Sharples, Catriona
PhD candidate @ University of Warwick
Bio
Catriona Sharples is currently a second-year PhD candidate at the University of Warwick, working on a thesis provisionally titled ‘Colonial Science and Military Service: The West India Regiments and circum-Atlantic Networks of Knowledge, c.1815-1900’. Her project is funded by the AHRC, as a collaborative doctoral award with the University of Warwick’s department of History, the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), and the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew). Her research focuses primarily on the role of the West India Regiments; long-standing regiments of the British Army composed almost entirely of men of African descent who served across the British Empire from the 1790s-early 1900s. More widely, her interests include the role of military personnel in scientific knowledge making and imperial expansion in the nineteenth century Atlantic world, and particularly in the greater Caribbean region.
Geographical location : Warwick, UK
Research Area and Interest : the role of military personnel in scientific knowledge making and imperial expansion in the nineteenth century Atlantic world, and particularly in the greater Caribbean region
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- Summary: This paper will examine the role of the British West India Regiments in scientific knowledge making and exploration in the greater Caribbean. Scholarship on the history of science and empire in recent years suggests that military personnel were key participants in colonial science projects, however, research in this area is still developing and much remains to be explored. The West India Regiments provide an interesting focal point for the study of military personnel as agents of scientific exploration, due to the unique character of these regiments (officers of lower socio-economic backgrounds, rank-and-file men of African descent, and increased rotation between different imperial territories). Regimental personnel were frequently stationed in the frontiers of the British Empire, and while many of their operations were strictly military, they also participated in various scientific projects throughout the nineteenth century. This paper will focus on the case study of an 1872 expedition to the Kaieteur Falls in British Guiana, which was led and documented by a Major Webber of the Second West India Regiment. The expedition is recorded as a mission to enhance British knowledge of the region; particularly regarding the geology of the Kaieteur Waterfall and ‘physical configuration of the surrounding region’. The party also produced some of the first photographs of the area to ever be seen. Thus, my paper will explore the convergence of military and scientific discovery in British Guiana, and how this feeds into wider themes of imperial expansion and scientific knowledge making in the British Empire.
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