{"id":695,"date":"2025-07-22T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/?p=695"},"modified":"2025-08-18T09:50:51","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T08:50:51","slug":"bridging-seas-and-centuries-the-beiyang-sailors-legacy-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/2025\/07\/22\/bridging-seas-and-centuries-the-beiyang-sailors-legacy-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridging Seas and Centuries: The Beiyang Sailors\u2019 Legacy Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p id=\"_ceg5guaKnMzxgf\">Project Lead Dr Myra Giesen delivered a talk titled \u201c<em>Ballast Hills Burial Ground: Ethical Engagement and Inclusive Commemoration in a Historic Urban Landscape<\/em>\u201d at Bridging Seas and Centuries: The Beiyang Sailors\u2019 Legacy Symposium, held on 21 July 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"_huukToWpssD2Qn\">The symposium brought together international scholars, heritage practitioners, and community leaders to explore the lives, deaths, and remembrance of the <a href=\"https:\/\/built-heritage.springeropen.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s43238-025-00201-3\">Beiyang sailors<\/a>. These Chinese sailors came to Newcastle in the 1880s as part of a delegation to receive cruisers that had been designed and built for the Qing Dynasty\u2019s Beiyang Fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-top\"><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>Myra\u2019s presentation highlighted BHBG as an important record of Newcastle\u2019s social history. She emphasised the potential of the BHBG project to unearth Newcastle\u2019s maritime past through the stories of those buried there, many of whom were connected to seafaring, shipbuilding, trade, and global movement. By examining BHBG as a layered historical landscape, the project helps reframe Newcastle not only as an industrial centre but as a dynamic seaport city shaped by migration, dissent, and working-class experience.<\/p>\n<\/div><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"858\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/files\/2025\/08\/20250721_182823-EDIT-858x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-696 size-full\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/files\/2025\/08\/20250721_182823-EDIT-858x1024.jpg 858w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/files\/2025\/08\/20250721_182823-EDIT-251x300.jpg 251w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/files\/2025\/08\/20250721_182823-EDIT-768x917.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/files\/2025\/08\/20250721_182823-EDIT.jpg 1042w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"_coZMRSImVGRlmR\">The talk drew thoughtful parallels between local and global memorial practices, showing how a small, often-overlooked burial ground can illuminate broader histories of labour, mobility, and identity. It also offered reflections on ethical engagement, collaborative stewardship, and the value of community-led approaches to heritage interpretation. Contributing to this international symposium raised the profile of the BHBG project and underscored its relevance to global conversations about memory, place, and inclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Project Lead Dr Myra Giesen delivered a talk titled \u201cBallast Hills Burial Ground: Ethical Engagement and Inclusive Commemoration in a Historic Urban Landscape\u201d at Bridging Seas and Centuries: The Beiyang Sailors\u2019 Legacy Symposium, held on 21 July 2025. The symposium brought together international scholars, heritage practitioners, and community leaders to explore the lives, deaths, and &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/2025\/07\/22\/bridging-seas-and-centuries-the-beiyang-sailors-legacy-symposium\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Bridging Seas and Centuries: The Beiyang Sailors\u2019 Legacy Symposium&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-presentation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/ballast-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}