'Disability' and Stuart Seafarers, 1600-1750: 'For the releife of hurt and maymed seamen.'

This project focuses on how impaired Stuart seafarers became identified as 'disabled'. Engaging with critical disabilities studies where 'disability' is understood as a historically and culturally variable category, the project explores how early modern attitudes towards specific physical and sensorial impairments in effect disabled Stuart naval personnel, changing their lived experiences through this categorisation.

Researching the lives of impaired battle survivors and dockyard workers is valuable in demonstrating their continued service in the British navy. The project is jointly supervised by the University of East Anglia and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

The student will study the development of state infrastructure that supported disabilities, focusing on the accounts of the Chatham Chest held at NMM and elsewhere, and key events such as the founding of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich, the first hospital for disabled and disadvantaged navy veterans in 1694. The student may wish to extend the project to the 18th century to examine how late Stuart seafarers were supported in their retirement, benefiting from NMM's more extensive Greenwich Hospital records.

The project is divided into two key strands. Study of the Chatham Chest accounts and related materials to explore the social conditions and relief efforts available to impaired seamen. The project will also use visual and textual material, including broadsides, plays, poems, artwork, and material artefacts, to research and analyse how physically and mentally disabled Stuart naval workers were perceived, understood, and represented.

Research outputs will include a doctoral thesis, a Chatham Chest database, a research guide for NMM disability sources, and potentially a related small pop-up or digital display at NMM. Research questions include: - How common was it for seamen and dockyard workers who served in the Stuart navy to be maimed?

- How were sailors' disabilities perceived by the navy and wider society, including whether seamen's impairments were perceived differently from those with disabilities on land? - What roles did members of crew with physical and mental disabilities hold? - What are the key changes in how disability was understood and treated across the period?