2018 Highlights!
This has been a busy year for us, with staff and volunteers battling the snowy elements in March and welcoming visitors in the sweltering heat over summer. Much has changed, most notably our name, when at the beginning of [...]
PhD Research at Chawton House
Alison Daniell is studying for a PhD at the University of Southampton, researching attitudes to married women’s property ownership in female-authored fiction of the long eighteenth century. Here she talks about her experiences of researching at Chawton House: "I am [...]
Congratulations to our North American Friends!
We would like to offer hearty congratulations to our hardworking North American Friends of Chawton House (NAFCH) who have now launched their own beautiful new website. Over the last two years, NAFCH has already raised over USD$160K via a [...]
Christmas Fayre a huge success!
Nearly 1000 visitors came to our inaugural Christmas Fayre A wonderful day was had by all at our first ever Christmas Fayre! Despite the dreary weather, almost 1000 visitors crossed the threshold of Chawton House, eager to engage in [...]
A Gothic Night to Remember
On Halloween we hosted a sold out tour of our Gothic exhibition 'The Art of Freezing the Blood' Chawton staff were hard at work on All Hallows' Eve decorating the house to create an atmosphere that would 'Freeze the [...]
Gift inscriptions and signatures in books that once belonged to Jane Austen’s nieces.
Francesca Kavanagh, PhD Candidate and Teaching Associate, English and Theatre Studies, University of Melbourne. In August this year, with the generous support of the British Association for Romantic Studies’ inaugural Chawton House Travel Bursary, I spent two weeks in [...]
Reading with Austen
In the summer of 2015, Professor Peter Sabor from McGill University, Canada, came to Chawton House as a Visiting Fellow for a month. He spent most of his time in the vaults researching the Knight book collection, many of [...]
Over $30,000 raised in America!
Thank you to our wonderful North American supporters... The North American Friends of Chawton House (NAFCH) held a reception at the 2018 Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) AGM in Kansas in order to help raise funds for Chawton [...]
Could you be the new CEO of Chawton House?
After four years as Executive Director, Dr Gillian Dow has been awarded a 12-month Leverhulme Research Fellowship, which she will take up in early 2019. After this fellowship, Gillian will be returning to her position as Associate Professor in the [...]
The Stinking Fish of Southampton
Following the success of the ‘Stinking Fish of Southampton’ festival in 2017, speakers at Chawton House discussed life in the Georgian Spa Resort of Southampton. Perception of Jane Austen’s time spent in Southampton is often relegated to a brief [...]