Chatsworth & The Devonshire Group

Isabel Budleigh,St John’s College,Second Year DPhil,DPhil History,Remote Working

Work Projects

My internship was a month-long placement with the Devonshire Collections Archives at Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Chatsworth has one of the best archives of any historic house in the country, but the archives team felt they were lacking both in their secondary reference material and in supporting researchers to ensure the archival holdings are put to the best use and reach their full potential. My internship was intended to begin to fill these gaps, with two main tasks over the course of the month.

First, I had to compile a comprehensive and up-to-date bibliography of everything published not only on Chatsworth and the Cavendish family (the Dukes of Devonshire), but also five connected families and the multiple Devonshire estates across the country, as well as key servants, designers and historical figures connected to Chatsworth itself. This covered monographs, theses, journal articles and essay collections, and the final bibliography was almost seventy pages long, showing just how much material was out there! A link to this full list will be published on the Chatsworth website for use by researchers, and a shorter version of the key publications will be put online for anyone with a general interest.

My second task was to compile a report on current trends in country house research, to evaluate the archival holdings at Chatsworth in light of these and suggest how the team can best support researchers to make the most of the archive, no small undertaking when you consider just how vast the archives are! This work felt particularly worthwhile at the moment as Chatsworth, like many other houses, considers ways to approach colonial links in its history, so I hope the report will prove to be of real use.

Finally, I also wrote two blog posts, one on a specific aspect of the research I was doing and one on my overall experience of the internship, which will both be posted on the Chatsworth website. Fran Baker, Chatsworth’s archivist, supported me brilliantly from day one; before the internship started she had split the tasks into work packages and outlined what each one included, which helped me to feel that I knew exactly what was expected of me at each stage. We had two Zoom meetings per week to check in on my progress, and even when things started to get more pressured time-wise towards the end of the internship (we realised the tasks were just far bigger than had been anticipated) Fran was lovely in checking in and making sure I wasn’t overworking, and gave really helpful and kind feedback on each piece of work as I handed it in.

Daily Life

As a remote intern I was working from home, so I was using a very similar set-up to my own DPhil research during the lockdown. I was expected to do eight hours of work a day, but as I was at home, I was allowed to choose the timings of this. As a humanities researcher who also works weekends, I don’t normally have a very conventional timetable, so it made a welcome change during this internship to work Monday to Friday and feel able to set it aside at the end of the day feeling I had done a good day’s work. This was definitely helped by the work package structure Chatsworth provided me with; even though I only had two check-ins a week (perhaps fewer than with a more conventional in-person internship), the check-ins and work packages combined helped me to monitor that I was nevertheless staying on track. Fran was also able to send me everything I needed as PDF files, which was a great help, and all the research I was carrying out could be done through online databases.

Working at home and without the normal dynamics of an office or other worksite meant I did have to be more conscious of keeping track of time and make sure I took regular breaks. As the research I was doing could be fairly labour-intensive, I found it was really helpful to get out of the house for walks or runs to give my mind a rest, either during my lunch break or after work, and have other activities planned in too. As the internship went on my working hours did get quite a bit longer and I had to put other things on hold, as the workload was bigger than had originally been anticipated. However, this was my choice and I felt no pressure from Chatsworth to do this; the research was closely related to my own DPhil work and I knew the bigger purpose behind it, so I simply felt this was what was needed to get the work finished to the standard I thought it deserved.

Lasting Impressions

The internship has only further confirmed for me that I want to follow my current career path, to continue researching country houses (the subject of my DPhil) and ultimately pursue curatorial and archival work. I gained so many valuable insights into the inner workings of an archive including cataloguing, acquisitions, funding and the archives role in relation to the wider plan for Chatsworth.

There were so many possible research leads that I discovered in the archives that have opened up new areas of interest for me, and I’m now planning to include Chatsworth as one of my own case studies in my thesis. The more I dug the more it felt like discovering a treasure trove, so I hope that the documents I produced for Chatsworth will help other researchers to experience this same thrill in the future.

I also really appreciated the opportunity to write for the Chatsworth website and gain valuable experience in writing for a non-academic audience. I have been in a research seminar with Chatsworth, the National Trust and the University of Oxford since the internship finished, so I’m already feeling the benefits of the connections I’ve made with the wonderful team there. I’ve been invited to visit in person once life returns a little more to normal and was even sent a thank you present from the team which I was incredibly touched by. I genuinely can’t imagine a more relevant, valuable and enjoyable internship in terms of my own career aspirations, and just hope I was able to be of equal benefit to the Chatsworth team in return.

What advice would you give to future interns?

I believe Chatsworth will be hosting further interns next summer, so if you have the chance to do one of these internships, then definitely seize it without hesitation! It’s a lovely team to work for, they will make you feel so welcome and supported throughout your time with them, and if my experience was anything to go by, you will feel like you’re truly contributing to the work they’re doing there as well.

I knew I had been picked from over a hundred applicants, and I definitely put a lot of pressure on myself to prove I was the right choice and to be a good representative of Oxford, so I think it’s important to just trust that they made the right decision and that you’ll do the best you can in the time you have. If you love the task then by all means put extra work in, but you’re not automatically expected to go above and beyond. If something feels too much, then don’t be worried about speaking up!

If you’re working as a remote intern, it’s also so important to maintain the boundaries between work and your downtime, especially when you’re often doing all these different things between the same four walls. Make sure you get out of the house, get some fresh air every day, and even if you completely love the work you’re doing, make sure you plan in some other fun things to give your mind a break. In addition, if the nature of your set tasks means you’re often working alone for long stretches of time, then make sure you’re building in time to see other people outside your working hours, to keep a good balance and ensure you don’t end up feeling isolated without the people you may normally be surrounded by with an in-person internship.