Dr Anna McKay researches the lives and experiences of prisoners across the British maritime world. She has written for the Financial Times, Guardian, New Statesman, BBC History Magazine, RTÉ Ireland, and Times Higher Education, and featured on BBC Sounds and HistoryExtra podcasts. In 2024 she was a finalist in the BBC/AHRC's New Generation Thinkers scheme, and can be heard on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking.
Anna's PhD on prison hulks - battered ex-naval warships hastily converted as floating prisons - was awarded in 2020. Originally conceived as a short-term solution to a prison housing crisis, hulks were used by the British government for decades, spanning the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their fascinating history has been largely forgotten - this is the story of empire, prisons, and society as a whole.
At the University of Liverpool, Anna is undertaking a Leverhulme Trust-funded project, ‘Prisoners’ Progress’, on war captives between 1775-1815. It’s a topic that resonates with the stories we see today of wartime displacement and refugees – ordinary people searching for freedom and safety.
If you are interested in talking to Anna regarding her research (media, historical consultancy enquiries etc.), please get in touch below.