Philip MacDougall has written extensively on both naval dockyards and the Medway Towns with a history of Chatham Dockyard. He is a founding member of the Naval Dockyards Society, closely linked with the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, and he has travelled and researched extensively visiting state-owned dockyards (both British and foreign naval yards) in Europe and the Americas. He has previously written "A Century of Chatham" and "Chatham Past."