Expensive Insurance Premiums and Maltese Corsairs

– Liam Gauci

Malta’s location at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea determined much of its destiny. Boasting a harbour so large that it could service any fleet, by the mid-18th century the available facilities could assist commerce, work and corsairing. The very nature of the business of corsairing was harsh, dangerous and often violent. When in 1768 Captain Cavazza was accused of murdering a Greek merchant captain, he was immediately imprisoned upon the protests of Buzzacarini himself. In chains and presumably sick in hospital, the letters of Buzzacarini lambast the corsair captain and his business, condemning the savage way he had captured the prize in the Levant. That violence gave many a corsair a bad reputation, which was often well founded. This kind of behaviour drove insurance prices up, and made life a somewhat unsure for many a merchant. Liam Gauci the Senior Curator of the Malta Maritime Museum will be sharing such stories about how the local Maltese corsairs drove the insurance economy into overdrive.

Valletta: Memories are Made of This

– Dr Philip Farrugia Randon

‘Memories are made of this’ is a thirty-minute lighthearted, fast-paced string of personal recollections by Philip Farrugia Randon on Valletta. Eccentric characters who coloured the streets of the city and warmed the author’s heart; is-Suq tal-Belt, Porta Reale; the haunting statue of an enslaved person in the staircase of St Joseph School in Zachary Street; the forgotten swarm of cars that infested the heart of Valletta; change of banks; jazz artists who emigrated from Strada Stretta to budding hotels and restaurants across the island; the golden heart of Strada Stretta ladies who generously coaxed their clients to donate for the Student’s Charities Campaign; the restoration of Valletta; the life-changing discovery that the Latin inscription over the Main Guard’s portico contains a grammatical mistake; and a very personal Valletta meeting that changed the author’s life.

Unfortunately due to a technical issue, there is no audio between 29:47 and 33:30.

From Imperial Fortress to Export Platform: Malta’s Economic Development, 1945-1959

– Dr Mario Brincat

A major theme of ‘Centennial Chronicles’ is the way in which both Atlas Insurance (and its predecessors) and Malta evolved over the years, especially in the economic field, where dependence on British principals (in the case of the insurance business) and military or naval spending (in the case of the Maltese economy as a whole) gave way to independence and self-reliance in both areas. For the Maltese economy, the period from 1945 to 1959 was pivotal in this transition, and it was then that the foundations for the export-led, foreign direct investment financed model that we follow to this day were laid down. Dr Brincat’s presentation will trace the evolution of official thinking about the Maltese economy from 1945 to 1959, from early expectations that the country could revert to something like the pre-war status quo (with some improvements), to the proposal for Malta to be integrated in the UK, to the conclusion that Malta was going to have to rely on its own two feet, chiefly by looking at significant official documents published in those years.

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