1802), pp. 467-468. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol6/pp467-468 [accessed 21 September 2017]</ref>
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[[File:About MarineLives 22012018.JPG|800px|thumb|left|MarineLives volunteers, past and present, 2015-2018. [[Tools: Biographies|Read more about them here]]]]
  
</div>
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'''MarineLives is a collaborative volunteer driven project. The project started as a spinoff from a National Archives hackathon in early 2012. We are exploring lives touched by the marine world between 1540 and 1690. Commerce, materials, language and correspondence.'''
</div>
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At the core of MarineLives is the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts from the English High Court of Admiralty, together with thematically related manuscripts from international manuscript and printed document collections.
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How much was spent on victuals per man per month on C17th commercial ships?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''This is a tough question, and one we are approaching through case studies from High Court of Admiralty sources. Our best answer to date is somewhere between £1.12 and £1.44 per month per crew member, or, on a daily basis, between ca. 9''d'' and 11.5''d'' per day per crew member'''</div>
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[[File:Roebuck Ver3 13082017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]] A case study of the ship the ''Roebuck'' (1647-1649) on a lengthy voyage in the Northern and Southern Atlantic comes up with victuals at £1.32 per month per crew member (including the master), or 10.6''d'' per day per crew member, compared with wages of £1.56 per month per crew member (including the master).
+
  
This puts victuals (that is food and drink) at 86% of wages, a proportion which is higher than suggested by examination of French naval accounts.
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In the past ten years over 250 volunteers have contributed to our transcriptions and to our synthesis of the many themes which constitute lives in the Early Modern marine world. Currently, we have {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} text pages and {{NUMBEROFFILES}} images available and nearly six million words of full text transcriptions on the MarineLives wiki.
  
As context, 12''d'' sterling per day per person was payed by Rene Louis de Cornouaille to to twelve mariners "for their dyet" for a period of five weeks, following the arrest of the ship the ''Julian'' until its release. This is £1.50 per person per month, assuming a thirty day month. The mariners were probably located in London during this time.<ref>HCA 15/6 unfol. 111_PANA_PART_TWO_P1110620</ref>
+
We have finding aids for themes as varied as Early Modern women in the marine world; Materials handling; The Early Modern River Thames; Commercial record keeping; Mariners letters; and many more.
  
A lower amount of 8''d'' sterling a day per person was assessed for "victualling" of the 90 person company of the prize ship the ''Julian Cavalier''  (also known as the ''Successe''), which had been taken from the French by ships of the English Parliament in 1651. This is £1.00 per person per month, assuming a thirty day month.<ref>HCA 13/64 unfol. IMG_125_05_2784</ref>
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We have also developed a database of 21,250 depositions drawn from the HCA 13/ series covering the period 1575 to 1684, which provides quantitative and qualitative insights into this important series of Admiralty Court depositions.
  
As further context, the daily cost of a negro slave's "diet" in Angola in April 1650 is given in a High Court of Admiralty source as "ryall 40 rees or 6''d'' sterling a day per heade", which is £0.75 per person per month, assuming a thirty day month.<ref>[[HCA 13/71 f.649v Annotate|HCA 13/71 f.649v]]</ref>
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'''[[Tools: Basic wiki skills & palaeographical tips|Sample our training material to see if this could be for you.]]'''
  
<u>English Naval Estimates from September 1650</u> provide data on both victuals and wages as estimated by the Committee of the Navy.
+
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* For twenty ships manned with 3,000 men for three months on the coast of Portugal, sea victuals were estimated at £1.50 per man per month (30 shillings) and sea wages were estimated at £1.40 per man per month (28 shillings).
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<div style="float: right; vertical-align: bottom; margin-left: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 530px;">
* The same rates were estimated for a further twelve ships manned with 2,000 men for four months on the coast of Portugal.
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     <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Sample images</div>
* Slightly different estimates are given from the same source for forty ships and vessels manned with 4,200 men for six months on the coasts of England, Ireland and Scotland for the coming winter. Harbour victuals were estimated at thirty shillings per man for six weeks, so a rate of £1.00 per man per month, with harbour wages for the same men, also for six weeks, estimated at forty shillings, so a rate of £1.33 per man per month. In contrast, sea victuals were estimated for six months for 4,200 men at £1.25 per man month (25 shillings) and sea wages for the same period and same men also at £1.25 per man month (25 shillings).<ref>'House of Commons Journal Volume 6: 12 September 1650', in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 6, 1648-1651 (London, 1802), pp. 467-468. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol6/pp467-468 [accessed 21 September 2017]</ref>
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+
Further work is clearly required, and we welcome comment from academics and non-academics on our data and analysis.
+
 
