- Appearances on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio Berkshire, and Channel 5
- Consultant to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, on the Tudor and Stuarts Seafarers gallery
- Articles for The Conversation and History Today
- Committee member, Reading branch of the Historical Association
Richard Blakemore

-
+44 (0) 118 378 7736
-
Associate Professor
Areas of interest
My research focuses on the history of human society and the sea, particularly during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. My main current interest is the social history of seafarers. As sailors travelled ever further and more frequently during the early modern period, building and maintaining commercial networks and contacts across cultures, they brought home new wealth, objects and ideas. They also contributed to the emergence of new social, economic, political, and legal situations in Britain, Europe, and around the globe. My present research considers the experiences of seafarers across this period, their perceptions of the maritime environment, their professional culture, their relationships with communities ashore, and their role within empire and other political and legal regimes. I also have broader research interests in the development of maritime communities, global and maritime trade and warfare, cultural interactions with the sea, maritime law, and the history and popular perceptions of piracy.
Postgraduate supervision
I am supervising PhD research on:
- Piracy, crime at sea, and the High Court of Admiralty during the early seventeenth century (Graham Moore)
- The evolution of privateering and piracy during the 1690s and early 1700s (Luke Walters)
My students are working in partnership with The National Archives, the Berkshire Record Office, and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, in their own research projects and through professional placements.
Postgraduate research teaching/skills
- Early modern archival collections, especially legal records and state documents
- Early modern print
- Collaborating with museums and archives
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Year 1: Journeys Through History: People, Power, and Revolution
- Year 2: Encountering the Atlantic World, 1450-1850
- Year 2: Going Public: Presenting the Past, Planning the Future
- Year 2: Historical Approaches and My Dissertation
- Year 3: Pirates of the Caribbean: Empire, Slavery, and Society, 1550-1750
- Year 3: Sea Changes: Britain and the Maritime World, 1500-1800 (including a trip to meet curators and view the collections at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)
- Year 3: Dissertation Supervision
Postgraduate MA (postgraduate taught)
- The Sea in History (option module)
- Theory and Themes: Global History
- Historical Skills and Resources: Digital History, Academic Writing
Research centres and groups
- Trustee of the British Commission for Maritime History
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Early Modern Research Centre, University of Reading
- Gender History Cluster, University of Reading
- Honorary Associate Research Fellow, Centre for Maritime Historical Studies, University of Exeter
Websites/blogs
Reading History blog: History at University of Reading
Publications
- Blakemore, R. and Davey, J. , eds. (2020) The maritime world of early modern Britain. Amsterdam University Press , Amsterdam. ISBN: 9789463721301
- Blakemore, R. (2020) Law and the sea. In: Jowitt, C. , Lambert, C. , Mentz, S. , (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Marine and Maritime Worlds, 1400-1800. Routledge , London. pp. 388-425. ISBN: 9780367471842
- Blakemore, R. and Murphy, E. (2018) The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638-1653. Boydell & Brewer pp 239. ISBN: 9781783272297
- Blakemore, R. (2017) Pieces of eight, pieces of eight: seafarers’ earnings and the venture economy of early modern seafaring. Economic History Review , 70 (4). pp. 1153-1184. ISSN: 1468-0289 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12428
- Blakemore, R. (2016) The changing fortunes of Atlantic history. English Historical Review , 131 (551). pp. 851-868. ISSN: 0013-8266 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cew189
- Fusaro, M. , Allaire, B. , Blakemore, R. , Vanneste, T. , eds. (2015) Law, labour, and empire: comparative perspectives on seafarers, c. 1500-1800. Palgrave MacMillan , Basingstoke. pp 357. ISBN: 9781349686049 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137447463
- Smith, E. and Blakemore, R. , eds. (2015) Africa in the Atlantic World. Itinerario , 39. Itinerario , 39 (2). pp. 215-220. ISSN: 0165-1153 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0165115315000479
- Blakemore, R. (2015) West Africa in the British Atlantic: trade, violence, and empire in the 1640s. Itinerario , 39 (2). pp. 299-327. ISSN: 0165-1153 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0165115315000480
- Blakemore, R. (2015) The legal world of English sailors, c. 1575-1729. In: Fusaro, M. , Allaire, B. , Blakemore, R. , Vanneste, T. , (eds.) Law, labour, and empire: comparative perspectives on seafarers, c. 1500-1800. Palgrave MacMillan , Basingstoke. pp. 100-120. ISBN: 9781137447463
- Blakemore, R. (2015) Orality and mutiny: authority and speech amongst the seafarers of early modern London. In: Cohen, T. and Twomey, L. , (eds.) Spoken word and social practice: Orality in Europe (1400-1700). Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts Brill (14). , Leiden. pp. 253-279. ISBN: 9789004288683
- Blakemore, R. (2014) Thinking outside the gundeck: maritime history, the royal navy and the outbreak of British civil war, 1625–42. Historical Research , 87 (236). pp. 251-274. ISSN: 0950-3471 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-2281.12049
- Blakemore, R. (2013) British imperial expansion and the transformation of violence at sea, 1600-1850: introduction. International Journal of Maritime History , 25 (2). pp. 143-145. | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/084387141302500211
- Blakemore, R. (2013) The politics of piracy in the British Atlantic, c. 1640-1649. International Journal of Maritime History , 25 (2). pp. 159-172. | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/084387141302500213
- Blakemore, R. (2013) The ship, the river, and the ocean sea: concepts of space in the seventeenth-century London maritime community. In: Redford, D. , (eds.) Maritime history and identity: the sea and culture in the modern world. International Library of War Studies IB Tauris , London. pp. 98-119. ISBN: 9781780763293
- Blakemore, R. (2012) Navigating culture: navigational instruments as cultural artefacts, c. 1550-1650. Journal for Maritime Research , 14 (1). pp. 31-44. ISSN: 2153-3369 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21533369.2012.672801