13 April 2016, Starts: 17:00

'The Importance of Being a Reservist: The Royal Naval Reserve in the Highlands and Islands, c. 1880-1939'.

Talk by Dr Ben Thomas

Highland Archive Centre, Inverness, 5pm. Organised by UHI Centre for History.

This paper explores the place of the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) in the life of maritime communities in the Highlands and Islands. It highlights the importance of RNR service for men in the crofting community, and shows how service in the Reserves became of vital economic importance to the Highland region. With thousands of Highlanders and Islanders serving in the RNR each year, the paper asks how this service impacted on local communities, and whether and how the popularity of service in the Highlands and Islands shaped the structure of the force at the national level.

Ben is the current Alan Pearsall Fellow in Naval and Maritime History at the Institute of Historical Research. His current research project explores the place of the Royal Naval Reserve in the life of maritime communities in northern Scotland and northern Wales in the early twentieth century. He completed his PhD thesis in early 2015 at the University of Aberdeen, with a thesis entitled 'Cultures of Empire in the Scottish Highlands, c. 1876-1902'.