+
'''Thanks to [https://twitter.com/Prof_Murdoch/status/895574120238370816 Professor Steve Murdoch], [https://twitter.com/BenjaminRedding/status/895585315150151680 Dr Benjamin Redding], [https://twitter.com/TudorWench/status/895642607723982852 Professor Cheryl Fury] and [https://twitter.com/statepapers71/status/895632552429588480 Steve Garnett] for their comments and suggestions.'''
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">What did commodities cost in London in the early to mid-C17th?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We have taken a look at a number of commodities commonly shipped from diverse locations to London, and have expressed their London sale prices in pounds sterling per ton'''</div>
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[[File:What Did It Cost 19092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Second part of the puzzle</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Does a ship of a given burthen with a higher number of guns automatically have higher crew numbers (to man the guns) and therefore lower tons of freight carried per crew member?'''</div>
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[[File:Guns Crew Size Total Crew Total Guns 14092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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+
'''Our tentative answer'''
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+
[https://twitter.com/restalrig/status/908246532981493760 Michael Pearce asked us on Twitter] whether more guns mean more crew, irrespective of ship burden.
+
 
+
Below is our tentative answer:
+
 
+
Our data suggest greater variation in crew per gun amongst smaller ships (up to say 200-250 tons) and for ships carrying fewer guns (say up to 10 guns per ship). Moreover, the data suggest a decline in crew per gun as ship size and gun number per ship increase.
+
 
+
Arguably, there is a minimum number of crew per gun of 1 per gun, and that the effective minimum is around 1.4 or 1.5 crew per gun.
+
 
+
Ships of 250 tons burthen and below have significantly higher crew per gun:
+
 
+
50-99 tons  = 2.5 crew/gun, n = 6
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100-149 tons = 2.2 crew/gun, n = 11
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150-199 tons = 1.8 crew/gun, n = 10
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200-249 tons = 2.4 crew/gun, n = 18
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250-299 tons = 1.8 crew/gun, n = 10
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300-349 tons = 1.6 crew/gun,  n = 7
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350-399 tons = 1.7 crew/gun,  n = 3
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400-499 tons = 1.7 crew/gun, n =  3
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500 tons    = 1.4 crew/gun, n = 2.
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+
'''Arguably, increased gun number on smaller ships and for those with relatively few guns, had no impact on crew levels because of typically high crew to gun ratios for these ships, which could simply be reduced when more guns were added, without ading more crew.'''
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+
'''It is only when crew to gun ratios get towards 1.4 or 1.5 that additional guns, for any particular ship burden, lead to rising crew numbers and falling man per ton ratios.'''
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+
Note that this dataset of n = 70 is contained within the larger dataset of n = 118, used to create a further chart, two charts below this one. For this smaller dataset we have selected only ships where we have ship burthen, crew size and number of guns. One ship has been removed with zero guns to facilitate the fitting of an exponential curve.
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+
'''Tweet us or [http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact email us] with your ideas.'''
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</div>
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     <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Who can explain these data?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Our data from the 1630-1669 period from the English Admiralty Court are predominantly for English owned ships departing from London. The data suggest some increase in tons per crew member as ship burthen rises, and possibly a slight decline in guns per ship burthen as ship burthen rises'''</div>
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[[File:Explain This Data 14092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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+
'''How might we explain these data?'''
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+
Presented without reference to ship burthen, there appears to be an inverse relationship between tons per crew member and guns per 100 tons ship burthen.
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+
Note that this dataset of n=71 is contained within the larger dataset of n = 118, used to create the chart below. For this smaller dataset we have selected only ships where we have ship burthen, crew size and number of guns. The smaller dataset appears to show a slightly stronger correlation between tons per crew and ship burthen.
+
 
