Richard Gorski
Assistant Director Maritime Historical Studies Centre
Philip Nicholas Memorial Lecturer in Maritime History
RICHARD GORSKI was born and raised in County Durham (though the surname is Polish). In 1998 he was appointed as Philip Nicholas Memorial Lecturer in Maritime History, having taught and researched in various fields beforehand.
He graduated from this Department and remained at Hull to complete his PhD on medieval government personnel. More recently he has worked in the field of nineteenth- and twentieth-century maritime history. His teaching interests include: Medieval Maritime History; slavery, migrations and diasporas; overseas empire-building; and modern seafaring and labour history.
Current Research
He is working on a project entitled 'The State and the Sea 1850-1914', focusing on the development of state policy towards the regulation of merchant seafarers. This research will pay particular attention to the role of the Board of Trade in shaping policy in this area.
Recent Publications
1999 (with David J. Starkey) '"Our little company:" The Wilsons and North Eastern Railway Shipping Company Limited, 1906-1935', Harbours and Havens: Essays in Port History in Honour of Gordon Jackson, ed. L.R. Fischer and A. Jarvis (St John's, Newfoundland), pp.63-88.
1999 (with David J. Starkey, et al) Shipping Movements in the Ports of the United Kingdom 1871-1913: A Statistical Profile (Exeter)
2000 'Lordship, gentility and local administration in Berkshire, 1350-1400', Southern History, 22 (2000), 21-44
2002 (ed. with G Boyce) Resources and Infrastructures in the Maritime Economy, 1500-2000 (St John's, Newfoundland: Research in Maritime History 22, 2002)
2003 The Fourteenth-Century Sheriff: English Local Administration in the Late Middle Ages (Woodbridge)
Teaching
Dr Gorski currently offers the following modules:
- 20604 : Exploiting the Sea: Maritime History, 500-1500
- 20612 : Britain and the Slave Trade
- 20606 : The Age of Discovery
- 20310 : The Sinews of Empire: British Maritime Labour in the Nineteenth Century
Departmental and University Responsibilities
Dr Gorski co-ordinates the Department's MA in Maritime History. He is Assistant Director of the Maritime Historical Studies Centre.
Why History?
People sometimes ask me this at Open Days - what got you interested in History and why have you pursued it as a career? The simple answer is that History is essentially about people, and people are endlessly fascinating. Not very scientific, I admit. One thing I have discovered is that people change very little in fundamental respects. Much of what we do concerns human action, reaction, decision-making, and motivation. We can identify change (one historians' job) by looking at institutions, societies and economies. These do change, of course. But often, in order to understand such developments, we need to understand the actors concerned, whether individually or in groups or 'classes'. This is where it gets difficult - and interesting. The incomplete sources and consequent leaps of faith make research a bit like detective work.
Another early interest was the ancient world which I still dip into by looking at some of the classical seafaring civilisations and their maritime technologies. Typically (and doubtless fulfilling gender stereotypes), the history of war also fascinated me. Otherwise history was something I fell into; but it was one of my better 'accidents'.
Other Information and Interests
I am Reviews Editor for the journal The Mariner's Mirror (the quarterly journal of the Society for Nautical Research) and sit on the Editorial Board of The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord (Journal of the Canadian Society for Nautical Research). Since 2001 I have been a member of the Advisory Panel for Chadwyck-Healey's History Online project.
I am keen to supervise postgraduate students in the field of 19th and 20thC seafaring/labour history.