The library attracts people who want to find out more about Julia Margaret Cameron. Photo © Mandy Schaller

It will now be easier to learn about the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and the history of photography, at the house where she lived.

Dimbola Lodge Museum, Isle of Wight, has received a £969 Museum Development Grant to enhance its reading room and open up access to its library and archives.

The grant comes as part of Renaissance in the Regions, a scheme that aims to give extra funding to regional museums.

Florence Fisher by Julia Margaret Cameron. Courtesy Dimbola Lodge Museum

Dimbola Lodge is the former home of the pioneering Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and its library houses rare and donated books about her and her work.

Ruth Gardner, administrator at the museum, said: “The grant will help us to store the books in a more accessible way. The library and reading room is really popular with people researching Cameron, and attracts lots of overseas students.

“It’s good to have all these nationally important books in one place, especially as it’s the house where Cameron actually lived.”

Dimbola Lodge, Isle of Wight, is the former home of Julia Margaret Cameron. Photo courtesy Dimbola Lodge Museum

As well as texts on Julia Margaret Cameron, the library holds books on her friend, poet Lord Tennyson, and his literary circle.

Authors on the poet regularly use resources at the library to write their books and Tennyson Society meetings are held in the reading room. Its members will benefit from the extra shelving and re-organisation the grant makes possible.

Also available in the library are magazines and journals about photography, press clippings, and papers on Tennyson’s poems. The grant will enable these to be properly stored in purpose-made binders.

Many of Cameron's photographs are stored in the museum's strong room. Photo © Mandy Schaller

Dimbola Lodge is also hoping for a new computer that will provide access to a database of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs online. This will mean the collection can be viewed from the library and reading room without having to enter the strong room to handle the delicate photographs.