Position: Deputy Chief Curator and Head of Collections
About
Heads the Collections Curators at Historic Royal Palaces. Areas of research include British and European royal and elite material culture from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, with specialist interests in furniture- and architectural interiors history. Recent palace project and exhibition research includes domestic and royal household service; the late Stuart and early Hanoverian monarchies in England; ‘Capability’ Brown as a royal gardener; the royal bedchamber and privy lodgings from 1500 to 1800.
He has practiced as a heritage and museum curator for over 30 years, working with British collections in their original contexts. This has led him to focus on interdisciplinary study which is grounded on documentary and scientific evidence, used in conjunction with wider academic research. He studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art and the University of Manchester.
Select publications
Edwards, S., ‘Preparing to Progress - The Great Wardrobe and the Royal Progresses of Henry VIII’, in Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe Progresses, Palaces and Panache ed. by A. Musson and J. Cooper (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 51-69.
Edwards, S., ‘The Making of a New Court for William, Mary and Anne’ and ‘George I at Kensington’, in Kensington Palace: Art, Architecture and Society, ed. by O. Fryman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2018), pp. 65-91, pp. 109-129.
Edwards, S., ‘Fashioning and furnishing for performance: the rise and fall of the State Bedchamber in the English Royal Palace’ in Court, Country, City British Art and Architecture, 1660–1735, ed. by M. Hallett, N. Llewellyn, and M. Myrone (Paul Mellon Centre’s Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, 2016), pp. 105-126.