Who were the nuns? Database development and extending access

The original project made a comprehensive study of the membership of the English convents and the English members of Mary Ward's Institute established during the period when they were proscribed in England. These institutions with more than 3907 (mainly English), members were all founded in exile in continental Europe from 1600 to 1678. They remained there until the French Revolution and its associated violence forced them to leave their adopted homelands. The project and related research has shown that they were significant foundations with international connections. Prior to the project, the convents have been little studied by historians and their documents and activities have remained largely unknown. One significant additional output is the forthcoming publication (Pickering & Chatto, 2012-13) is six volumes of manuscript sources from the enclosed convents and this will significantly raise the profile of the project. Queen Mary has undertaken to maintain and support the database and website in the long term.
Most (twenty two) were enclosed convents with a further fourteen mainly smaller houses founded by Mary Ward and her followers. They were not isolated from the world: their contacts and networks spread widely, including members of the royal family of England, the archdukes of Brussels and members of lay and ecclesiastical hierarchies across Europe among their supporters. The nuns built substantial convents and schools, commissioned works of art and music, and created important libraries and centres of learning for women. They continued to attract members and all except two survived until recently.
Given the positive feedback currently being received by the Who were the Nuns? project, the follow-on funding will permit further engagement with a wider public audience through developing the current website and study days. We will:
- Enhance the searches provided on the existing website based on research already undertaken for the original project.
- Develop methodology to provide directed dynamic statistical searches in order to analyse the lives of the English nuns under three specific headings - life cycles, county communities and social networks.
- Enhance the database by adding images of places to individual entries.
- In partnership with the Historical Association, set up a series of four symposia for local and family historians in carefully-chosen sites for study days to develop the use of the database and related material.
The proposed project team builds on the experience of the individuals involved with the original grant and we have identified specialists needed to support the new IT applications. James Kelly started as the post-doctoral research assistant on the original project and proved invaluable to the project as his experience grew, working closely with the original project manager, Dr Caroline Bowden. Dr Bowden is retiring but is intent on continuing her association with the project in an advisory role. Both Dr Jan Broadway and Dr Katharine Keats-Rohan have indicated their enthusiasm and support for the new proposal. Jan Broadway has created the existing successful database (http://www.history.qmul.ac.uk/wwtn/database.html) and is eager to take it further. Computer technicians at the Institute of Historical Research will add expertise where required. Katharine Keats-Rohan, building on her fine collection of family tress, will contribute the section devoted to analysis of the social class of the supporting family networks. Members of the Geography department at Queen Mary have undertaken to provide GIS mapping support.
The proposed partnership with the Historical Association will secure delivery of a wider target audience making the results as accessible as possible beyond the academic world to include family historians. This will allow us to get more feedback about the possible uses of the database and website.

The project has been receiving a steady stream of feedback on the current outputs in the form of letters, emails, invitations to speak, writing commissions for popular press and magazines, and radio interviews. The reach of the research is evidenced by the standing of invitations already received even though the database was only launched in test mode at the end of May 2011 (existing statistics for the project website and database are currently showing an average of 7000-8000 hits a month). Radio appearances have been on BBC Radio 4's Making History (estimated audience, BBC figures: 700,000) and Woman's Hour (estimated audience, BBC figures 2-3 millions). Invitations to contribute to printed media include: BBC History magazine (ABC circulation: 64,712), Standpoint magazine and The Catholic Times newspaper. The project has been invited to give talks at several public history days and conferences, including the V&A Museum symposium on 'Catholic Families in Britain: Patronage and Collecting' (Feb 2011), Essex Recusant local history society (Sep 2011) and the conferences of the Catholic Record Society (July 2010) and Catholic Archive Society (May 2010). Thus, the project will build on this existing audience interest, greatly enhancing the search results in the database. It will substantially improve insights into the international networks supporting the convents and those of the European Counter-reformation Catholic community in general.
The follow-on funding will allow the results of the present project to engage with new interest groups. The planned symposia (4) will involve local and family historians, taking place in the geographical region specified. Some initial contact has already been made with existing local and specialist history groups and the symposia will be planned with their assistance inviting contributions from their members. We plan to extend links with existing interested academic institutions, for example, the symposia held in the North-East will include input from the Centre for Catholic Studies in the Theology Department at the University of Durham. The National Archives at Kew will be contacted to help expand their educational provision regarding Catholic women's history which is frequently neglected. The main focus of the outputs of this grant will be the enhancement of the database and the development of new searches targeting a public history audience: images and maps will be added to increase its value to local historians. The symposia with contributions from local historians will bring together different interest groups and suggest new ways of using the data.
The proposal offers value for money because it uses people already connected with the project to build on their experience and to take advantage of their existing expertise. All are available for the follow-on period. The proposals are technologically straightforward to implement, building on the original database design, which has received widespread approval among IT specialists and users. For instance, it has been complemented specifically by Dr Jane Winters, Head of Publications and IHR digital at the Institute of Historical Research.