Leche Trust Bursary

Bursary Details

Applications are invited for bursaries on the Buckingham University MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors starting September 2024. Generously funded by the Leche Trust, the bursary, worth £8,500, will cover just under 78% of the full-time course fees for UK students and just over 50% of the fees for international students.

Who can apply?

Priority will be given to applicants with excellent academic qualifications, seeking, or currently pursuing careers in museums, the built heritage or conservation, who need financial assistance and have a strong interest in the decorative arts and historic buildings, or for those wishing to go on to pursue academic research in the decorative arts and historic interiors. The bursary is also open to part-time students commencing their studies in 2024 for whom the funding would be spread over two years. To be eligible for the bursary, students will need to have applied for and been offered a place on the course.

The Leche Trust

The Leche Trust is a grants-awarding charity which supports the conservation of historic objects, collections and features of buildings and designed landscapes of the Georgian period and earlier as well as the performing arts, and it also provides funding for allied training programmes for those seeking careers in conservation or traditional crafts. In line with these aims, the Leche Trust bursary for the MA in Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors aims to provide a platform for those with curatorial ambitions in the decorative arts or historic interiors for whom the course is intended to provide both an academic and vocational training, being designed to develop students’ historical understanding of eighteenth-century interiors and decorative arts, but also to inculcate an awareness of conservation issues, and of the difficult decisions regarding the restoration of historic buildings and how to balance historical authenticity with current usage, such as would be required of curator working for a heritage organisation such as The National Trust or English Heritage.

How to Apply

Candidates for the bursary will need to go through the usual processes of filling out an application form and providing transcripts and supporting references which will be followed by an interview with the programme director (normally online) and usually the French decorative arts tutor. Those who have been offered a place on the course, who are interested in applying for the bursary will also be required to:

  1. Complete the general Application form for Scholarships and Bursaries found here.
  2. Submit a short, 500-word comparison of two objects in the Wallace Collection or, in the case of overseas applicants, objects selected from a local museum.
  3. Submit an essay (800-1000 words) on “How can social history can help our understanding of the decorative arts and historic interior?”.
  4. Produce a statement about how they think they would benefit from the award of a Leche Trust bursary and what contribution they would intend to make to the heritage sector.

The programme director and course tutor for French Decorative Arts will then submit a short- list of three candidates whose applications will be forwarded to the Grants Director of the Leche Trust. The final decision on the award will be made by the Bursaries Sub-Committee of the Leche Trust. In the event of two or more candidates applying who are deemed to be of equal merit, the Trustees have the discretion to split the award.

Further details

For further details about the course, please visit, MA Decorative Arts and Historic Interiors, or email Dr Lindsay Macnaughton at lindsay.macnaughton@buckingham.ac.uk

For further guidance on how to apply, please contact the postgraduate Admissions teams at admissions@buckingham.ac.uk