Ticketed

Essential Information

Type Talks and tours
Location
Date and Times Thursday 15 May 2025 l 6.30pm
Prices Free | Members only

Member exclusive. Not a member? Join now

Image

William Dampier started his career in 1676 as a buccaneer in the Caribbean, preying on ships and settlements on the Spanish Main. He could easily have ended up on the gallows for piracy. Instead, his sense of adventure and curiosity about the natural world led him to become the first person to circumnavigate the world three times and to map the winds and currents of the world's oceans. 

He landed in Australia eighty years before James Cook and visited the Galapagos Islands one hundred and fifty years before Charles Darwin.

William Dampier has been called our first real travel writer. His bestselling books inspired Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver's Travels and enriched the English language with many new words, from ‘barbecue’, ‘avocado’ and chopsticks’ to ‘sub-species’.

A curious man in a curious age, William combined a life of swashbuckling adventure with remarkable intellectual achievements. In later generations, the famous German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt praised the man he called ‘the remarkable English buccaneer’ to whose work ‘the subsequent studies of great European scholars, naturalists and travellers had added little’, while the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised his ‘exquisite mind’.

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Join today for a host of exclusive benefits and events, including unlimited free entry to Cutty Sark, the Royal Observatory, shows at the Peter Harrison Planetarium, and special exhibitions at the National Maritime Museum.

With Membership starting from as little as £50 what are you waiting for? Membership is your time to explore!

What’s On

Find more events for Members.

Talks and tours | Member events

Members' Tour

Embark on a voyage of discovery around the Museum in the company of one of our volunteer guides
Various dates | 11am - 12pm
Free for Members | Booking essential
In Greenwich
Girls doing craft
Family fun | Member events

Members' crafting

Join us for exclusive craft workshops, just for Members.
Every other month | 11am-11.45am, 12.15pm-1pm, 1.30pm-2.15pm, 2.45pm-3.30pm
Free for Family Members – booking required
In Greenwich
The Great Equatorial Telescope dome of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, lit up at night with a full moon in the sky above
Talks and tours | Member events

Members' Lecture: Astrophotography at the Royal Observatory - behind the scenes

Join Dr Greg Brown as he showcases the Observatory’s most recent work in the field of astrophotography
Tuesday 3 June 2025 l 6.30pm-7.30pm
Free | Members only
Royal Observatory
The red planet, Mars
Talks and tours | Member events

Members' Online Lecture: Mars - A Beginner's Guide to Exploring the Red Planet

Get a comprehensive introduction to the Red Planet from astronomer Brendan Owens
Tuesday 10 June 2025 l 6.30pm-7.30pm
Free for Members
Online
A woman gazes at portraits of historic figures. Three paintings are displayed in a gallery in front of her
Workshops | Member events

Members' Artist Masterclass: Portraits Drawing Workshop

Develop your portrait skills in this special guided workshop, led by artists Federico Baeza-Autillo and Sarah E Shaw
Friday 13 June 2025 | 10.15am-12.15pm
Free | Members only
Queen's House
A portion of the Ocean Map at the National Maritime Museum showing major port cities around Asia and Africa
Talks and tours | Member events

Members' Tour: Ocean Map

Join Tim May, Curator of Maps and Mobilities, to learn how the new Ocean Map was developed and about the deeper history of ocean-centric cartography
Monday 16 June 2025 l 11am-12pm
Free for Members
National Maritime Museum
Close-up view of a woodblock-style illustration of pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Bonny is in the centre holding a lamp, while Read is off to the right
Talks and tours | Member events

Members' Lecture: Pirate Queens

Join Dr Rebecca Simon to delve deeper into the lives of two of the most infamous female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who terrorised the Caribbean in and around Jamaica
Thursday 19 June 2025 l 6.30pm-7.30pm
Free | Members only
National Maritime Museum
Print of the Royal Observatory Greenwich
Talks and tours | Member events

Flamsteed Lecture: 350 years of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich

Join Dr Louise Devoy, Senior Curator, as we celebrate three and a half centuries of perseverance, ingenuity and public duty at Royal Observatory Greenwich
Monday 23 June 2025 | 7.15pm
Flamsteed Members: FREE | Guests of Flamsteed Members: £15 | Royal Museums Greenwich Members: £12
National Maritime Museum
Call Me Ishmaelle Cover.jpg
Talks and tours

Members' Lecture: Call Me Ishmaelle

Join author Xiaolu Guo as she reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from a female perspective, Call Me Ishmaelle.
Thursday 26 June 2025 l 6.30pm-7.30pm
Free | Members only
Cutty Sark
Thames sailing barge - Pudge
Experiences | Member events

Members' Thames Sailing Barge Weekend

Join us for an amazing trip in an authentic Thames barge
Friday 27 – Sunday 29 June 2025
£240.00 per person
Other
Photograph of the entrance to the National Maritime Museum
Events and festivals | Member events

Members' Summer Party

Join fellow Royal Museums Greenwich Members for a fabulous evening at the National Maritime Museum
Tuesday 1 July 2025 l 6.30pm-8.30pm (Sold out)
Free for Members – booking required
National Maritime Museum