Funding for research available

Did you know that the Wellcome Trust gives out research bursaries of £5,000 to £25,000 to fund research into collections, like The Children’s Society Archive, that have received Wellcome Trust funding previously?

Click here to find out more about the Wellcome Trust’s research bursaries.

Our Wellcome Trust-funded Unexplored Riches in Medical History project here at The Children’s Society will be coming to an end in the next few months, and we’ve done so much since we started. We have catalogued and conserved thousands of records that can be used to study medical history. Soon our catalogue will be online for you to search and see what we have for yourself.

And this is where you come in. At the moment our medical history records are an untapped resource, crying out for research. We didn’t call these records ‘Unexplored Riches’ for nothing; they now need to be explored further! A quick browse through this blog will show you just some of fascinating things that you could find in the collection, but that really is just the tip of the iceberg.

Children receiving fresh air treatment in the outdoor ward of St Nicholas' Home, Pyrford, Surrey, early 20th Century

Thanks to the Wellcome Trust’s research bursaries, you can give your research the financial help you need. The bursaries will fund academic research using collections like ours, and it doesn’t have to be historically grounded research either. If you’re not an academic, the bursaries will also fund work in the creative arts, whether you’re an artist, writer, performer or broadcaster wanting to use our collection.

So what medical history sources do we have? Check out these links:

Our records can be used to research many things, but some of our strengths include:

  • Children’s health
  • Victorian and Edwardian healthcare
  • Diseases of poverty
  • Contagious diseases
  • Orthopaedic conditions
  • Historic medical treatments
  • Charities and pre-NHS healthcare
  • Sanitation
  • Vaccination
  • Diet and nutrition

Will you be at the forefront of discovering what our medical history records have to offer? See the Wellcome Trust’s website for more details on how to apply for a research bursary.

If you have questions about the bursaries or about using our collections for research, please email us at: Hidden-Lives-Revealed@childrenssociety.org.uk

2 thoughts on “Funding for research available

  1. As I have commented previously – that age-old open-air philosophy toward facilitating health, well-being and recovery from illness, any illness, has such incredible historic credibility so long as the peripherals of simplistic ongoing care is followed-through sympathetically. Hospital and residential Care Home architecture has to be integral when considering holistic recovery. Quite simply utilitarian YES! in our hospitals and care homes. But, also beautifully appointed in aesthetic recovering detail inside and outward toward bright opened windowed and veranda sweet smelling gardens that recovering patients can gain a grasp of their certain conquering of a silly opportunist malady.

    • Thanks for this interesting comment, Bobbie.
      I’d not really considered the architecture before, so thanks for pointing it out. You’re right that the design of the homes and hospitals is directly linked to the treatment those places provided, especially with the open-air wards. Sounds like it would be really interesting to research this further.
      Janine

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