PhD Studentship: Theatre and the Aristocracy: Passion, Patronage, Power and Politics, 1771-1893

Woburn Abbey is one of England’s ‘treasure houses’ and has been home to the Russells and the Earls and Dukes of Bedford since the 1620s. This project will interrogate the manifold, complex relationships between the aristocracy and the theatre across six generations of the Russell family between 1771 and 1893. 

Woburn Abbey has been closed to the public since 2019 as part of a major capital project that is due to be completed in 2025. This period of closure is providing a timely opportunity for rethinking how the house, family and collections can be narrated to future audiences. Since opening to the public in 1955, the house’s narrative has remained largely unchanged, focussing chiefly on the political successes of a select number of Earls and Dukes and how they used their increased power and wealth to develop their properties and land. In doing so, other thematic approaches to the collections have been fundamentally overlooked, as have the fascinating lives of their wives and lovers (male and female), their wider families and the thousands of people who lived and worked with them. When the house reopens, and in subsequent decades, there is a strong desire to ensure that the Bedford Estates’ narratives are dynamic, responsive and reflective of the diversity of its twenty-first century audiences. 

As the doctoral candidate working on this project, you will help to address the urgent need to rewrite the histories of Woburn Abbey and the Bedford Estates by approaching the collections from a social and cultural perspective. You will achieve this by centring your research on the Russell family’s associations with theatre across four key areas: 

• Passion. Analysing the significance of the family’s passion for theatre and how it is manifested in the collections.
• Patronage. Examining how the role of the theatre ‘patron’ operated on national, regional and local levels and what benefits there were for both the family and the patronised in this system.
• Power. Scrutinising the shifting relationships between theatre and the Russells and asking how they might evidence the changing power dynamics of British society in this period.
• Politics. Questioning where these emerging theatre histories intersect and provide new insights on the existing political narratives at Woburn Abbey.

Advert Reference: SCAPVC & History Collaborative Award

Funding Details

Full payment of tuition fees for 4 years (full-time) plus an annual stipend at the UKRI rate

Additional Funding Information

Access to additional funding opportunities which include a Research Development Fund (RDF) to support primary research activities, an Engagement Fund (EF) to enable students to undertake placements and other professional development activity and a Cohort Development Fund (CDF) which supports groups of M4C students to design training, development and research activities.

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