Essential information
| Type | Talks and tours |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Date and times | Wednesday 17 September 2025 l 6.30pm |
| Member exclusive. Not a Member? Join now |
To many historians, the 'golden age' of piracy began in 1715, when throngs of cut-throat chancers raced to loot a Spanish treasure fleet wrecked off the east coast of Florida.
The Pirate King rewrites this version of events by showing how it was Henry Avery who lit the fuse and hurled the grenade that started the golden age twenty years earlier.
In this lecture we will tell the story of Henry Avery from child to ghost and beyond, for the first time examining the traumatic psychology that made him turn pirate. We will also reveal the many parallels between the lives of Henry Avery and Daniel Defoe, both merchants and both outsiders.
About the speaker
Dr Sean Kingsley is a marine archaeologist who has explored over 350 wrecks from Israel to America. His current focus is on the lost ships of the Bahamas, the stage for the 'golden age' of piracy, where he is co-directing a project to dive for lost pirate ships.
Sean writes for The Smithsonian Magazine and is the founder of Wreckwatch magazine. He is the author of God’s Gold: Quest for the Lost Temple Treasure of Jerusalem, Enslaved, and The Sunken History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (with Simcha Jacobovici), also available from Pegasus Books.
About the co-author
Rex Cowan was a former practising lawyer turned shipwreck hunter, author and broadcaster. He served in the Royal Air Force, had a law degree from King’s College London and was a Fulbright scholar in the USA. He was one of Britain’s most successful shipwreck hunters, specialising in the East India Companies, and is the author of A Century of Images: Photographs by the Gibson Family (introduction by John Le Carré) and Castaway and Wrecked.
He was knighted by the Dutch for his services to underwater history and archaeology. Rex sadly passed away in March of 2025.
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