Consultant in maritime history and creative lifestory
Welcome to my website
I'm a creative historian who works with the maritime industry, museums, television, theatre, social media, universities and in the community. Women who went to sea - whose travel transformed their lives forever - are my special area of expertise.
As a person interested in
kindness, fun, and the ways we humans seek fulfilment and transformation, my especial interest is in
the stories of people who have led marginalised lives in the past - and sought adventure, freedom
and the space to be all they are, and might become.
In particular this means recording people, or helping them write their stories. They tend to be people who've taken jobs at sea despite the odds - like women, ethnic minorities and LGBT+ people - for whom seagoing meant sometimes liberation and sometimes injustice.
Ships are hypersexualised spaces for
those confined in them. As a cultural historian, that's fascinating to me. They're heterotopias
(meaning other places, like Wonderland) and liminal zones, (which means they explain a lot about our
societies on land.)
I live in Marsden in the Pennines, the home village of Poet Laureate Simon Armitage. He describes it as a uniquely 'transcendent and transgressive location' but I celebrate it as a warm Alternative community. And I work a lot in London and abroad. At Liverpool John Moores University I am Visiting Senior Research Fellow. At the University of Hull's Maritime Historical Studies Centre I am an Honorary Research Fellow.
Forthcoming, February 2027
She Sailed: The Dangerous Voyages of Ordinary Women in WWII
Yale University Press, London and New Haven, CT. Hardback: 9780300125764.
Go to News about She Sailed: The Dangerous Voyages of Ordinary Women in World War II
Pre-order now
Only £20.
Seafaring women through history
Just published in Spring 2026
A republished updated version of From Cabin "Boys" to Captains: 250 years of women at sea. History Press.
Nominated as Best Maritime Book of the Year.
2026 Maritime Media Awards
What am I doing now
My seminal blog Gender and The Sea genderedseas.blogspot.com will be full of still more unusual stories about people connected to the sea. I will be carrying on exploring, explaining and sharing path-breaking information about race, gender, class, status and the many other characteristics that intersect tellingly. You'll read histories of diverse hyper-mobile people in the maritime world, with a fresh focus on emotions, identity and voyages' potential to transform lives. And you'll be able to see more illustrated PowerPoint presentations about maritime diversity, via YouTube.
I'll be especially helping you find out about:
- safeguarding seafaring women today from sexual abuse at sea
- the global history of LGBT++ seafarers, their culture, and the ways that trips could feel like radical universities and gay pride demonstrations
- women working in maritime mission, supporting seafarers ashore in twentieth century hostels
SANITY. With my Diversity, Equity & Inclusion lenses - and completing my training as a counsellor - I'm researching mental wellbeing on ships in history. Of course it links to safety at sea, as well as connecting to sexual harassment and LGBT++ handling of destructive homophobia aboard.
What they say about me
Women Offshore celebrated me in their Pride Month Spotlight in June 2025 for being 'a historian whose groundbreaking work has helped uncover the hidden stories of LGBTQIA+ people in maritime history — including the vital contributions of queer women and gender-diverse seafarers.'
The announcement said 'Dr. Stanley's research and exhibitions, like Hello Sailor!, have given voice to the experiences of LGBTQIA+ mariners — from navigating identity on the ocean to forming supportive communities at sea. Through creative storytelling, including textile art and inclusive archives, she's helped ensure these stories are no longer left behind.'
MY CURRENT FAVOURITES
My favourite book To the Edge of the World: A Perilous Storm, A Mutinous Crew and the Woman Who Defied Them All by Tilar J Mazzeo, published 29 January 2026.
Favourite podcast. Waves of Change: Women at Sea.
https://open.spotify.com/show/ 31WIqiuLTbcKmMYFsyYxpB.
Favourite old novel. Winger's Landfall by Stuart Lauder, 1962. Pacey fiction by seafarer about gay life at sea 1950s. Awful plot, great detail. Path-breaking because it doesn't fetishise gay seafaring men as low life, as some early fiction, such as Querelle of Brest, does.
See my discussion at genderedseas.blogspot.com/2024/06/gay-mystery-on-liner-50s-style-fiction.html
Favourite autobiography. Drink Up and be a Man: Memoirs of a Steward and Engine-Room Hand, by John J Mahon, 2011. Truly honest account by a heterosexual steward of his difficulties as a man of 4' 9”, an unhappy person in a boozy culture in the 1960s, who conquered his alcohol addiction.
www.amazon.co.uk/Drink-Up-Man-Memoirs-Steward/dp/1906266190
Favourite item on social media. Lieutenant Commander Ami Burns, RN, a submariner, tells her very important story of being on of the first in the UK Royal Navy.
Interview recording and transcript at submarinersstories.uk/profile/ami-burns/
New
New exhibitions:
The She_Sees exhibition is at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. It features some of the many hundreds of inspiring women maritime pioneers. Free. On till 2026. portsmouthhq.org/events/she_sees-exhibition
The exhibition is created by the Lloyd's Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre. It's part of the full Rewriting Women into Maritime History Project, which can be visited at hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/rewriting-women-into-maritime-history