Church Ships and Floating Chapels: Missions to Seamen in the Age of Sail.

Lecture given by Professor Hilary Carey (University of Bristol) and Introduced by Dr Catherine Phipps (University of Bristol).

Join us at Lambeth Palace Library for a viewing of our exhibition, Mariners: Religion, Race and Empire at Lambeth Palace Library in collaboration with the University of Bristol, and drinks reception. Followed with a talk by Professor Hilary Carey and Dr Catherine Phipps on Mariners and the Church of England missions in the 19th century.

Schedule for events:

17.00 – Drinks served with a chance to look at the exhibition

17.45 – Professor Hilary’s talk, introduced by Dr Catherine Phipps

18.30 – Q&A

18.45 – End

The exhibition is open from 10:00 until the lecture begins so you are welcome to visit the exhibition earlier in the day.

Please let us know if you have any dietary restrictions or accessbility requirments in advance of your attendance.

Dr Phipps:

Saving “Sea Harlots” to Save Sailors: The Home for Maritime Sex Workers in 19th-century Stepney

In 1829, one of the founders of the religious reform movement to improve the lives of sailors, Charles “Boatswain” Smith, opened a home to try to rescue and reform the women who sold sex in the port of London. Women who had been “allured into the paths of vice in the maritime district of London” were invited to come to religious services at the sailors’ chapel and to stay in his attic at Wellclose Square, above the sailor’s home. But why did he do this? How was it part of plans to improve the lives of seafarers? And how did it transform how religious groups discussed women selling sex in the port of London?

Prof. Carey:Church Ships and Floating Chapels: Missions to Seamen in the Age of Sail.

From the end of the 19th century, there was increasing concern about the moral and physical standing of the ordinary sailor. To address the need, church people embraced a huge range of activities, from ship-board visiting and services to shore-based mariners’ churches, institutes, bethels, orphanages, Sunday Schools and outreach to distressed and shipwrecked sailors and homes for marine workers and their families as well as sailors’ magazines, hymns and sermons. For the first decades of the movement, floating chapels and church ships were among its most distinctive feature. This talk will investigate the earliest floating chapel, launched by the Port of London Society on the Thames in 1918 and the dozens that followed. Episcopal floating chapels were moored in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Leith, Cardiff and many other locations. These unique places of worship were believed to create a more sympathetic environment for engagement with working seamen, though many were extremely uncomfortable and even dangerous. They reflected the worldview of British reformers and educators that the sea and seamen had their own special affinity with the works of God. Chaplains included distinguished former seamen, such as the Rev. William Scoresby (1789-1857), the first chaplain to the Episcopal Floating Church for Seamen in Liverpool. The Admiralty provided the majority of the shore establishments but the boats that were deployed as floating chapels and churches came in all shapes and sizes.This talk and the Mariners Exhibition is part of the work completed by the Mariners project, funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council at the University of Bristol in partnership with the Anglican Missions to Seafarers and the Hull History Centre which holds the MTS archives. All our publications are free to access. you can find more on the Mariners website https://mar.ine.rs/ and the Mariners blog https://mariners.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/.

All are welcome, but those wishing to attend should book a ticket via Eventbrite or email archives@churchofengland.org no later than Tuesday 1 September.

Please note that tickets must be booked individually for security purposes.