PREVIOUS CONFERENCES
The Group has organised a programme of conferences since 2012. Papers have been given by people with a long-
The Sixth Symposium on Shipbuilding on the Thames
The nine papers included the following topics: John Dudman and the Grove Street Dockyard, Deptford; Royal shipbuilding on the Thames 1509-
London’s Port and Docklands in the First World War
The eight papers included the following topics: the port and Docklands in the London context; work and war, men and women on the Isle of Dogs; the plight of Germans in the East End; the Silvertown explosion of 1917; the impact of the war on port trade and business; London dockers at le Havre, France, October 1914; the dazzle ship paintings of John Everett; the effect of the war on the Port of London Authority’s works programme.
London and the Whaling Trade
This consisted of nine presentations including: and overview of London’s whaling trades; and appreciation of A.G.E. Jones, whaling historian, archaeological whalebone from London; the Greenland dock, Rotherhithe, and the whaling trades; a London whaling miscellany; the London whalebone trade; scrimshaw and the South Sea whale fishery; the worlds of the Enderby family; the Bay Wharf whale and other Thames strandings.
The Fifth Symposium on Shipbuilding on the Thames
This was the first symposium organised by the Docklands History Group and took over the running of a continuing series of symposia on shipbuilding in London the first of which had been organised by Stuart Rankin with the subsequent ones being organised by Roger Owen and Rif Winfield. The Proceedings of this symposium have been published and copies are still available. Please click here for further details.
Before the Docks: London River and Port in the Eighteenth Century
The nine papers included the following topics, London River and Sea, Picturing the Port, Working the 18th Century Port, From Tyne to Thames, the life of an Eighteenth Century Merchant, The London world of the East India Company, Scientific instrument making in the Port, London and the Slave Trade, Women and Crime in the riverside parishes, The merchant trader Ann in port and beyond 1794-
Thames River Crossings
The nine papers in this conference included Roman and Prehistoric Bridges, Old London Bridge and the Pool of London, frost fairs, Thames watermen, wherries and ferries, some eighteenth century Thames crossings and the shape of London, John Rennie’s Thames bridges, Waterloo Bridge and its impact on London, the LCC tunnels and the temporary bridge between Gravesend and Tilbury during WW1.
New Researches Seminar
This all-
Shipbuilding on the Thames
This was the seventh in a successful series of symposia looking at the much neglected subject of shipbuilding on the Thames.. Up until the end of the nineteenth century, the Thames was a very important shipbuilding centre. In the first half of the nineteenth century it led the way with iron shipbuilding and the development of steam powered ships. The papers in this symposium included a review of the previous symposia, the Deptford Master Shipwright’s secrets, ship-
Spring 2018
The Medieval Port of London
This conference looked at the development of the Medieval Port of London. It had a wide range of papers covering many aspects of its history. The subjects covered included merchants and overseas trade, ships and boats of the medieval port, medieval waterfront buildings, the Hanseatic Steelyard, language and London Bridge, whether the Thames was a rubbish tip, accident black spot or sacred river or all three and fishing on the Thames.
Spring 2019
London’s Sailortowns:
People Communities and the Thames
The local communities along the tidal Thames and the Port of London were the subject for the 2022 conference. This included the histories of the districts of St Katharine’s (prior to the docks being built there), Deptford, Greenwich and the Ratcliffe Highway . There were other more general talks such as the women of London’s Edwardian sailortowns and migration and literacy in respect of the 17th Century Thames shoreline.
Spring 2022