Funded by the AHRC’s Midlands3Cities (M3C) programme, the project operates as a collaboration between the University of Leicester and the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, Britain’s oldest provincial learned society and second-oldest museum. The successful applicant will be able to formulate a topic within the project’s broad remit based on their areas of interest and/or professional experience, and will enjoy opportunities for training in conservation, cataloguing, exhibition design, curatorship and collections management. The project also provides regular opportunities for public engagement.

Students with interests in book history, print culture, library and archive studies, and cultural history are especially encouraged to apply. The terms of the CDA allow the successful applicant to extend their funding for an additional 0.5 years to curate an exhibition of materials from the archive, much of which has never been studied or made available to the general public.

Throughout the PhD the student will be jointly supervised by Dr Kate Loveman (Leicester) and Dr Dustin Frazier Wood (SGS Librarian), with additional supervisory support from Professor Roey Sweet (Leicester) and Julia Knight (Ayscoughfee Hall).

Full details, including information on how to apply, are available on the M3C website. Deadline for applications is 15 January 2018.