School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies

Profile

With major research interests in both local and maritime history I have, since 1985, been examining the relationship between the East India Company and the Provinces and am currently working on the final volume of my East India Company trilogy, entitled A Raft of Wrecks.  This examines Company performance and history through the media of shipwrecks and shipping losses.  Major use is being made of the technique of multi-record linkage.  An article entitled ‘Officer Education in the Age of Nelson: The Contribution of Portsmouth Naval Academy’ is currently being considered for publication in The American Neptune, the lead journal for maritime history published in the U.S.A.  I am also preparing a book with Dr. L. Haycock entitled Essays in Wiltshire History. 

Qualifications

• B.A. London
• Ph.D. Southampton
• F.R.Hist.S

Research CV

Books 

• Captains, Agents and Servants: A Gallery of East India Company Portraits. The East India Company and the Provinces, Vol. II.  (Edwin Mellen Press, New York and Lampeter, 2007), 523 pp. ISBN. 1 978-0-7734-5270-1.
• The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society: The First 150 Years. (Devizes, 2003), 246 pp. ISBN. 0947723 09 9.
• Gales: A Study in Brewing, Business and Family History (with Barry Stapleton). (Ashgate, Modern Economic and Social History Series, 2000), 192 pp. ISBN. 07546 0146 3
• Portsmouth and the East India Company 1700-1815. The East India Company and the Provinces, Vol. I.  (Edwin Mellen Press, New York and Lampeter, 1999), 503 pp. ISBN. 0-88946-450-2.
• The Portsmouth Region (with Barry Stapleton). (Alan Sutton, 1989), 265 pp. ISBN. 086299-374-1.
• The Book of Original Entries 1731-1751 (with N.W. Surry). (Portsmouth Record Series, III, Portsmouth 1976), 149 pp. ISBN 0 901559 30X.

Journal Articles

• 'Portsmouth Naval Academy in the Age of Nelson: A Reassessment’, International Journal of Maritime History, forthcoming June 2011.
• ‘The Sea Captain, the Nawab and the Pilgrimage: A Maritime Yarn Examined’, Archives, vol. XXXV (2010), pp. 37-47.
• 'Society, economy and sport in Wiltshire 1700-1914: some initial thoughts’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. 102 (2009), pp. 275-287.
• ‘Thomas Stephens (1549-1619): Wiltshireman and Jesuit’ (with Daphne Tighe) Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 99, (2006), pp. 230-235.
• ‘Portsmouth Yard and Town in the Age of Nelson (1758-1805) – A Relationship Examined’, Transactions of the Naval Dockyards Society, I (2006), pp. 93-107.
• ‘Devizes in the Eighteenth Century: the Evidence from Fire Insurance Records’, Archives XXX No. 113 (2005), pp. 75-89.
• ‘East India Company Shipping Losses in the Late Eighteenth Century: The case of the Henry Addington’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 90 (2004), pp. 51-72.
• Robert A. Otter and James H. Thomas, ‘William and Edward Mackenzie as Railway Contractors: The Evidence of J.H.Watel’s Office Diaries from 1849 and 1850’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, 72 (2000-2001), pp. 319-332.
• ‘Housing East India Company Troops in the 1790s: A Forgotten Survey’, Archives, XXVI, no105 (2001), pp. 123-133.
• ‘The Isle of Wight and the East India Company 1700-1840: Some Connections Considered’, The Local Historian, Vol. 30, no. 1(2000), pp. 4-22.
• ‘Music in Portsmouth 1700-1850: Some Aspects Considered’ in J. Chandler (ed.) Music in the Wessex Landscape, Special Edition Hatcher Review, V, no. 49 (2000), pp.56-71.
• ‘Quebec’s Bishop as Pawn: Saint Vallier’s Imprisonment in England 1704-1709’, Canadian Catholic Historical Association, Historical Studies, 64 (1998), pp. 151-60.
• ‘Economy and Society in Eighteenth-Century Somerset: Evidence from Neglected Sources’, Somerset Archaeological and Natural History, (1997) (Published 1998), pp. 57-75.
• ‘A Wage Bill for Ship Repairs in 1773’, Southern History, 19 (1997), pp. 135-42.
• ‘The Voyage of the Eagle, 1773’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 82 (1996), pp. 165-74.

Book Chapters

• 'East India Company Agency Work in the British Isles, 1700-1800’, in H.V. Bowen, M. Lincoln and N. Rigby (ed.), The Worlds of the East India Company, (Boydell Press 2002), pp. 33-47. ISBN 085155 8773.
• ‘Paper and People: An Historical Perspective’ in J. Thorpe (ed,), In Safe Keeping: The Preservation of Rare Books in Archives (Winchester 1988), pp. 1-12. ISBN 978-1870651172.
• ‘A Seventeenth-Century Merchant’s Account Book’ in J. Webb, N. Yates and S. Peacock (ed.) Hampshire Studies (Portsmouth 1981), pp. 141-167. ISBN 0 901559 44X.

Other Publications

• Entry on the last century of the East India Company in P.N. Stearns (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Oxford University Press) forthcoming 2008.
• From Municipal College to School of Languages and Area Studies: Park Building in Retrospect, Occasional Papers in the History of the University of Portsmouth, No. 1 (1997), 20 pp.
• Portsmouth and the East India Company in the Eighteenth Century, The Portsmouth Papers No. 62 (1993), 28pp.
• Portsmouth  and the First Fleet 1786-1787, The Portsmouth Papers No. 50 (1987), 41 pp. 
• The Seaborne Trade of Portsmouth 1650-1800, The Portsmouth Papers No. 40, (1984), 22pp.
• Petersfield Under the Later Stuarts: An Economic and Social Study, Petersfield Papers No. 6, 1980,  iv and 56pp.

External Funding Grants Received 

• 2002-3: Grants of £3,500 from Marc Fitch Fund, Isobel Thornley Bequest and an anonymous donor towards publication of The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society: The First 150 Years. (Devizes,2003). 
• 2002: Royal Society grant of £750, with R. Otter, Civil Engineering, for continued work on the Mackenzie Collection.
• 1992: Royal Society grant of £700, with R. Otter, Civil Engineering, for research on the Mackenzie Collection, concerning 19th century railway building.

Membership of Editorial and Allied Boards 

• 1981- date: Member, Portsmouth Historical Publications Advisory Panel.
• 1991 - date: Local History Editor, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine.
• 1990 - 1992 Council Member, Navy Records Society.
• 1988 - date: Member, Historical Association National Panel of Speakers.
• 1983 - 1986 Council Member, British Association for Local History.