Centre for European and International Studies Research

Profile

Dr Colin White is one of Britain’s leading naval historians, who specialises in the ‘long’ C19th (1793-1914). Although he has published and lectured widely on all aspects of this period, he has recently been most closely associated with the life and career of Vice Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson. His academic interest encompasses the whole of Nelson’s naval career; but it also extends beyond it to embrace his wider cultural significance. Dr White has had a significant influence on the recent surge of interest in this aspect of Nelson studies, the origins of which can be traced to a book he edited in 1995, The Nelson Companion.  

From 2001-2006 he was Director, Trafalgar 200 at the National Maritime Museum, responsible for planning the hugely successful Trafalgar Festival of 2005. He was also guest curator for the Museum’s Nelson & Napoleon exhibition and Director of a major research project: the ‘Nelson Letters Project’ (see below). His book, featuring material discovered during the course of the project, Nelson the new letters, was awarded the ‘Distinguished Book Award’ by the Society for Military History in 2006. In 2006, he was appointed Director of the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

Qualifications

• BA History 1974
• MA War Studies 1975
• AMA 1989
• D Litt 2004

Research Clusters 

• Social, Historical and Cultural Change in Europe

Discipline Areas

•  History 

Current Research Projects

The Nelson Letters Project

The aim of the project is to locate, transcribe and, as appropriate to publish, unpublished letters written by Nelson. To date (2007) some 1,500 letters have been located. Of these about 800 have been transcribed and 500 of the most important have been published (in Dr White’s book, Nelson the new letters – see below).  Work is continuing and there are plans to publish further transcriptions online, together with a complete list of the new material.

Authored Books

• 2005 The Nelson Encyclopaedia, London, Chatham Publishing and the Royal Naval Museum, new edition (original edition 2003)  
• 2005 Nelson - the new letters, (Woodbridge, Boydell and Brewer
• 2005 Nelson the Admiral, Stroud, Sutton Publishing 
• 2006 1797: Nelson’s year of Destiny, Stroud, Sutton Publishing, new edition (original  edition 1998)

Edited Books 

• 2005 The Nelson Companion (ed.) Stroud, Sutton Publishing, new edition (original edition 1995)
• 2005 The Trafalgar Captains (ed.) London, Chatham Publishing

Journal Articles

• 2002 ‘Nelson’s 1805 battle plan’, Journal of Maritime Research, http://www.jmr.nmm.ac.uk/
• 2005 ‘The Nelson Touch – Nelson’s tactics at Trafalgar’, Journal of Maritime Research, http://www.jmr.nmm.ac.uk/
• 2005 ‘A man of business: Nelson as Commander in Chief Mediterranean, 1803-5’, Mariner’s Mirror, Vol 91, pp175-194
• 2006 ‘ ”Ever with real esteem”: Continuing the Nelson Letters Project’, The Trafalgar Chronicle, Vol 16, pp.44-49
• 2006 ‘The Wife’s Tale – Frances Lady Nelson and the breakdown of her marriage’, Women’s History Review, Vol 15, pp. 105-133

Book Chapters 

• 2002 'Nelson's Channel Order Book' in The Naval Miscellany ed. Michael Duffy, Aldershot, Navy Records Society
• 2005 ‘Captain Richard Keats’ in Contemporaries of Nelson, ed Richard Harding and Peter Lefevre, London, Chatham Publishing 
• 2005 ‘Trafalgar’ in Nelson & Napoleon, ed. Margarette Lincoln, London, National Maritime Museum 
• 2005 ‘Nelson Apotheosised’, in Admiral Lord Nelson, (ed.) David Cannadine, London, Palgrave Macmillan