Blenheim Palace welcomes new archives intern, Marlene Schilling
Blenheim Palace has welcomed a new archives intern, joining the team for a six month placement. Marlene Schilling, originally from South-West Germany, brings a wealth of academic expertise and a passion for heritage preservation to this exciting and necessary role at the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
During her time at Blenheim, Marlene will focus on cataloguing the papers of the 9th Duke of Marlborough (1892–1934), which document the management of the estate during the world wars and key developments at the Palace, including the creation of the Water Terraces and Italian Garden. She will also assist in transcribing historical employment, wage and account ledgers, recording the names of staff and servants contributing to an ongoing staff database project and ensuring the long-term preservation of archival materials. Practical tasks such as rearranging storage, rehousing documents, and maintaining dehumidifiers to protect fragile records are also undertaken during the internship.
This placement at Blenheim Palace Archives is in collaboration with the Placement Scheme of the AHRC Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership (OOC-DTP). This scheme encourages doctoral students to gain practical experience with external organisations, fostering professional development alongside their academic research.
Marlene holds a BA in German Studies & Comparative Literature Studies and an MA in German Literature from the University of Tübingen, Germany. She further pursued her studies at the University of Oxford, where she completed an MSt in Modern Languages (German) at Brasenose College. Currently, she is undertaking a PhD in Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford.
Marlene said: “I am particularly fascinated by the interplay between archives and heritage sites. This internship is an invaluable opportunity to learn about archival cataloguing standards and the daily operations of an archive. I am also looking forward to gaining insights into policy-related aspects, such as copyright, which will be useful for my PhD research.”
Dr Alexa Frost, Archivist at Blenheim Palace, added: “Archives are at the heart of Blenheim’s heritage, providing invaluable records that help us understand and maintain the estate’s legacy. It is fantastic to offer opportunities like this to emerging professionals, allowing them to gain hands-on experience while contributing to the important work of archival preservation. At Blenheim Palace we’re proud to support the next generation of archivists and look forward to the valuable contributions Marlene will make during her placement.”
Blenheim Palace recently celebrated back to back recognition for its innovative Archive Internship programme having been awarded Gold Standard Internship Host by the Internship Office at The University of Oxford. The award officially recognises the excellent internship experience and requires strong commitment demonstrated, consistently high quality of feedback from interns, reliability of internship opportunities, and prompt communication. It also acknowledges the responsiveness to constructive feedback.
To find out more about Blenheim Palace and its archives visit, https://archives.blenheimpalace.com/
ENDS
For more information, contact Cab Campaign – blenheim@cabcampaign.co.uk
About Blenheim Palace
Home to the Dukes of Marlborough since 1705, Blenheim Palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Set in over 2,000 acres of ‘Capability’ Brown landscaped parkland and designed by Vanbrugh in the Baroque style, it was financed by Queen Anne, on behalf of a grateful nation, following the first Duke of Marlborough’s triumph over the French in the War of the Spanish Succession.
Today it houses one of the most important and extensive collections in Europe, which includes portraits, furniture, sculpture and tapestries.
Blenheim Palace is also the birthplace of one of Britain’s most famous leaders, Sir Winston Churchill, and it was his father who described the vista on entering the Estate from the village of Woodstock as the ‘finest view in England’.