+
'''Tweet us or [http://marinelives.org/wiki/Special:MarineLivesContact email us] with your ideas.'''
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Carrying capacity of C17th commercial ships per crew member</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Our data from the 1630-1669 period from the English Admiralty Court are predominantly for English owned ships departing from London. The data show a wide spread of carrying capacities per crew member for ships of a given size. Our data show only a very weak relationship between size of ship and carrying capacity per crew member. This is in contrast with Johan Söderberg (2010), who finds a strong association between the size of the ship and the ton-per-man ratio, but levelling off above ship sizes of 150 to 200 tons.'''</div>
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[[File:Freight Costs Double Image Ver7 13092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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+
The significantly higher tons per man ratios revealed in Söderberg's data for 1692 is likely to be influenced by product mix, with outward ladings from Stockholm presumably containing high proportions of iron, tar and pitch. These products required relatively low manning levels per ton
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+
In our own English High Court of Admiralty data, which are largely for English ships, a small number of Swedish ships have a tons to man ratio of 12.92 (n = 2) and a slightly larger number of English and Swedish ships carrying tar, pitch and/or iron from Stockholm or Gotenberg to London have a tons to man ratio of 10.74 (n = 4).
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Freight charges as a function of transport distance by sea</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''In the 1650s freight costs for tonnage goods expressed per hundred sea miles transported vary considerably by type of goods and by degree of risk of predation. Significant premia were demanded for danger of predation during times of war, as seen in the Mediterranean and on voyages to Brazil</div>
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[[File:Freight Costs Per Ton Per 100 Sea Miles Highlights Ver3 12092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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+
Transport distances have been calculated using [https://sea-distances.org/ https://sea-distances.org].
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Freight charges as a function of transport distance by sea</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''In the 1650s freight costs for tonnage goods expressed per hundred sea miles transported vary considerably by type of goods and by degree of risk of predation. There were some transport economies according to distance travelled.</div>
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[[File:Freight Costs Per Ton Per 100 Sea Miles Ver4 13092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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The cost of transporting goods in time of war, with much higher risk of loss, could be two or more times higher than the costs of transporting goods in times of peace for the same goods and for the same transport distances.
+
 
+
Transport distances have been calculated using [https://sea-distances.org/ https://sea-distances.org].
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Transport costs as a proportion of final sale price</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We are beginning to explore the components of transport, warehousing, port charges and customs charges as a percentage of the final sale price for a range of commodities, indentured servants and slaves in the 1650s.</div>
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[[File:Cost To Transport As % Ver3 07092017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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The cost of lighterage per ton of sea beer from Maudlins Lane to Blackwall, both on the River Thames, was one shilling for beer worth 39 shillings per ton (2.56% of the value of the commodity) compared with an average freight rate per ton of Canary wine between 1650 and 1653 of £4.57 from the Canaries to London and an average sale price per ton of Canary wine in London in February 1650 of £38 (12.01% of the value of the commodity).
+
 
+
We currently have one example of the freight charges for transporting slaves from Africa across the Atlantic (from Angola to Bahia in Brazil). It is relatively unusual to see explicit freight charges for slaves, since many slaving voyages were conducted by the owners of ships on their own accounts, or by charter party per month, with monthly freight charges, as opposed to charges per slave.
+
 
+
Our example puts such freight charges at just over 8% of the sale price of an Angolan slave in Bahia, Brazil (3 mill 800 res to 4 mill res freight charges in 1650 versus the expected sale price per slave in Bahia in 1650 of 48 to 49 mill res).<ref>[[HCA 13/71 f.644v Annotate|HCA 13/71 f.644v]]; [[HCA 13/71 f.645r Annotate|HCA 13/71 f.645r]]</ref>
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">UPDATED: How much did it cost to transport a ton of goods between ports?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
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<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''C17th commercial ships could be rented by the month or by the voyage, or freight tonnage could be purchased for a voyage for a specific commodity type. We have collected freight rates for different types of commodity and for different port to port combinations and present our early analysis here. Our current dataset for tonnage based freight rates consists of seventy-two observations for a range of fine, coarse and bulk goods, with most of our observations from the period 1650 to 1666.''' Our data cover barley, beer, callicoes, Canary wines, coarse goods, copperis, cotton wool, cowries, currants, figs, fine goods, French wines, fruits, galls, ginger, goats wool, herrings, linen, Malaga wine, paper, pepper, salt, saltpeter, sugar, thread, and tobacco.</div>
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[[File:Freight Rates Per Ton 14082017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
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'''They include the freight rate of carrying a ton of beer by lighter in the river Thames at Blackwall in 1656 [£0.05 per ton, or an old shilling] through to the carrying of fine goods back from the East Indies to London in 1654 [£23.00 per ton]'''
+
 
+
They cover short transportation distances, such as London to Rouen and Kingsale in Ireland to London through medium distances, such as Cyprus and Scanderoone to London and Brazil to Lisbon, and long distances, such as Bantam in the East Indies to London.
+
 
+
Freight rates per ton were set according to distance and commodity, and reflect the different manning levels required for different types and length of voyage.
+
 
+
The outbreak of war had significant impact on tonnage based freight rates. For example, war between England and the United Provinces in the early 1650s, sharply pushed up freight rates on galls and cotton wool from the Eastern Mediterranean to London.
+
 
