PROFESSOR SEÁN MCGRAIL is widely regarded as a leading authority on the subject of boats and ships within archaeology. After serving in the Royal Navy from 1946 to 1968, he graduated with a BA at the University of Bristol in 1971, and in 1978 gained a Ph.D. at University College, London with a thesis on The Longboats of England in Wales. In 1988 he was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of Oxford.
He was Chief Archaeologist at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich from 1974 to 1986, and Professor of Maritime Archaeology in the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford from 1986 to 1993, before becoming Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton. He died in 2021.