Research interests
Leanna’s thesis is entitled “England’s Traders and Shipmasters; A study of Elizabethan coastal trading, 1568 – 1580” and explores the maritime history of three ports of social, political and economic significance during the late sixteenth century. Her research combines a powerful body of source material (namely national customs accounts, lay subsidy returns, admiralty court records, and various local civic records), which are utilised to satisfy the three primary research goals:
- To establish the nature of coastal commerce in Bristol, Southampton and Hull in the late sixteenth century.
- To understand how coastal traders and shipmasters ran their businesses. In particular, how they forged and maintained business networks.
- To assess the socio-political and socio-economic position of individuals engaged in coastal trading and challenge our preconceived notion of what it meant to be a merchant during the Tudor period.
Leanna is interested in cross-disciplinary studies and uses diverse methods to provide an insight into her field. This included the creation of a purpose-built relational database, and she also uses GIS software to reconstruct trade routes and Social Network Analysis to understand the social structures behind key economic trends.
