Addressing the Histories and Legacies of Colonialism in Romantic-period Literary House Museums: Dove Cottage and Beyond

This network will bring together academics, museum personnel, consultants, stakeholders and community groups to investigate the colonial links of Romantic-period literary house museums and consider how best to interpret these links for a wider public. There is currently fierce public debate about how heritage sites and museums can best understand and represent the complex histories of the locations and objects they preserve. This debate creates a particular challenge for researching and curating literary house museums of the Romantic period (c. 1780-1830), an era when 'colonialism, in the form of exploratory initiatives, commercial enterprises and migratory settlement on the part of its citizens, contributed to a massive expansion in Britain's territorial possessions' (Carol Bolton, 'Romantic Literature and Colonialism', Literature Compass, 5/3 (2008): p. 541). The period's literary house museums bear to colonialism in numerous ways, but these histories frequently remain unexplored or untold. Moreover, because literary figures inspire reverence and widespread public respect, serious and rigorous engagements with relevant colonial legacies commonly face public and media hostility. The network will address this challenge and consider how best to respond strategically to the sensitivities involved.

The network will begin by considering a specific case study, Wordsworth Grasmere, a site that includes Dove Cottage, the residence from 1799-1808 of Dorothy and William Wordsworth and from 1809-1820 of Thomas De Quincey. Maintained by the Wordsworth Trust (the network partner) for over a century, Wordsworth Grasmere has been a major heritage site and a leading literary house museum, receiving 40,000 visitors annually prior to the Covid pandemic. Its collection has Designated status as a 'vital part' of the England's 'national cultural and artistic heritage'. However, since the Wordsworths' and De Quincey's residence, and until now, there has been no concerted or sustained attempt to explore the multiple slavery and East India Company histories of Dove Cottage. The network will begin by addressing this legacy of silence and inaction.

The network will then look beyond Wordsworth Grasmere to consider colonialism's complex issues and legacies in relation to the other Romantic-period literary house museums participating in the network, including: Abbotsford (Walter Scott); Jane Austen's House at Chawton; Robert Burns Birthplace Museum; Coleridge Cottage; Keats House; Newstead Abbey (Byron); and Wordsworth House (Cockermouth).

The network will be academically interdisciplinary, including scholars of English Literature, History, Museum Studies and Tourism Studies. It will involve the participation of several related organisations and community groups with related concerns, including: American Writers Museum; Anne Frank Trust; Anti Racist Cumbria; Brontë Parsonage Museum; Museums&; National Trust. It will learn from the expertise of other specialists and projects in related areas, with input from consultants including Rachael Minott (chair of the Museums Association's Decolonising Guidance Working Group) and Laila Sumpton (who led 'Poetry versus Colonialism'). It will incorporate the voices of other stakeholders, including visitors, staff, volunteers, trustees, community and school groups.

The network will create a set of resources to support literary house museums in researching their links with colonialism and interpreting them for a wider public. It will do so by organising three workshops, focusing initially on Wordsworth Grasmere's colonial links before expanding to share research questions and findings with a wider range of literary house museums. By collaborating on, comparing and contrasting these different cases studies, the network will enable these literary house museums to further research and represent the complex histories both of the sites they maintain and the writers those sites memorialise.