In July 2022, the Royal Historical Society launched its new Masters’ Scholarship programme.
The Scholarships provide financial support to students from groups currently underrepresented in academic History. Each Scholarship is worth £5000. The programme seeks to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History. By supporting Masters’ students the programme focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers.
This year the Society has made awards to six Masters’ students, with one of these generously funded by an anonymous donor. We’re very pleased that all of the award holders for 2022-23 have now begun their courses:
- Amber Cross, studying for MA in medieval and early modern history at the University of Lancaster
- Gemma Jackson, studying for a Masters, with a focus on medieval queenship, at the University of Nottingham
- Henna Khanom, studying for an MA in History, specialising in American race relations, at University College London
- Louis Kill-Brown, studying for an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge
- Ahmed Lalljee, studying for a Masters, specialising in South Asian history, at the School of Oriental and African Studies
- Daniel MacDonald, studying for an MSc in modern world history at the University of Strathclyde
We wish Amber, Gemma, Henna, Louis, Ahmed and Daniel well for their studies, and will be keeping in touch with them as their courses progress.
Masters’ Scholarships, 2023-24
The Scholarship programme will next run for students beginning MA courses (full- or part-time) in September 2023. The call and timetable for 2023 applications will be announced by the Society in early 2023.
Supporting the Scholarships programme from 2023
In 2022, the first year of the programme, the Society awarded 6 Scholarships and will provide a further four awards, annually from 2023. In this first year, interest in the scheme was very strong, with many fundable applications. From 2023 onwards, the Society seeks to offer as many Scholarships as we can to talented eligible early career historians.
If you or your organisation would like to help us, please email president@royalhistsoc.org to discuss options with the RHS President , Professor Emma Griffin.
I am a Reader in Social History & Social Policy in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research at the University of Kent. Broadly speaking, I work on the history of social policy in the 20th century, and how voluntary, state and private welfare services are accessible (or not) to citizens. My most recent book is Lawyers for the Poor: Legal Advice, Voluntary Action and Citizenship in England, 1890-1990 (Manchester UP, 2019).
I am an economic historian based at the University of Southampton. I began my undergraduate career in Economics and Management and was not encouraged to do History at A level, let alone as a degree subject. Although I teach maths and economics, my research is not ‘mathsy’ and includes social history. I work primarily on the South Sea Company and enslavement. I have recently finished a six-year stint as Honorary Secretary of the Economic History Society. Before that I was chair of the EHS Women’s Committee.
I am Professor of Modern Social History at Queen’s University, Belfast where I work on the social history of nineteenth and early twentieth-century Ireland with a particular focus on social class, urban poverty and welfare. I am also increasingly interested in public history, particularly its role in divided societies.
