Communications and Membership Committee
Christopher Holt, PGCert, MSc, PhD, FRGS. (Chair)
Christopher is a senior lecturer in physical geography, specialising in water, climate and hazards, at the University of Northampton. He is involved in the international agenda of the University, supporting teaching and developing research links in a number of countries. He joined the SNR in 2005 and was part of the 2010 Way Ahead Group, before becoming a Member of Council in the following year. Christopher is currently in his second term on Council. In 2015 he became a member of the Publications Committee. He has an interest in the nautical exploration, the Royal Navy (1700s -1960s), and commercial shipping.
Katherine Parker, MA, PhD, FRGS. (Secretary)
Katie Parker received her PhD in 2016 from the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently revising her dissertation, on the creation of Pacific geographic knowledge by the Royal Navy in the century prior to the voyages of Cook, for publication. She has published articles in Terrae Incognitae and The Trafalgar Chronicle, as well as co-edited a special issue of the Journal for Maritime Research with the theme of gendering the maritime world. She is currently serving as the Research Officer for Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps and is Administrative Editor of the Hakluyt Society. She joined the SNR as a student member during her PhD research and is new to Council in 2017.
Claire Warrior MA (Hons), MSt, PhD, FRCGS
Dr Claire Warrior is a Senior Curator at Royal Museums Greenwich. She has curated numerous displays on maritime history, most recently the ‘Polar Worlds’ gallery at the National Maritime Museum. Her research is on histories of polar exploration and their relationship with family history; she completed her PhD, ‘Rekindling histories’ at the University of Cambridge in 2017 and has published numerous articles and book chapters on museums, material culture and exploration. She is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and a Trustee of the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury, and is currently the content lead for the Royal Observatory Greenwich ‘First Light’ project.
Cathryn Pearce, PhD, MA, M.Ed, FRHistS, FSNR, FHEA
Cathryn has taught history Alaska and UK universities for over 30 years. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Maritime and Naval History at the University of Portsmouth. She holds an MA in Maritime History (University of Victoria (Canada)) and a PhD in Maritime History (University of Greenwich.) She is Chair of the British Commission for Maritime History (2017 – present). She is also a member of the Navy Records Society. Cathryn joined SNR in 2000, served as a councillor (2010-2020) and Secretary of the Publications Committee (2010-2019). She was promoted to Vice-President in 2020. She is on the editorial board of the SNR’s The Mariner’s Mirror journal, as well as Coastal Studies & Society and Southern History (UK). Her book Cornish Wrecking: Reality and Popular Myth, 1700-1860 (2010) led to several BBC documentary and radio appearances. She publishes on the social and environmental history of Atlantic archipelago coastal communities and shipwrecks, with a focus on wrecking and lifesaving.
Martin Bellamy, BSc, PhD, FSNR – Hon. Editor – The Mariner’s Mirror
Martin Bellamy originally trained as a naval architect and worked at the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff. He subsequently took up a career in museums and is currently the Research and Curatorial Manager at Glasgow Museums. He has a PhD in history from the University of Glasgow where he also serves as an Honorary Teaching Fellow.
He has written a number of books and articles on cultural aspects of shipping and shipbuilding, including The Golden Years of the Anchor Line (Glasgow 2011), Christian IV’s Navy: A Political and Administrative History of the Danish Navy 1596-1648 (Leiden & Boston, 2006) and The Shipbuilders: An Anthology of Scottish Shipyard Life (Edinburgh, 2001). He has been a member of the SNR since 1991. He has been a member of the editorial board of The Mariner’s Mirror since 2006, was Reviews Editor from 2010 -2013 and Honorary Editor since 2013.
Nigel Blanchford– Editor – Topmasts
Nigel Blanchford is retired, having worked for ten years as a Development Officer for the Heritage Lottery Fund, mostly in the East of England. Before that he was a Local Government Officer, having worked for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in community education. He has a life-long engagement with the Royal Navy, as the son of a serving Engineer Officer, as a serving officer (for a very short period), and through other close family links. He also worked for the Decca Navigator and Survey Companies, on what was in those days high accuracy position fixing equipment for the offshore industries and European navies. He joined SNR in 2010 and was one of Hon Secretary Byrne McLeod’s team of abstract writers before taking the job of Editor of Topmasts at the end of 2014. He has a wide interest in maritime matters.
Derek Law, MA, D.Phil, FIInfoS, FLA, FKC, FSNR – SNR Vice-President
Professor Emeritus Derek Law has been a member of the SNR for fifty years. He served on Council for thirty years and was Secretary and later a Vice-President of the Society as well as serving on various sub-committees throughout his time on Council. He has published and edited several monographs, including the Battle of the Atlantic 50th Anniversary Conference Proceedings and has reviewed some fifty books for Mariners Mirror and continues to undertake research on the minor allied navies engaged in the Battle of the Atlantic as well as the bibliography and historiography of the Royal Navy in World War II. He was awarded one of the inaugural Fellowships of the SNR in 2015 for his contributions to the Society. He has also been a Vice-President of the Navy Records Society.
Bob Smith MA, PGCert, M.Litt
Bob graduated from Queen Mary College, London in 1979 with a BA in History and politics and went into the Civil Service for 19 years, during which time he gained an MA from Brunel in Social and Public Administration. Bob left the Civil Service in 1998 to join the NHS where he ended his career as a Director of IT and Information. During that period he gained a PgCert in Health Informatics from UCL. Bob took early retirement in 2011 and was able to focus on his passion for history and archaeology, and in 2020 was awarded an M.Litt from the University of the Highlands and Islands, in the History and Archaeology of the Highlands and Islands. Bob has a particular interest in Orkney. Bob is secretary of the Fenland Archaeological Society and is currently putting a proposal together to start a PhD in September 2023 looking at supply issues in the Royal Navy during the transition from sail to steam. He lives in the Fens, keeping active through cycling and walking, and travel when he can.
Kate Jamieson MA
Kate graduated from the University of Plymouth in 2013 with a BSc in International Relations. She has worked in the shipping industry for 7 years and is now part of the Operations team at MNG Marine, where she manages floating armouries in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman. Until recently, Kate was assisting The 1805 Club with the Trafalgar Way project and she is also a social secretary for the Naval Records Society. She is currently completing her MA in Naval History with the University of Exeter and has a particular focus on Master Gunners. Her interest in naval history stems from childhood and this interest was enhanced by her time in the Sea Cadet Corps as a teenager and now as an adult instructor.
Ex Officio
Alistair Roach (Hon. Sec)
David Davies (Chairman)
Richard Harding (Chairman R&P Committee)