Protecting Historic Wrecks in the U.K: the early years

Author(s): Peter R. V. Marsden

Year: 2013

Summary

This is a personal view of the beginnings of maritime archaeology in the UK. Having discovered that two Roman wrecks in London, found by me in 1958 and 1962, could not be protected as historic monuments, and that neither could wrecks found by divers on the seabed, I called an archaeological meeting in 1964. The Committee for Nautical Archaeology was established then, and its campaigning resulted in the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 and wrecks being included in Ancient Monuments law.

The Nautical Archaeology Society was born out of the CNA and in 1972 the CNA hosted the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology. At last our specialist subject was recognised as important and part of mainstream archaeology. But in spite of all this, significant developments are still needed before this discipline can fully grow, and these are being addressed by the Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee led by Robert Yorke.

Cite this Record

Protecting Historic Wrecks in the U.K: the early years. Peter R. V. Marsden. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, U.K. 2013 ( tDAR id: 428584)

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

General
Archaeology Law Nautical

Geographic Keywords
United Kingdom Western Europe

Spatial Coverage

min long: -8.158; min lat: 49.955 ; max long: 1.749; max lat: 60.722 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 173