The National Archives holds over 4,000 boxes of letters, papers, and artefacts from ships captured by the British between 1652 and 1815.
In the second episode of our three-part series on the Prize Papers collection, Oliver Finnegan explores the scientific techniques and conservation skills used to analyse these items. Guests Marc Vermeulen and Marina Casagrande discuss examining and reading letters without opening them and the discovery of a well-preserved centuries-old knitted jumper.
Download the full episode transcript here.
For more information about the Prize Papers project, visit https://www.prizepapers.de/.
For more information about the records covered in this episode, look at our research guides to High Court of Admiralty. Read our blog on Letters Unread: Opening closed letters in the Prize Papers project and Letters of Note: Preparing the Prize Papers for digitisation. For help navigating our catalogue, you can watch our top-level tips on using Discovery.