Project: Introducing Ida Copeland
Client: National Trust Trelissick House and Garden
- A CREATIVE PROJECT
In 2017 the National Trust team at Trelissick House and Garden in Cornwall were engaged in a series of creative projects that aimed to enhance the experience of visitors. The organisation also planned to mount a major celebration of the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in 1918.
- A DIFFERENT KIND OF RESEARCHER
To support this project Mark Pugh, an ex-journalist was commissioned to research and write a biography of Ida Copeland, the former owner of Trelissick House, who was also one of the earliest women Members of Parliament.
- NEW AND KNOWN SOURCES
The finished biography combined information from known sources with the results of new research that resolved some of the contradictions that had appeared in previously published work. The new biography highlighted the positive impact that Ida Copeland, a cousin of Florence Nightingale, had on the communities she served and on the wider world.
- INTERVIEWS
The research involved using many sources, including The National Archives, The British Newspaper Archive, Parliament Online and the Women’s Library (London School of Economics). Mark also interviewed members of the Copeland family and several significant visitors or former residents at the property including a former Polish POW who now resides in Washington DC.
- FROM THE BODLEIAN TO THE SIKORSKI MUSEUM
In addition, Mark solicited help from organisations including the Conservative Party Archive held at the Bodleian Library, Lotherton Hall in Leeds, the Anglo-Polish Society and the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum.
- BIOGRAPHICAL REPORT
The resulting biographical report, entitled 'Introducing Ida', is now used to inform members of staff at Trelissick and the wider National Trust about the life of Ida Copeland. It was also used as the supporting document for the series of exhibitions that took place in 2018.