Britain, Conflict, and the Sea conference

An interdisciplinary conference developed in collaboration with and hosted by Royal Museums Greenwich, with generous support from the British Academy

Understandings of ‘Britishness’ have been bound up with conflict and seafaring for centuries. The sea has served as a barrier, marking the mental borderlines of an ‘island people’ and distinguishing them from European ‘others’. It has also facilitated the development and projection of British imperial power and capital on a global scale. This conference aims to explore the production, consumption, evolution and impact of these ideas and developments between the Napoleonic Wars and today. 

Overarching narratives of the sea in modern British history depict this story in terms of the ‘rise and fall’ of British identification with the sea. The story runs as follows: sea power saved Britain from Napoleonic invasion in 1803-04, and the intense anti-French propaganda and opposition to continental dictatorship developed a new form of ‘national’ awareness during successive wars against France. The imagery of ‘jack tar’ and Lord Nelson reflected the embodiment of the masculine naval ideal.

By the late nineteenth century, the abolition of the Corn Laws and the growth of global trade ushered in the political and economic basis for widespread popular awareness of Britain as a metaphorical ‘island’, ringed by the warships of the Royal Navy. The popular navalism of the pre-1914 period, and the conditions that supported it, were fundamentally undone by the First World War. The conflict destabilised the Navy’s prominent place within popular culture, and ushered in newfound forms of common identity and aspiration. The aeroplane became the new symbol of technological modernity, and after 1945 the sea receded to the margins of the British consciousness – where it remains to this day. 

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to reappraise this account, to widen its parameters, and to ask new questions about modern Britain, conflict, and the sea. A key focus of the event will be upon the interaction between stories about ‘Britain, Conflict and the Sea’, and the political, economic, and military contexts and practices that those narratives existed within. 

The conference will take place in the Lecture Theatre at the National Maritime Museum on 12 -13 September. A detailed programme is available here: