Douglas Hamilton is Professor of History at Sheffield Hallam University and is a historian of enslavement and emancipation, and the eighteenth-century British Atlantic empire.

I joined SHU as Head of History in 2016, having worked at the Universities of York, Hull, and Winchester.  I was also curator of eighteenth-century maritime and imperial history at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. I am a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy.  My research focuses on the eighteenth-century British Atlantic empire, and I’m particularly interested in the Caribbean and in the lives of the enslaved. I'm currently working on a major project that explores the Royal Navy’s complex and complicit role in the enslavement of Africans. 'The Royal Navy and Slavery in the Caribbean: securing Britain’s enslaved empire' will be published by Bloomsbury Academic Press.

Specialist Area of Interest: Slavery and anti-slavery, Caribbean, Atlantic World, Islands, Empires