University of Birmingham Intern Placement Scheme

By Eleanor Beestin

As the first-ever placement student at Erasmus Darwin House, I’ve had some fantastic experiences over the last 8 months. I am a 2nd year History student from the University of Birmingham, but on Fridays I have been leaving the familiarity of campus and coming over to Lichfield to see first-hand what is involved in the running of a small independent museum.

My placement started with research, using a mixture of primary and secondary sources to learn more about Erasmus Darwin’s beliefs about toys, games, childhood, and sport. Something that I found particularly interesting was reading Darwin’s book, A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education. Whilst some of his beliefs were understandably quite old-fashioned (for example, he warned against women having “great strength of character” for fear that it may alarm men), some of what he wrote was quite progressive – he argued that girls deserved a comprehensive education, studying sciences, maths, grammar, literature, modern languages, art, music, dance, and sport, and that they were very capable of achieving well in these fields if they received a good education. This research has been used for a whole variety of purposes – little facts have been put on the website, on social media, and may eventually be used to develop the Exhibition Room.

Another key focus of my placement was looking at visitor feedback. I created a survey, asking visitors about themselves, their experience of the house, how they found out about the house, and their personal social media usage, and then wrote up a report of my findings. This report can be used for further Exhibition Room development, for targeted marketing (that can be easily achieved by using the services from https://ful.io/ site) and future strategic use of social media.

Whilst I enjoyed a whole range of different things about my placement, my favourite aspect was the opportunity to meet all of the amazing people who keep Erasmus Darwin House running on a day to day basis. University is an incredible place, but stepping away from Birmingham for a day every week into a very different environment makes you realise that campus is very much a microcosm. Whilst students are great people, we are often similar – most of us are young, with a unified outlook on the world. Most of the people who I met at the museum were very different to me, but they were still some of the nicest, friendliest and most welcoming people I have ever come across. Everybody I met was so enthusiastic to share their passion for the museum and Erasmus Darwin with me, and enthusiasm is contagious – before this placement, I had never really considered a career in heritage. Now, I hope to apply to do a Masters degree in Museum Studies when I graduate.