I’ve recently relocated from Cambridge, England, to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to start a new role as the Ewart A. Pratt Fellow in Military, Naval, and Maritime History at Memorial University. It is wonderful to be back in Canada after many years abroad, and I’m eager to explore this beautiful part of the country.
During my two-year tenure, I will be researching duelling, honour, and courts-martial among British Army officers during the era of the Napoleonic Wars. The project seeks to get at the heart of what it meant to be an officer and a gentleman at the time, and I’m really looking forward to digging into the archives.
To mark the move, I wanted to share something that connects directly to both the place and the period: a watercolour of St. John’s painted around 1796 by a Royal Artillery officer named George Bulteel Fisher. This beguiling view from Fort Townshend also depicts an artilleryman and a soldier of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Currently housed in the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University, the artwork was the subject of an informative 2022 article by the late historian René Chartrand.
I also look forward to teaching students at Memorial; I’m set to run a third-year course on the history of the British Empire in Winter 2026.
1812 and all that 
Congratulations!
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Thank you!
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Many congratulations, Eamonn, on a highly-deserved appointment at Memorial University after your years of scholarship in the UK, it’s good to have you back in Canada. I look forward to following your posts, as I’m sure will your former colleagues at Fort York National Historic Site.
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Thank you, Andrew, for your kind comment. Hope that you are well and that things are looking up for the Friends of FY.
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I posted news of your appointment and the “History of the British Empire from 1815” course that you’ll be teaching on the FoFY’s FB page, here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C2D9j2wys/
Things aren’t perfect but Fort York’s prospects have certainly improved under current Toronto History Museum’s management and the prospects for a City of Toronto Museum hub in Old City Hall appear to be promising as well.
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