+
Driving the higher freight rates during times of war was the need to have higher manning levels on ships, higher mariner wages per man, and higher gun intensity per tun of ship burthen.
+
 
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</div>
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    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">UPDATED: How much did it cost to transport a ton of goods between ports?</div>
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    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Our latest data table for mid-C17th freight rates per ton of goods transported'''</div>
+
[[File:Freight Rates 14082017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
Our current dataset for tonnage based freight rates consists of seventy-two observations for a range of fine, coarse and bulk goods.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">What size were the ships?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The starting point of our work this summer has been to create a semi-structured database containing quantitative and qualitative data about commercial and naval ships mentioned in English High Court of Admiralty documents between 1630 and 1669. This database draws on the work of our volunteers over the last five years, with transcriptions of depositions, charter parties, and bills of sale forming the main source of data for the database.'''</div>
+
[[File:Ship Size Ver2 10072017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]] We have ship tonnage data for 429 ships, of which the vast majority are commercial (n=407) and a small group are naval (n=22), mainly ships in the immediate service of the English Commonwealth, together with English private men of war, and a smattering of non-English naval vessels.
+
 
+
There are two clear peaks in the data for commercial ships - the first peak is in the 55 to 99 ton burthen category and the second peak is in the 200 to 249 ton burthen category.
+
 
+
Admiralty Court witnesses refer to ships of 50 and 60 tons as "small" and ships of 300 to 350 tons and above as "large". The smallest ton burthen category in our analysis (1-49 ton burthen) contains lighters, some barges and hoys, and other small river and coastal vessels.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">What size were the ships over time?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We have taken a look at our growing database of commercial and naval ships from the early and mid-C17th to look for patterns over time. We still need to code by latest year of tonnage data for all the now four hundred and eight-one ships for which we have tonnage information in our database. But, for two hundred and ninety-eight of these ships, we have some basic patterns'''</div>
+
[[File:Size Ships Over Time 31072017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]] The average burthen of these two hundred and sixteen ships is 183 tons (compared with 175 tons for the full four hundred and eighty one ships in our database).
+
 
+
The average burthen for ships whose latest tonnage information is in the 1630s = 176 tons (n = 54)
+
 
+
The average burthen for ships whose latest tonnage information is in the 1640s = 169 tons (n = 28)
+
 
+
The average burthen for ships whose latest tonnage information is in the 1650s = 191 tons (n = 191)
+
 
+
The average burthen for ships whose latest tonnage information is in the 1660s = 161 tons (n = 24)
+
 
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Where were ships claiming to be English built and bought?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We have some limited information on the location of the building of ships (n = 39) and the ports where the ships were bought (n = 22). Ports of building and purchase are most frequently mentioned in cases of seizure and our data is heavily skewed towards non-English locations for building and purchase of ships. We present these information here, which are for the period 1638 to 1659.''' Be aware that there are a further four hundred and thirty-eight ships in our database claiming to be English for which we do not have port of building information, and most of these will have been build in England. Furthermore, there are four hundred and forty-six ships claiming to be English for which we have no information on where purchased, either from the stocks or on the secondary market for ships.</div>
+
 
+
[[File:Where Built & Bought 29072017.JPG|950px|thumbnail|center|]]The left-hand side chart shows the location of the building of ships claimed to be English. It excludes ships claiming to be Irish, Scottish or Welsh.
+
 
+
The English locations for building include Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, London and surrounds, and Suffolk. These data miss other obvious locations for ship building in England such as Newcastle, Devon and Dorset. Undoubtedly, ships contained in our High Court of Admralty database were built at these locations, but in the absence of specific confirmation they are excluded. The non-English locations for building are dominated by the United Provinces (Holland and Zeeland) and the Spanish Netherlands (Flanders).
+
 
