Central America (including Caribbean)

The project is a prosopographical study of the English convents in exile during the period 1600-1800 when it was illegal to be a nun in Britain. Key research questions include a broad response to the question 'Who were the nuns?' This involves locating the members in their family, religious, political and economic context and identifying the support networks sustaining the convents over two centuries.

This project considers the role played by indigenous peoples and intermediaries in the history of exploration, as revealed by research in the collections of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). The project is particularly concerned with the roles of guides, porters, pilots, cooks, carriers, interpreters, go-betweens and informants in the creation of geographical knowledge. In wider terms, it seeks to provide a model for new ways of working with well-established geographical collections.

Cornwall has a number of significant historical communications sites starting with Porthcurno and ranging over early radio sites at Poldhu and the Lizard to Land’s End and Bodmin Radio and the Satellite station at Goonhilly. The ‘Connecting Cornwall’ project will be using the Cable and Wireless historic archive to develop new research into the communications industry in Cornwall with an emphasis on the Eastern Telegraph Company in the first instance.