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Dr Richard Gorski
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:
Departmental and University
Responsibilities
Dr Gorski is responsible for designing
and maintaining this website. He also 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.
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