Petition launched to keep the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon
A petition is calling on the University of Birmingham to reverse its plan to move the Shakespeare Institute out of Stratford-upon-Avon. Actors Sam West and Dame Janet Suzman are backing the campaign.
The Institute is a centre for the study of Shakespeare that belongs to the university. It has been based at Mason Croft, a Grade II* listed building, since 1951. Grade II* is the middle of three grades of protection for historic buildings in England.
The university has told staff that the Institute will leave Mason Croft from September 2027. Its work is due to move to rooms on the university's Edgbaston campus in Birmingham. The rooms have not yet been named.
The petition asks the university to keep the Institute at Mason Croft in Stratford. It had 2,900 signatures, according to WhatsOnStage.
The Institute's specialist research library holds 60,000 volumes of Shakespearean criticism, meaning scholarly writing about the plays and their author. Professor Michael Dobson is the Institute's director.
Any move would change where that library sits and where the Institute's staff and researchers work. The university has not set out how the library would be handled in its new home. For now, the petition is the main public step, and the 2,900 names are the clearest sign so far of how many people want the Institute to stay where it is.
