My recently completed placement with the Blenheim Palace Archives has been an amazing experience and a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience (and broaden my network) in a completely new sector – the archives.
I developed this placement myself with the help of the archivist at Blenheim Palace, Dr. Alexa Frost, whom I had met during a Micro-Internship organised by the University of Oxford’s Careers Service. She and the archive’s assistant were simply the best placement hosts, making sure that I was able to make the most of my time and take away as many new skills as possible. Additionally, Rebecca was a great help and support in ensuring we considered everything important while designing the placement.
For the placement, I split my time between working in person at the archives and working from home, which reflected my two main tasks. In the archives, I catalogued previously unreviewed boxes of documents from the time of the 9th Duke of Marlborough (the cousin of Winston Churchill). These boxes contained a wide range of letters and documents – sometimes organised thematically, sometimes forming a rather eclectic collection. They mostly related to rentals, farming, finances, and occasionally private matters. My favourite box included all the letters relating to the construction of the Water Terraces in the late 1920s, designed by a famous French landscape architect (despite this gentleman’s fame and experience, the 9th Duke frequently disputed with him about the plans, insisting on the superiority of his own vision and pointing out perceived mistakes in the original designs). At home, I worked with digitised wage ledgers and entered all the staff recorded in these books into the growing Blenheim Staff Database, which is intended to support ancestorial research.
Both projects allowed me to gain new skills, such as working with cataloguing software, evaluating the condition of materials, and writing catalogue entries (a different genre from anything I had written before). They also gave me a new perspective on historical materials: reading the letters related to the running of the estate in the early 20th century, and seeing the names recorded in the wage books from the late 19th century, painted a vivid picture of daily life at the time. I also particularly enjoyed the letters of the 9th Duke of Marlborough, who often tried (and frequently failed) to strike a balance between clear honesty and rudeness.
In addition to these two main projects, I supported the archivist and her assistant whenever unexpected tasks arose. My two favourite memories of such tasks were: (1) finding an entry in a 1890s wage book for the grandfather of a kind Australian gentleman who had inquired about records of his grandfather working at Blenheim; and (2) discovering letters from Sarah Churchill, the 1st Duchess of Marlborough, concerning a court dispute with her former granddaughter-in-law (a very long story), buried in an uncatalogued box of documents. Nobody knew these letters existed, and I only stumbled upon them while looking for something completely different—which, ironically, I never did find.
I also helped with the day-to-day running of the archive, which included deciding which materials could be digitised (depending on their condition), emptying the dehumidifiers that regulate the archive’s environment, and reshelving materials. The latter was quite the workout, especially when it involved numerous oversized and heavy wage books destined for the highest shelves.
Due to structural requirements in the archives, I worked part-time at Blenheim over six months while continuing with my PhD project. Although balancing both roles was a bit challenging at first, it gave me a clear structure to my week (something we humanities students sometimes struggle with – at least I did). It also helped me improve my time management. In fact, working part-time on my PhD made me much more protective of my research hours, and as a result I ended up having one of the most productive phases of my PhD while also working in the archive.
I can only recommend that every OOC-DTP student undertake a placement—whether one that is advertised or one you develop yourself. It is a fantastic opportunity to broaden your horizons and acquire new skills during your PhD.
