The Hakluyt Society Essay Prize
Every year the Hakluyt Society invites students and young researchers to submit an essay in a field of interest to the Society. The best essay earns an excellent monetary prize.
2015 Hakluyt Society Essay Prize runner-up Amy Bowles on “Sir Henry Mainwaring’s ‘A Brief Abstract’”
The manuscript circulation of Sir Henry Mainwaring’s "A Brief Abstract, Exposition and Demonstration of all Parts and Things belonging to a Ship and Practique of Navigation". By Amy Bowles In the early 1620s, the naval officer and reformed pirate Sir Henry Mainwaring composed what is now thought to be the earliest extant dictionary of nautical terms. The Brief Abstract, Exposition and Demonstration of all Parts and Things belonging to a Ship and Practique of Navigation contains around 600 entries, alphabetically ordered with a preface, table of contents, and often a decorative title-page. Mainwaring explained the necessity of this work, writing that ‘very few Gentlemen (though they be called Sea-men) doe [...]
Read More
2015 Hakluyt Society Essay Prize winner: “Printing the Pacific”
By Katherine Parker I am grateful to have been chosen as an Honorable Mention in the Hakluyt Society’s Essay Prize Contest. As a student member and active participant, I think it vital that more early-career scholars join organizations such as the Hakluyt Society. New minds can bring fresh topics and methodologies, but younger colleagues also benefit from interaction with more seasoned scholars who can assess and direct their work. My own research, including the essay discussed here, owes a great debt to previous historians of exploration and encounter, and it is to them, especially Glyndwr Williams, that I credit my intellectual development. In the paper submitted to the Hakluyt Society, [...]
Read More
2015 Hakluyt Society Essay Prize
First, some words about the 2015 prize run. This year the prize committee consisted of Daniel Carey, Surekha Davies (Chair), Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Peter Hulme, Claire Jowitt and Suzanne Schwartz. They announced the results during the 169th Annual General Meeting of the Hakluyt Society, which took place in London on Wednesday 26 June 2015. Among a number of high-quality submissions, the committee held the opinion that the single outstanding contribution was the essay by Owain Lawson (Columbia University), entitled: ‘Constructing a Green Museum: French Environmental Imaginaries of Syria and Lebanon’. The Society is pleased that Mr Lawson could be present as the Society’s guest at the AGM, where he received a [...]
Read More