Applications for 2025-2026 open on 1 November 2025
WSG is offering a bursary of £750 to an early career researcher*, independent scholar or PhD student who is a member of the WSG. The bursary is intended to support research in any aspect of women’s studies in the period 1558-1837 for new or continuing interdisciplinary or single-discipline projects.
The deadline for bursary applications is 15 December 2025, and the successful applicant will be announced in January 2026. For further information, and to apply, please download the application form.
Applications are considered by the WSG committee. The money will normally be paid on presentation of receipts. The successful applicant will be expected to give a paper at a WSG meeting in person or via Zoom in the 2026-2027 academic year. The contribution of the WSG bursary should be acknowledged in any resulting publications.
*Early career researcher is ‘an individual who is within eight years of the award of their PhD or within 6 years of their first academic appointment’ (AHRC).
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Previous Bursary Winners
- 2025: Valentina Aparicio, researching Maria Graham’s correspondence for her forthcoming monograph, Challenging Friendships: Scottish Women Travellers in Latin America, 1820–60 (Main Award); and Charlotte Vallis, ‘French diplomatic archives relating to Russian Empresses Elizabeth Petrovna and Catherine II’ (Travel Award), Patricia Ahern, ‘Enlightenment memories of Mary Queen of Scots’ (Travel Award), and Rachel Bynoth, ‘Anxiety in family letters’ (Travel Award).
- 2024: Amy Solomons, ‘Eighteenth-century female reading experiences in historic house spaces’
- 2023: Eleanor Bird, ‘Margaret Davy, sister-in-law of Humphrey Davy and collector of his works’ (Main Award); and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland, ‘Examining three Georgian opera singers: Elizabeth Billington, Anna Selina Storace and Gertrude Mara’ (Travel Award)
- 2020: Anna Jamieson, ‘Spending and Shopping: Women’s Experience in the Eighteenth-Century Madhouse’ and Alexis Wolf, ‘Women Nurses and Inspectors of the Foundling Hospital, 1750-1830’ (Joint award with Foundling Museum)
- 2019: Charlotte Young, ‘Women’s involvement in Canterbury sequestrations, 1643-50’; Hannah Jeans, ‘Women’s Reading Habits and Gendered Genres, c.1600-1700’
- 2018: Madeleine Pelling, ‘The friendship of Horace Walpole and Mary Hamilton’; Rebecca Simpson, ‘Narratives of pregnancy’
- 2017: Charmian Mansell, ‘A new history of female service in early modern England, 1550-1650
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Women's Studies Group 1558 - 1837 