+
The right-hand side chart shows the foreign ports where a number of ships claiming to be English were purchased. The data are dominated by the United Provinces, Dunkirk and Norway. These data under-represent the number of ships claiming to be English purchased from Norwegian owners, since a number of Norwegian owned ships were sailed to London and sold in the port of London, rather than in Norwegian ports.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Where were the home ports for ships in our High Court of Admiralty database?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''Our MarineLives wiki contains ships from many different home ports and countries for the period 1620-1669. We have home port and quantitative information for perhaps ten percent of all ships mentioned in the wiki. We have analysed the ships for which we have quantitative data by home port.'''</div>
+
[[File:Where Home Ports Ver2 21072017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]] One hundred eighty four of the ships are English, from thirteen ports; sixty-one are from the United Provinces (Amsterdam, Flushing, Rotterdam, Middleburg, Tervier, Horne, Delft); forty-two are German, from the free Hansa cities of Hamburg and Lubeck; ten are from Sweden and its dominions (Gotenburg, Masterland, Stettin, Stralsund); six are from France (Saint Malo, Brest); and three are from the Spanish Netherlands (Ostend).
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">What size were the smaller commercial ships?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''High Court of Admiralty witnesses sometimes describe commercial vessels using specialised vocabulary. For example, hoys, lighters, and ketches. We have analysed these data to explore ship size by specialised type.'''</div>
+
[[File:Commercial Ship Size 14072017.JPG|700px|thumbnail|left|]] We have ship tonnage data for forty commercial vessels classified by vessel type. Clearly the sample sizes are very small for many of these vessel types.
+
 
+
We would be interested in our readers comments on these data.
+
 
+
Are the averages and ranges in the same ballpark as data in the hands of our readers, both from the C17th and earlier and later periods?
+
 
+
What can you tell us about the use to which these different types of commercial vessel were put?
+
 
+
Riverine versus coastal versus longer distance use? Cargo types? Crew and gun levels? Rental rates?
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How much did it cost to rent a ship by the month?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''C17th commercial ships could be rented by the month or by the voyage, or freight tonnage could be purchased for a voyage for a specific commodity type. Monthly rental rates can be found in notarised charter parties, which were submitted as schedules in support of High Court of Admiralty cases. Alternatively, monthly rental rates are sometimes recited by witnesses in their Court depositions.'''</div>
+
[[File:Monthly Ship Rental Rates 13072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
Our current dataset for monthly rentals consists of forty-nine ships.
+
 
+
Twenty-seven of these are rental rates for hull plus apparel, tackle, furniture and ordinance, but excluding provisions and wages, which were to be paid directly by the renting agent.
+
 
+
Fourteen are rental rates for hull plus apparel, tackle, furniture and ordinance and including provisions and wages, which were to be paid by the ship owner and recovered through the monthly rental. We know the monthly rental rates for three of these fourteen also on the basis of excluding provisions and wages.
+
 
+
Finally, we have eight rental rates for which it is unclear on what basis the rentals were contracted.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How much were ships worth?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We are at an early stage of analysing value of ships. Our current data look at the value of ships for the hull plus apparel, tackle and furniture and often also the ordinance on board the ship. We distinguish between unnotarised and notarised values, with notarised values referring to specific bills of sale and unnotarised values often based upon witness estimates of ship value given in court for ships seized during voyages.'''</div>
+
[[File:Ship Value Per Ton Burthen 13072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
Our current dataset consists of one hundred and one ships, of which seventy-eight ship values are unnotarised and twenty-three ship values are notarised. Notarised values are lower (average = £3.90 per ton of ship burthen) comparised with unnotarised vales (average = ££6.40 per ton of ship burthen). Notarised values show a significantly tighter range around the average and mean than do unnotarised values.
+
 
+
We are working on disambiguating our data, but believe the differences in averages, means and range are due to the unnotarised data being more mixed in nature. Specifically, unnotarised data tends to be generated from witness statements of ship value following the seizure of a ship. We have excluded witness valuations of ships where it is clear that the outward, interim or return lading of the ship has been included in the witness valuation. Similarly, we have excluded witness valuations of ships where it is clear that an outward monetary stock has been included in the valuation.
+
 
+
However, even with these exclusions, the valuation of ships during their voyage usually includes some portion of the provisions carried on board the ship. If a seizure is early in a planned long voyage, these provisions could amount from anything between six and twenty months.
+
 
+
Moreover, the valuations of ships during their voyage will include some attribution of value to the refitting and setting out of a ship prior to a voyage, which can vary in the case of the hull from repairs to full graving and caulking or even resheathing, and in the case of the apparel, tackle and furniture, can include totally new provision of sails, rigging, blocks and other materials.  Witnesses appear to make some allowance for the wear and tear of a ship on a long voyage and sometimes comment on this when giving their unnotarised valuations in their depositions in the High Court of Admiralty.
+
 
