Digital Edgeworth Network

The Digital Edgeworth Network explores and analyses the manuscript archive of the celebrated author Maria Edgeworth (1768-1849) and the Edgeworth family. This collaborative digital network project responds to the scale and scope of the Edgeworth papers, taking an interdisciplinary approach that can in the future be scaled up via an open access digital resource for the use of scholars in history, literature and politics.
The rich and varied collection of papers related to the Edgeworth family from the 17th to the 19th century is divided by the Irish Sea and also cut off from its original home in Edgeworthstown, County Longford. The manuscript archives split almost equally between the National Library of Ireland, Dublin and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, comprise many thousands of items including manuscript drafts, drawings, family correspondence, of which only a tiny percentage is available in print, and even less is subject to scholarly editing.
The Edgeworth archive offers important evidence (manuscript drafts and correspondence) about the literary career of one of the most influential novelists of the early nineteenth century, Maria Edgeworth; the educational, agricultural and political theory and practice of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1744-1817); the ways in which an extended family with connections in Ireland, England, Europe and India, communicated and collaborated in the production of art, literature, and scientific knowledge; the history of Anglo-Irish relations in a period of political contest and transformation.
Inspired by a 12 volume print scholarly edition (1993,2003) under the general editorship of Edgeworth's biographer, Marilyn Butler, there has been a significant surge in critical interest in the work. Selections of Edgeworth's letters have appeared in print, most recently Valerie Pakenham's Maria Edgeworth's Letters from Ireland (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 2017). Print editions of letters and the fiction do not however communicate the breadth, variety and relevance of the extended correspondence and related network made apparent in the archive. Digital humanities' approaches and techniques make it possible not only to increase access to the manuscript archive, but also to analyse and understand it in new ways that offer potential to academic researchers and for cultural heritage.
This timely proposal builds on an existing informal network and, in the context of the changing climate of British-Irish relations, solidifies and embeds previously informal connections to promote better understanding or our shared past for mutual benefit. Through collaboration between specialists in literary history, correspondence networks, digital technology, and heritage, the network will explore ways of re-uniting a divided archive and communicating its significance.
The proposed activities cross disciplinary, geographical and sectoral boundaries and promote collaboration between academic researchers at the Universities of Cork and Oxford, libraries at Dublin and Oxford, and a cultural heritage organization (Edgeworthstown District Development Association).
The network's public activities -- including the development of new resources at Edgeworthstown and the stimulation of creative responses from local school children to the manuscript materials in the Bodleian libraries and the National Library of Ireland -- have been designed to promote community and creative engagement with the resources, focusing on understanding better the global connectedness of Maria and her family in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This work will provide the basis for exploring the future use of digital technology to bring archival images and information to life, enabling rich heritage experiences, as well as the wider dissemination of new scholarly understanding.

The proposed network involves partnership across higher education, libraries, heritage and tourism, aimed at advancing new digital interpretations of a unique archive that is divided between Britain and Ireland. It develops intersectoral partnerships which will support the ambitions for community regeneration via heritage tourism in the Longford region of Ireland. Remediating information from papers of the Edgeworth family and especially in the period of Maria Edgeworth's international fame as an Anglo-Irish writer will widen public access to and engagement with a shared heritage in an historical moment (post Brexit) which calls for continued close working between British and Irish institutions. The research networking activities will focus on the theme of cultural heritage with the aim of further uncovering the considerable historical legacy of Edgeworth and her family in the Irish Midlands. It will contribute to the advancement of ongoing community regeneration via heritage tourism through professional capacity building and resource creation. The proposed inter-sectoral collaborative relationship will allow for creative exchange between community members and academic researchers.
The deepening of understanding through research-based enquiry at its partners in a tourist location will also enable the project to reach beyond Irish borders to place the Edgeworths in their global historical context. Many tourists encounter Edgeworthstown only as a stop of the road between Dublin and the west of Ireland. This project builds on the potential for heritage-led tourism to increase dwell time and spend evidenced in other country house areas associated with literary figures such as Chawton, Hampshire (Jane Austen). In particular, heritage-led tourism encourages tourists to: a) visit places and areas, which would not otherwise be considered to be attractive tourist destinations b) visit places and areas outside of peak times (e.g. the shoulder season) c) extend the length of visits within certain places and areas, with a positive effect on tourist spend and employment.
The Edgeworth Society was founded in 1967 and revived in the early 2000s. In collaboration with Edgeworthstown District Development Association (EDDA), the Society host the annual Edgeworth Literary Festival, now in its 25th year, and have established the Edgeworthstown Literary Trail which aims to draw in tourists from all over Ireland and abroad. Fáilte Ireland have funded development of the Edgeworth Centre, renovating and reusing the old schoolhouse in the town. Fáilte Ireland identified the project as a flagship project for cultural tourism in Longford under its Ireland's Hidden Heartlands brand. Connections between EDDA and Cork University are strong. Blogging, twitter and exhibition activities through the 'Opening the Edgeworth' Project (2019-20) at Oxford University and the Bodleian Library have led to lively local interest (e.g. Professor Ros Ballaster featured on Shannonside radio discussing an exhibition of which she was curator -- 'Meet the Edgeworths' -- at the Bodleian in December 2019)
The establishment of this network will add academic expertise, with network members acting as conduits to bring research knowledge into local engagement plans. Through that knowledge they will provide both resources and content and interpretations of that content for public audiences. The network will identify and present research material in clear and accessible ways through digital and physical means. The network aims to build on the relationship established in this phase with EDDA for a larger, longer project, extending activities to work also with the Museum of Literature Ireland (Dublin, National Library of Ireland). The aim is to develop new resources for both partners that promote engagement with Anglo-Irish literary heritage, developing future digital and virtual means of communicating the value of the Edgeworth collections in terms of heritage.