The SAT provided financial assistance to Diana Price, author of Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography, to buy the rights for her book back from the original academic publisher and re-publish the book as an affordable paperback, making this landmark book available for the first time to a wider audience.

We set up a Shakespeare Collections at Brunel University Library. The De Vere Society and The Shakespearean Authorship Trust have donated their collections of more than 1,000 items on long-term loan to Brunel University. The Shakespearean Collections, dating back to the 1920s, also contain a small selection of materials which belonged to Edward Holmes and were donated by his wife, Jean. The Collections include books, plays, poetry, journals, and ephemera written by and about Shakespeare and his time. Some of these materials are very rare. Brunel University Library is now making these materials accessible to the public.

Whilst some of the materials are accessible in the main section of the Library, most are located in the Special Collections room and may be consulted by appointment only. The materials are for reference use only.

Since the launch of our membership scheme, digital scans of certain items in the collection will be made available online to members. For further details on how to arrange a visit to Brunel Library and for lists of the materials available in the collections, please follow this link: Shakespeare Collections.

In partnership with Brunel University and in collaboration with the Friends of Shakespeare’s Globe, the SAT organised the John Silberrad Memorial Lecture Series during November 2006, 2007, and 2008. The Lectures commemorated our friend and fellow trustee who died in 2005 and bequeathed the SAT a legacy of £10,000.

The legacy that John Silberrad bequeathed to the SAT also enabled us to launch our web site. Designed to function as a crossroads for researchers and casual enquirers, it introduces the major candidates and others as well, recommends books, gives news of events,and provides links to many researching organisations.

In 2003, 2004, and 2005, we organised conferences at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. One was on the authorship of Richard 2, one on the authorship of Measure for Measure, and one on “Collaboration.”

In 2009, we also organised a conference in conjunction with Brunel University London on “Challenging Authority,” and in 2010 on “Shakinomics: Building Bridges in Shakespeare Studies.” Further successful conferences have been organised every year since. See Conferences.

With the generous assistance of £30,000 from a major donor, we were able to fund the research and reconstructions of the possible clothing of four authorship candidates: William Shakspere, Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, and Mary Sidney. The clothing was designed and constructed by the world’s leading specialist in Elizabethan and Jacobean clothing, Ms. Jenny Tiramani. The SAT loaned the clothes to the theatre production of The BIG Secret Live “I Am Shakespeare” Webcam Daytime Chat-Room Show, a playful examination of the authorship question written by and starring Mark Rylance, which introduced audiences to the Shakespeare Authorship Question and gained some significant press coverage. The clothes have since been employed by the SAT in interactive exhibitions on the authorship question. Trustees of the SAT also advised on the characterisation of the authorship candidates in “I Am Shakespeare.“

On the 8 September 2007, the SAT helped organise a special gathering of all authorship societies at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester, where a poster-sized copy of The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt was unveiled by Sir Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance and given to Brunel University. The Declaration had been signed by representatives of the following societies: the De Vere Society, the Francis Bacon Society, the Francis Bacon Research Trust, the Marlowe Society, the Shakespearean Authorship Trust, and Brunel University; the Mary Sidney Society would have signed but they are based in America and couldn’t make it. Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare Institute declined to sign. You can read the BBC coverage here.