Royal family seeks £34,000 keeper of Queen Elizabeth II's secrets

Royal family seeks £34,000-a-year archives curator to keep Queen Elizabeth II’s most closely-guarded secrets

• Windsor Castle is looking to recruit three new team members for the project
• They will archive and catalogue the late Queen’s personal and private papers 

The royal household is recruiting for three people who can be trusted with the late Queen Elizabeth II’s most closely-guarded secrets – including a chief secret keeper who will lead a new archival project. 

The royal family is seeking an archives curator for a brand new role based at Windsor Castle, recruited specifically to archive all of Queen Elizabeth II’s and the Duke of Edinburgh’s official and personal papers.

The project will provide a unique insight into the late monarch’s day-to-day life, opinions and correspondence, much of which she kept completely private for her 70-year reign.

The successful applicant will be handed the fascinating job of spending the next two years going through Her Majesty’s papers, most of which will not be seen by anyone else for decades to come – including some which will never have been read by anyone other than the Queen herself.

The Royal Collection Trust is seeking an archivist for the £34,000-a-year job plus benefits, based at Windsor Castle, where the Queen spent the majority of her final years. 

The project will provide a unique insight into the late monarch’s day-to-day life, opinions and correspondence, much of which she kept completely private for her 70-year reign

The roles will all relate to the archival project for the late Queen and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh

The candidate will not only be responsible for archiving the secrets of the UK’s longest-serving monarch, but of the Duke of Edinburgh too.

The project is scheduled to begin in May 2023 and end in May 2025. 

The job description reads: ‘Joining the team in Windsor, you’ll lead on the large and important project of archiving the official and personal papers of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.’ 

‘You’ll create a clear and accurate record of the material, ensuring others can navigate and access it in the future. You’ll also curate exhibitions, displays and online resources, as well as answer enquiries from colleagues and researchers.

‘The breadth of the project will provide opportunities for you to develop your knowledge, taking your career to the next level.’

Applicants should have ‘significant experience of managing and cataloguing archives’ as well as ‘a strong understanding of international cataloguing standards, with experience in managing the access to contemporary archives sensitively and effectively.’

It is not just an experienced archival leader being sought by the Palace however, with a library cataloguer and archives cataloguer also on offer.

Both roles have a salary of £26,000 per year plus benefits, but while the library cataloguer will remain at Windsor for a two-year-period, the archives cataloguer role is permanent.

The roles are all based at Windsor Castle, but the lead secret keeper will only remain with the household for two years

The library cataloguer will ‘support the significant and wide-ranging project of cataloguing library material relating to Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh’ by cataloguing the library’s 220,000 works prior to their move.

A professional library qualification or experience in cataloguing material in historic libraries is required.

The archives cataloguer will report directly to the archives curator and join the new project directly.

The successful candidate will have experience of cataloguing archives. 

The royal archives have more than seven million documents dating from the 13th century to the present day, while the royal library includes manuscripts dating back to the 4th century BC.

Possible future uses of the material to be archived include an official biography of the Queen, which is a possibility which has not yet been confirmed.  

For the last such work, William Shawcross’s life of the Queen Mother, he was given full access to her personal papers and his book took six years to complete.

Any biography of the Queen would have to address such crises as Megxit, Princess Diana’s death and King Charles’s divorce.

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