National Trust Research

For over 6 years, Ingrid Samuel OBE, has led a major research partnership between @ucl.ac.uk and the @nationaltrust.org.uk. As Heritage, Planning & Strategic Partnerships Director, she brings together our heritage expertise with UCL's academic research and innovation to address complex challenges.

Historically, museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out that there has been a scholarly perception that women may ‘accumulate’ objects, but that they do not engage in the serious ‘male’ pursuit of assessing and ordering objects that merits being termed ‘collecting’.

These women ‘reveal collecting as a deliberate and intellectually engaged practice through which women influenced artistic taste, heritage preservation and public access to culture.’ And their example is now inspiring new generations of female collectors

Historically, museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out that there has been a scholarly perception that women may ‘accumulate’ objects, but that they do not engage in the serious ‘male’ pursuit of assessing and ordering objects that merits being termed ‘collecting’.

Alice de Rothschild embodies matronage as scholarly connoisseurship. Her systematic collecting, meticulous documentation, and innovative displays at Waddesdon reveal a curatorial intelligence that prefigures modern museology.

Historically, museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out that there has been a scholarly perception that women may ‘accumulate’ objects, but that they do not engage in the serious ‘male’ pursuit of assessing and ordering objects that merits being termed ‘collecting’.

Margaret Greville demonstrates matronage rather differently: as social performance and political strategy. She used interiors, jewellery, and objets d’art to construct a stage on which power, influence, and exclusivity were enacted.

Historically, museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out that there has been a scholarly perception that women may ‘accumulate’ objects, but that they do not engage in the serious ‘male’ pursuit of assessing and ordering objects that merits being termed ‘collecting’.

Cara Broughton’s impact is embedded not only in objects she acquired but in the very design language of Anglesey Abbey, which her son, Lord Fairhaven, consciously modelled on her aesthetic.

Historically, museum studies scholar Susan Pearce points out that there has been a scholarly perception that women may ‘accumulate’ objects, but that they do not engage in the serious ‘male’ pursuit of assessing and ordering objects that merits being termed ‘collecting’.

‘Matronage’—the active, intentional cultural authority exercised by women through collecting, commissioning, displaying, and pursuing philanthropy—must be recognised as a foundational force in shaping the National Trust’s collections and Britain’s heritage landscape.

Through case studies of interiors and objects at 7 @nationaltrust.org.uk country houses, explore how British perspectives on Chinese culture transformed over the 18th century from admiring Chinese culture without knowledge, to genuine interest marked by a problematic sense of superiority over China.

In 1771 Thomas Chippendale supplied this clothes press to Sir Rowland and Sabine Winn of Nostell Priory, with painted decoration suggesting East-Asian lacquer. By this time the European imitation of Chinese style, or chinoiserie, had become a tradition in its own right.

Through case studies of interiors and objects at 7 @nationaltrust.org.uk country houses, explore how British perspectives on Chinese culture transformed over the 18th century from admiring Chinese culture without knowledge, to genuine interest marked by a problematic sense of superiority over China.

So what did that 18th-century shift in perspective look like? The interiors at Erddig demonstrate the impact of the taste for things Asian in early 18th-century Britain, including a state bed hung with embroidered Chinese silk and British-made furniture decorated to look like East-Asian lacquer.

Holly Lawson's PhD research is bringing a young Georgian girl's musical world to life through the study of the Abigail Barneby manuscript at Brockhampton. This project helps us better understand the experiences of women whose voices are often absent from the historical record.

The @nationaltrust.org.uk's new Paint Sample Archive opened its doors yesterday for project partners and collaborators to get a first look at the archive’s new facility in the Trust’s Royal Oak Foundation Conservation Studio.

With nearly 15,000 paint samples now gathered and catalogued, National Conservator Rebecca Hellen quite rightly encouraged attendees today to imagine the many research opportunities just waiting to be discovered in these drawers. We can’t wait to hear what they come up with.

‘In the seven decades since Bob last worked for the [National] Trust, its libraries have been passed through by tens of millions of visitors who have been unaware of his work and legacy, or that the books on the shelves “are physical manifestations of queer historical memory”.’ So, who was Bob? 🧵

‘The aesthetic rearrangements that he personally undertook largely remain.’ And after Bob’s work with the Trust, his ‘mode for how a country house library should be presented was followed, and embraced by those who considered the books as little more than wallpaper.’

‘In the seven decades since Bob last worked for the [National] Trust, its libraries have been passed through by tens of millions of visitors who have been unaware of his work and legacy, or that the books on the shelves “are physical manifestations of queer historical memory”.’ So, who was Bob? 🧵

In June 1948, Bob found the library at Stourhead in a terrible state, reporting that ‘the dust [on the shelves] has lain so thick and so long that in most cases the wood has become stained by it.’ Bob’s solution? ‘An aesthetic rather than a scholarly rearrangement of the volumes.’

‘In the seven decades since Bob last worked for the [National] Trust, its libraries have been passed through by tens of millions of visitors who have been unaware of his work and legacy, or that the books on the shelves “are physical manifestations of queer historical memory”.’ So, who was Bob? 🧵