An Empire of Islands

On 12 and 13 April, the Centre hosted the first of three AHRC-funded workshops on the theme ‘An empire of islands’. Plans for the AHRC network were introduced by Douglas Hamilton (Winchester) and John McAleer (Southampton). The workshop included research papers on British botanical imperialism in Tahiti and Samoa, the medieval English conquest of Ireland, inter-island relations in the British Empire in the long nineteenth century, and island networks of penal expulsion in colonial Australia. Participants included Jennifer Newell (American Museum of Natural History, New York), Stephen Royle (Queen’s University, Belfast), Colin Veach (University of Hull), Michael Jarvis (University of Rochester, NY), Huw Bowen (University of Swansea), Sarah Longair (British Museum) and Katy Roscoe (University of Leicester). The second of the workshops in the series will take place in Winchester on 9 and 10 September.