+
We plan to add ship inventories to our database, sourced from High Court of Admiralty appraisements of seized ships. These inventories will provide detailed breakdowns of the value of the physical components of ships in this period.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How old were the ships?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The size of our dataset for the analysis of ship age is one hundred and fifteen; of which thirteen datapoints simply state "new" or "old"; a further twenty-four datapoints are minimum ages, with the possibility that the ships were older; and seventy-eight datapoints give ship age accurate to the year. For these latter seventy-nine datapoints we have ship burthen data in tonnage for thirty-seven of them, which we display below in graphical form'''</div>
+
The average age of ships for which we have age and tonnage data is 6.1 years (n=37), whereas the average age of ships for which we have age data accurate to the year for which we have no tonnage data is 7.1 years (n=41).
+
[[File:Ship Age 10072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
[https://twitter.com/DrIanFriel Dr Ian Friel] has shared with us [https://twitter.com/DrIanFriel/status/884360083634892800 a summary of data from his unpublished survey of High Court of Admiralty inventory documents from the 1580s]. His data are for a period forty to eighty years earlier than our own High Court of Admiralty data. Ian's survey found ages for thirty-nine ships, with an average age of nearly fifteen years and twenty-nine of them of ten years or more in age.
+
 
+
Comparison of textual and numerical data for 1630-1670, with the bulk of the data from the 1650s, suggest Admiralty Court witnesses regarded ships aged between zero and five years as "new" and ships of fourteen years and above as "old".
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How many tons of shipping could one crew member support?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The size of our dataset for the analysis of tons of ship burthen per crew member is one hundred and sixteen. We have crew size data for one hundred and seventy-two ships, but lack ship burthen data in tons for fifty-six of these.'''</div>
+
The average crew size for the larger dataset is 47.3, including six exceptionally manned men of war with 275 or more men per ship (n = 172). The average crew size for the smaller dataset, where we have crew number and ship tonnage is 36.5 (n=116).
+
 
+
[[File:Tons Ship Burthen Per Crew Member 09072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How many guns were enough to defend a ship?</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''We have addressed this question by looking at the number of guns mounted on commercial and naval ships per hundred tons of ship burthen. The size of the relevant dataset is one hundred and twenty-nine ships, of which one hundred and six are commercial and twenty-three are naval.'''</div>
+
[[File:Guns Per 100 Ton Burthen 11072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]] There is a huge range in gun intensity per hundred tons of ship burthen amongst commercial ships, with some, particularly the small commercial ships, carrying no guns or just lightly armed, and other commercial ships as heavily armed as naval ships.
+
 
+
We are in the process of analysing these commercial data by geography and by commodity as well as by year to look for patterns within the commercial data.
+
 
+
Amongst the naval ships (a category which includes both ships in the immediate service of a state as well as private men of war under commissions from a state), there is a clear pattern for smaller ships to be particularly heavily gunned.
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">Digging into the data on how many guns were enough to defend a ship</div>
+
    <div style="padding: 10px;">
+
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The difference in gun intensity amongst commercial ships is likely to be driven by the relative value of cargo carried per ton of ship burthen and the level of predation on commercial shipping in the geographies in which ships traded.'''</div>
+
[[File:Guns Per 100 Ton Burthen Segmented Commodity 11072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
 
+
Commercial ships carrying salt had few if any guns, in contrast to ships carrying Canary wines or cotton wool as their main return cargos.
+
 
+
This is likely to be driven by the low manning levels on salt ships per ton of burthen. Low manning levels meant that there were fewer people available to man guns.
+
 
+
We are looking at relative freight rates for salt, Canary wines and cotton wool, and at sale prices for different commodities, to see if these also drove gun levels.
+
 
+
Coal ships are also likely to have had few if any guns. However, most of the coal ship cases in High Court of Admiralty data concern collisions, resulting in court cases which do not ask about guns. Whereas, most of the salt ship cases in the High Court of Admiralty data concern seizures, and elicit Court cases in which gun intensity is relevant and asked about.
+
 
+
As we dig further into the general commercial category, we should be able to allocate a good portion of these to specific commodity groups and thus be able to improve our analysis of the drivers of guns mounted on commercial ships
+
 
+
</div>
+
</div>
+
 
+
<div style="float: left; vertical-align: bottom; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; background:#dcdcdc; border: 1px solid #b0c4de; width: 1000px;">
+
    <div style="background: #b0c4de; padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px; font-size: larger; font-weight: bold;">How does crew size relate to gun carrying?</div>
+
 
