Witness Seminar 5 and 6: Everyday Offending in Devonport Past and Present

• Co-Ordinator: Jason Lowther
• Chair: Professor Judith Rowbotham
• Consultant: Michael Kandiah, Kings College London

Aim:

To collect the insights, experiences and anecdotes of a panel of experts concerned in various aspects of maritime military heritage, including historical, Naval, legal and archaeological. The collected wisdom is set in a context of the disturbance and illicit salvage of a number of military shipwrecks across the world.

Overview:

As part of a broad-based research into Underwater Cultural Heritage assets being undertaken at the University of Plymouth, the witness seminar, along with a series of poster exhibitions was held on the afternoon of November 7th 2018.

Panel Witnesses included:

• Vice Admiral Sir Anthony Dymock, RN, Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust
• Professor Dave Parham, Bournemouth University, School of Archaeology
• Harry Bennett, University of Plymouth, School of Arts and Humanities
• Professor Michael Williams, University of Plymouth (visiting ), School of Law Criminology and Government

Additional contextual material:

The witness seminar was part of a series of events focussed on preservation of military remains and provided a specific focus within a more general research area of underwater heritage protection. Poster exhibitions reflective of the issues were held in the Royal Navy Heritage Centre at Devonport, Plymouth; the Charlestown Shipwreck Centre in Cornwall; and at a networking lunch which took place before the witness seminar. Allied to this work, Lowther, Parham and Williams published an article in the Journal of Planning and Environmental Law on the policy approaches applied by the regulatory bodies in respect of scheduling of Military remains in UK territorial waters under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act.

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