Self-Led Visits & Tours
We offer self-led visits or guided tours for university and college groups, both must be pre-booked.
Handel Sessions
We welcome visits from students interested in aspects of our Gerald Coke Handel Collection including eighteenth-century music, music ephemera, bookbinding and conservation. Workshops and seminars use original source materials and can be tailored to meet the requirements of your course. To find out more, email handel@foundlingmuseum.org.uk
Research Partnerships
We work with partners in Higher Education on research, exhibitions and teaching.
Research
The Museum has hosted three Collaborative Doctoral Award studentships working with universities.
Narratives of Fall: The Archive & Art of the Nineteenth Century Foundling Hospital
Lily Westcott has been appointed to undertake a three-year Collaborative Doctoral Award beginning 1 October 2023, in partnership with Birkbeck, University of London. The PhD research will examine the work of the Foundling Hospital in the mid-Victorian period (c.1830-1870) as part of a broader examination of the representation of female sexuality and its regulation in the period.
Forgotten Foundlings: Black Lives & the Eighteenth-Century Foundling Hospital
Hannah Dennett held this studentship in the Global History Department at University of Warwick, supported through the Midlands4Cities Arts and Humanities Doctoral Training Partnership.
Concerts, Commerce & Charity in Georgian London
Lizzy Buckle held this studentship in partnership with the Department of Music, Royal Holloway, University of London, funded by the TECHNE Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnership.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions are an important way for us to build our knowledge. We often work with academics, both affiliated and freelance, as guest curators for our exhibition programme. Past exhibition collaborations include Threads of Feeling with Professor John Styles, The Fallen Woman with Professor Lynda Nead, Basic Instincts with Dr Jacqueline Riding, and Fighting Talk with Professor Helen Berry.
Please contact exhibitions@foundlingmuseum.org.uk for an informal discussion if you are thinking of making an exhibition proposal.
Teaching
We work with teachers from a number of Higher Education Institutions to plan and support courses for students using the Museum and its Collections as inspiration. These are wide ranging, across subjects such as art and design, performance, music, archive and book studies, conservation, and curating or museum studies courses. There may be opportunities for students to present work at the Museum.
The Museum regularly works with the University of the Arts, London, collaborating with the Culture, Curating and Criticism BA and Jewellery courses at Central St Martins, and Spatial Design course at Chelsea, with students developing public programme events and work for display at the Museum. We also welcome students on professional work placements as part of museum practice courses, such as those run by Birkbeck University and University of Westminster.
The Museum also currently works in partnership with Goldsmiths University Department of Music, sharing resources and teaching. Our Gerald Coke Handel Collection Librarian is Visiting Research Fellow at the University, and leads seminars for undergraduate and postgraduate students visiting the Collection.
Students for the MA courses in Archives and Records Management and in Library and Information Studies at University College London, and for the MA in The History of the Book at the Institute of English Studies, SOAS, undertake work placements in the Gerald Coke Handel Collection.
We can support only a few partnerships at once.