     <div style="padding: 10px;">
 
     <div style="padding: 10px;">
<div style="font-famil:Garamond; font-size: normal;">'''The size of our dataset for the analysis of crew size and gun number is sixty-nine, where we have both crew size and gun number. We have crew size data for one hundred and seventy-two ships in total and have gun number for one hundred and seventy-nine ships. Twenty-seven of the ships for which we have crew size are men of war and one hundred and forty-five are commercial ships. Forty-two of the ships for which we have gun number are men of war and one hundred and thirty-seven are commercial.'''</div>
+
<div style="font-size: normal;">'''This will be a project about co-creation of a public resource, which will be published on the Marine Lives wiki and made available to all - public and academic historians alike (and those just intrigued by our past).'''</div>
[[File:Guns Crew Size 07072017.JPG|600px|thumbnail|left|]]
+
[[File:Abraham Hardy Account Book Wages HCA 30 636.JPG|500px|thumb|right|HCA 30/636/3 Andrew Hardey's account book for voyage to Barbados in the ship the Abraham- extract from wages schedules]]
  
The average gun number for just men of war is 22.4 (n=2). The average gun number for just commercial ships is 12.8 (n=137). Our sample of commercial ships where we have tonnage as well as gun number (n=69) has a slightly higher average gun number than for all commercial ships, where only gun number is known.
+
[[File:Abraham Handwriting Sample HCA 30 636.JPG|500px|thumb|right|HCA 30/636/ Handwriting sample]]
  
The commercial gun number average overestimates the gun carrying propensity of commercial ships, since there is a systematic tendency not to report absence of guns from smaller vessels (vessels of thirty to sixty tons burthen). Many of these vessels, particularly those involved in coastal trade or fishing, as hoys, busses and ketches, would not have carried guns.
+
[[File:Abraham Letter Copy Book HCA 30 636.JPG|500px|thumb|right|HCA 30/636/ Letter copy book from on board the ship the Abraham]]
  
 
</div>
 
</div>
 
</div>
 
</div>

Revision as of 16:23, December 31, 2021




MarineLives research agenda for 2022


Marine Lives celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2022. To mark reaching the remarkable digital age of ten we are planning several initiatives, which we will be announcing in January 2022. These initiatives will be linked to our research agenda for the year, which is as below:

1. Developing and optimising keyword search algorithms for C17th Secretary Hand in English language English High Court of Admiralty manuscript documents.

2. Completing the next phase of our metadata for the HCA 13/ series. Currently, we have metadata for 22,000 deponents from the years 1570 to 1688, supported by 50,000 digital images held offline.

3. Publishing a hybrid digital edition of three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s, taken from HCA 30/636.

4. Organising two workshops with the Oldenburg Prize Papers team on (a) Developing a broadly applicable digital C16th and C17th commercial document ontology (b) Forming and developing an online international community to study mariner letters.


Fantasy Early Modern book competition


Announcing a one week FANTASY EARLY MODERN BOOK COMPETITION.

Rules: List the chapter titles of a fantasy book you WISH EXISTED and post to the @Marinelivesorg Twitter account.

Winner(s) will be those book titles/chapters which get MOST LIKES ON THE @Marinelivesorg Twitter account.

Here is my starter:

TITLE: Early Modern Economic Lives

CHAPTER 1: Talking about work: Early Modern workers describing their occupations and work places

CHAPTER 2: The melding of work and home and its implications for participation of men and women in commercial life

CHAPTER 3: Everyone lies: The importance of accurate record keeping

CHAPTER 4: The role of the Early Modern bookkeeper accounting for growth

CHAPTER 5: Service driven functional literacy: How Early Modern international trade drove and was a product of literacy

CHAPTER 6: Risk and probability: How people thought about individual and group risk, and how it affected their commercial decision making

CHAPTER 7: Free will, contract, indentured labour, enslavement: Concepts underpinning the Early Modern labour market

CHAPTER 8: How to make Early Modern money (and keep it)

Here's a possible plan. Assemble a group of authors, recruited through Twitter, who will write and publish the Fantasy EM book as an open source online book. The book would be peer reviewed by its readers, and will go through various iterations as readers comment, suggest and offer to improve.

If we go with Early Modern Economic Lives (and I'm happy to go with a different Fantasy EM book), I (Colin Greenstreet) would be happy to write a draft of chapters three, four and five, but would need collaborators to write the remaining chapters.

What do you think?


New Year's wishes 2022


2022 is the tenth anniversary of the founding of Marine Lives. So here are our New Year's wishes for the next ten years for Marine Lives and for Early Modern studies generally.

New Year's Wish One

Digitisation and open licence publication of the C17th manuscript records of the Mansion House Justice Room and of the Westminster Abbey Muniments.

New Year's Wish Two

Development of AI-enabled search tools for discovery within and synthesis of large scale digitised manuscript collections, bypassing the need for the manual creation of archival metadata.

