Me and my work

Hello! My name is Andrew, and this is my research blog where I will provide periodic updates about what I've found and what I'm working on. I'm hoping this will help develop connections with researchers looking at the same things, and also that it will help to hold me accountable as I try to complete my goals.

A little about me... I am from Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and grew up there until the age of 16, when my family moved to Sandbach, Cheshire. I studied History and Politics at Lancaster University and now I work in the Victoria Gallery & Museum, University of Liverpool, as a Collections Assistant. Since I participated in Lancaster Black History Group (LBHG)'s Slavery Family Trees project, I have developed a really strong interest in the eighteenth century, particularly in maritime and economic history, and the transatlantic slave trade.

I have applied to a couple postgraduate programmes and I hope one of them works out: the MRes in History at the University of Liverpool, to complete a study of the trans-Atlantic trade of Lancaster between 1750 and 1815, and the MPhil in History at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, to complete a study of the trading community of Kingston between 1770 and 1800.

I have been working on a few projects (other than those I do at work). When I was at Lancaster University, my research for LBHG was focused on the sugar refining industry. Since then, I have been asked to do some research into the Scotforth enclosure award of 1809 and the ownership of property in Dalton Square. My research on the former is quite advanced and just needs some polishing and a bit of data crunching. I will consider submitting it to a journal, possibly Contrebis, the journal of Lancaster Archaeological and Historical Society. My research on the latter is less developed and probably requires a few visits to the Lancashire Archives in Preston in order to make any headway.

While visiting Liverpool Record Office for work back in November, I realised that one of the volumes of the Gregson MSS is actually the foreign letter book of Hamilton & Smyths between 1770 and 1780. Matthew Gregson had used it as a scrapbook. I don't believe this letter book has ever been examined before by scholars of Liverpool's history, so I am slowly progressing on turning the contents of that letter book into an article reflecting on Thomas Smyth's experiences in the American Revolutionary War. I hope to have it finished in draft by mid-year, and submit it (perhaps to Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire) by the autumn.

One of the stories I first uncovered in my job at the University of Liverpool was a connection with the forced repatriation of Chinese seamen from Liverpool in 1945-46. This story has stayed with me and I have taken it upon myself to do further archival digging to find out more. I haven't yet decided what to do with what I've found, however (there may be some news on that by the week's end).

I have a lot of other ideas, although limited time to explore them. One example: I think there's a good piece of work to be done on the details of the slave ship surgeons examined at Liverpool Royal Infirmary in the last couple decades of the slave trade, their careers and so on.

So, that's me. I am not planning to use this blog for anything other than the occasional stream of consciousness. I will probably use it to post about interesting sources (such as the Liverpool customs letter books) as I find them, and other things like that. All the best.