2021 Visiting Fellows working in the Upper Reading Room
From 2007-2017, Chawton House offered a competitive Visiting Fellowship programme in partnership with the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Southampton, building up a community of scholars across the globe and supporting world-class research. However, changes to the funding structure of Chawton House led to the suspension of the programme to allow for a strategic reshaping of the organisation, ensuring it could become self-sustaining.
In August 2021, we piloted a new summer Fellowship programme aimed specifically at early career researchers, awarding three residential Fellowships. Below, the Fellows share some of the research they undertook during their time at Chawton House, and talk about the experience of being onsite.
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2026 applications for Fellowships in August and November are now open!
In 2026, Chawton House will offer six residential fellowships in two cohorts. Fellowships are open to postgraduate or early career researchers*, working on women’s writing of the long eighteenth century (our collection spans 1660-1860).
Dates
- Summer (Monday 27th July- Friday 21st August)
- Winter (Monday 2nd-Friday 27th November)
The BARS Fellowship will be awarded to the top-ranked candidate who is a member of BARS. Research into all areas of Romantic women’s writing will be considered, although the collection at Chawton House is especially strong in holdings of female-authored fiction 1780-1830. http://www.bars.ac.uk
Where possible, we also award one Fellowship to a researcher working on Jane Austen, in memory of Deirdre Le Faye.
You can find out more about the application process and requirements here.
The deadline for submissions is midnight BST on Friday 24 April, 2026. We ask for the following as part of the process:
- A cover letter, including a proposal for a contribution to the outputs at Chawton House (1 page only; please see our website & YouTube channel)
- A proposal for the work you intend to carry out as a Visiting Fellow, to include items in our collection that you would want to consult (no more than 2 pages, 1.5 spaced. See our catalogue)
- Your CV (no more than 2 pages)
- One confidential letter of recommendation to be emailed separately by the referee before the deadline.
Please direct general questions to Dr Kim Simpson: kim.simpson@chawtonhouse.org, and collections-specific questions to Assistant Curator Molly Maslen: molly.maslen@chawtonhouse.org
Previous Fellows
© Ellis Naylor
Since 2021, we have continued to offer Fellowships for 2 or 3 cohorts each year, aimed primarily at postgraduate or early career researchers (within 5 years of PhD) working on women’s writing of the long eighteenth century. These fellowships are made possible by support from the Ardeola Charitable Trust.
Examples of work by previous Fellows
All 2025 Fellows, BARS digital event, January 2026: watch the recording: Reading Chawton House Library: New Research in Women’s Writing
Amy Wilcockson (Winter 2025), Chawton House blogpost: Fame, Fans and Funds: Notes from a Visiting Fellow
Rebecca Hamilton (Summer 2025): Victorian Popular Fiction Association blogpost, , ‘In Which…I Spent a Month at Chawton House!’
Ellis Naylor (Summer 2025): photography and @historian_ellis social media shorts, In the Reading Room
Virlana Shchuka (Winter 2024), YouTube short: The Mummy! Or, A Tale of the Twenty-Second Century
Katie MacLean (Summer 2024), section in our 2025 Jane Austen 250 Sisters of the Pen exhibition
Rose McKean (Summer 2023): online talk, ‘Tales of Terror’
Fauve Vandenberge (2022): article for The Female Spectator 6.1 (2022): ‘Funny Women; or, an Enquiry into Eighteenth-Century Women’s Satire’
Colleen Taylor (2022): article for The Female Spectator 6.1 (2022): ‘A Song of Ireland in Chawton House’
Alison Daniell (2021): talk for the 20th anniversary celebration, Life in the Library: A Celebration with the University of Southampton: ‘Elizabeth Knight and Chawton House’