New Year's Wish Three

Implementation of federated search using AI-enabled search tools across multiple large scale digitised manuscript collections

New Year's Wish Four

Development of Early Modern Material Lives to complement Early Modern Marine Lives, broadening scope from marine to land based occupations, and emphasising the interaction of Early Modern workers with the physical world.

Click here to see our 2018 New Year's wishes.

Please Tweet your comments on our New Year's wishes to @Marinelivesorg and share your own New Year's wishes for technologies to support historical research


New MarineLives project: Researching three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s: HCA 30/636/


Item: Paid the Ratcatcher: 4s - 4d, Account book of the ship the Diamond: setting out expenses to Mallaga, 1637; HCA 13/635/2
HCA 30/636 in all its glory, just waiting for some collaborative work by volunteers

Are you interested in a startup collaborative online project to look at, partially transcribe and understand three ship account books from the 1620s and 1630s? You have come to the right place. Marine Lives is launching a new project and is seeking volunteer collaborators. This will be a project about co-creation of a public resource, which will be published on the Marine Lives wiki and made available to all - public and academic historians alike (and those just intrigued by our past).

HCA 30/636 is a document category which has been created to cover certain papers generated by the Prize Court jurisdiction of the English High Court of Admiralty papers. It contains nine sub-references. We have imaged all the documents within HCA 30/636 and will be making these available to volunteer collaborators online. Documents include three beautifully leather bound account books of various sizes, further paper bound account books, a letter copy book of letters written from on board ship, and various miscellaneous accounting documents relating to multiple voyages. In all we have over one thousand images.

We are in start up mode. Our current thinking is to make the images available on DropBox or OneDrive and to use this MarineLives wiki as our collaboration platform - to share ideas, to provide support, and to be the vehicle to publish our transcriptions and synthesis. But we are open to your ideas about how to organise this project and nothing will be finalised until we have our team in place. You can get up to speed on our thinking by reading this Twitter Thread.

We have had expressions of interest from people from many places - Mexico, Michigan, Texas, London, Newcastle to list a few - which is perfect given the virtual nature of our project and the broad geographic scope of the papers which include multiple voyages from England to the West Indies, the Mediterranean and to Northern Europe.

We will be sending out an email to everyone who has expressed this interest this weekend (Saturday, October 16th 2021), and will invite people in that email to take a look at some sample images and to tell us about their research interests, skills and ideas for this project.

This is going to be a very relaxed project running through to the middle of 2022 in which people are welcome to dip in and out, and to do as little or as much as they have time and interest for.

If you are interested in learning more, follow Marine Lives on Twitter, tweet your interest and we will get in touch with you by Twitter direct mail.

You can also access our HCA 30/636 account book project home page here, which we are starting to populate. Come join us and help us fill in the blanks.



Women and Early Modern record keeping


In November 2021, MarineLives participated in an online seminar on Women and Early Modern recordkeeping, co-hosted by Caylin Carbonell and Colin Greenstreet. We hope to develop some of the themes of this seminar in 2022

Our contribution to the seminar was to a series of case studies from C17th English High Court of Admiralty depositions, in which women testify about their investment activities and record keeping.



About MarineLives


MarineLives volunteers, past and present, 2015-2018. Read more about them here

MarineLives is a collaborative volunteer driven project. The project started as a spinoff from a National Archives hackathon in early 2012. We are exploring lives touched by the marine world between 1540 and 1690. Commerce, materials, language and correspondence.

At the core of MarineLives is the collaborative transcription, linkage and enrichment of primary manuscripts from the English High Court of Admiralty, together with thematically related manuscripts from international manuscript and printed document collections.

In the past ten years over 250 volunteers have contributed to our transcriptions and to our synthesis of the many themes which constitute lives in the Early Modern marine world. Currently, we have 12,756 text pages and 12,148 images available and nearly six million words of full text transcriptions on the MarineLives wiki.

We have finding aids for themes as varied as Early Modern women in the marine world; Materials handling; The Early Modern River Thames; Commercial record keeping; Mariners letters; and many more.

We have also developed a database of 21,250 depositions drawn from the HCA 13/ series covering the period 1575 to 1684, which provides quantitative and qualitative insights into this important series of Admiralty Court depositions.

Sample our training material to see if this could be for you.


Sample images
This will be a project about co-creation of a public resource, which will be published on the Marine Lives wiki and made available to all - public and academic historians alike (and those just intrigued by our past).
HCA 30/636/3 Andrew Hardey's account book for voyage to Barbados in the ship the Abraham- extract from wages schedules
HCA 30/636/ Handwriting sample
HCA 30/636/ Letter copy book from on board the ship the Abraham