Winners of the RHS Whitfield Book Prize, 1977-2024

 

1977

K.D. Brown, John Burns (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1977)

1978

Marie Axton, The Queen’s Two Bodies: Drama and the Elizabethan Succession (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1978)

1979

Patricia Crawford, Denzil Holles, 1598-1680: A study of his Political Career (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1979)

1980

D. L. Rydz, The Parliamentary Agents: A History (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1979)

1981

Scott M. Harrison, The Pilgrimage of Grace in the Lake Counties, 1536-7 (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1981)

1982

Norman L. Jones, Faith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559 (Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 1982)

1983

Peter Clark, The English Alehouse: A social history, 1200-1830 (Longman, 1983)

1984

David Hempton, Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750-1850 (Hutchinson, 1984)

1985

K.D.M. Snell, Annals of the Labouring Poor (Cambridge University Press, 1985)

1986

Diarmaid MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County,1500- 1600 (Clarendon Press, 1986)

1987

Kevin M. Sharpe, Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the England of Charles I (Cambridge University Press, 1987)

1988

J.H. Davis, Reforming London, the London Government Problem, 1855-1900 (Clarendon Press, 1988)

1989

A.G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200-1540 (Clarendon Press, 1989)

1990

Duncan M. Tanner, Political Change and the Labour Party, 1900-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

1991

Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 1991)

1992

Christine Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401 -1499 (Cambridge University Press, 1992)

1993

Jeanette M. Neeson, Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England,1700- 1820 (Cambridge University Press, 1993)

1994

V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770-1868 (Oxford University Press, 1994)

1995

Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

1996

Paul D. Griffiths, Youth and Authority: Formative Experience in England, 1560-1640 (Clarendon Press, 1996)

1997

Christopher Tolley, Domestic Biography: the Legacy of Evangelicalism in Four Nineteenth-Century Families (Clarendon Press, 1997)

1998

Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England (Yale University Press, 1998)

1999

John Walter, Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution: The Colchester Plunderers (Past and Present Publications, 1999)

2000

Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700 (Clarendon Press, 2000)

2001

John Goodall, God’s House at Ewelme: Life, Devotion and Architecture in a Fifteenth Century Almshouse (Routledge, 2001)

and

Frank Salmon, Building on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English Architecture (Ashgate, 2001)

2002

Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge University Press, 2002)

2003

Christine Peters, Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation England (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

2004

M.J.D. Roberts, Making English Morals: Voluntary Association and Moral reform in England,1787-1886 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

2005

Matt Houlbrooke, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957 (University of Chicago Press, 2005)

2006

Kate Fisher, Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain, 1918-1960 (Oxford University Press, 2006)

2007

Stephen Baxter, The Earls of Mercia: Lordship and Power in Late Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 2007)

and

Duncan Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (Princeton University Press, 2007)

2008

Stephen M. Lee, George Canning and Liberal Toryism, 1801-1827 (RHS/Boydell & Brewer:2008)

and

Frank Trentmann, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil Society in Modern Britain (Oxford University Press: 2008)

2009

Nicholas Draper, The Price of Emancipation: Slave-ownership, Compensation and British Society at the end of Slavery (Cambridge University Press: 2009)

2010

Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590-1640 (Cambridge University Press: 2010)

2011

Jaqueline Rose, Godly Kingship in Restoration England: The Politics of the Royal Supremacy,1660-1688, (Cambridge University Press: 2011)

2012

Ben Griffin, The Politics of Gender in Victorian Britain. Masculinity, Political Culture and the Struggle for Women’s Rights, (Cambridge University Press: 2012)

2013

Scott Sowerby, Making Toleration: The Repealers and The Glorious Revolution (Harvard University Press: 2013)

From this point the prize is awarded for and presented in the year following publication.

2015

John Sabapathy, Officers and Accountability in Medieval England 1170-1300 (Oxford University Press, 2014)

2016

Aysha Pollnitz, Princely Education in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

2017

William M. Cavert, The Smoke of London: Energy and Environment in the Early Modern City (Cambridge University Press, 2016)

and

Alice Taylor, The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124-1290 (Oxford University Press, 2016)

2018

Brian N Hall, Communications and British Operations on the Western Front, 1914-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

2019

Ryan Hanley, Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c.1770-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

2020

Niamh Gallagher, Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political History (Bloomsbury, 2019)

2021

Jackson Armstrong, England’s Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish Marches (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

and

Lauren Working, The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

2022

Kristin D. Hussey for Imperial Bodies in London. Empire, Mobility, and the Making of British Medicine, 1880-1914 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

2023

Síobhra Aiken for Spiritual Wounds. Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (Irish Academic Press, 2022)

2024

Sara Caputo for Foreign Jack Tars: The British Navy and Transnational Seafarers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

 

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Winner of the RHS Gladstone Book Prize, 1997-2024

 

1997

Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: the idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe (Oxford University Press, 1999)

1998

Patrick Major, The Death of the KPD: Communism and Anti-Communism in West Germany, 1945-1956 (Oxford University Press, 1998)

1999

Frances Stonor Saunders, Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War (Granta Books, 1999)

2000

Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400-1000 (Cambridge University Press, 2000)

2001

Nora Berend, At the Gate of Christendom. Jews, Muslims and ‘Pagans’ in Medieval Hungary, c.1000-c.1300 (Cambridge University Press, 2001)

2002

David Hopkin, Soldier and Peasant in French Popular Culture, 1766-1870 (Royal Historical Society / The Boydell Press, 2002)

and

Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army Under Louis XIV (Cambridge University Press, 2002)

2003

Norbert Peabody, Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

and

Michael Rowe, From Reich to State: the Rhineland in the Revolutionary Age, 1780-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

2004

Nikolaus Wachsmann, Hitler’s Prisons: Legal Terror in Nazi Germany (Yale University Press, 2004)

2005

Robert Foley, German Strategy and the Path to Verdun: Erich von Falkenhayn and the Development of Attrition, 1870-1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2005)

2006

James E. Shaw, The Justice of Venice. Authorities and Liberties in the Urban Economy, 1550- 1700 (Oxford University Press, 2006)

2007

Yasmin Khan, The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (Yale University Press, 2007)

2008

Caroline Dodds Pennock, Bonds of Blood: Gender, Lifecycle and Sacrifice in Aztec Culture (Palgrave MacMillan, 2008)

2009

Alice Rio, Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages. Frankish Formulae, c.500-1000 (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

2010

Natalie A. Zacek, Settler Society in the English Leeward Islands, c. 1670-1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2010)

2011

Wendy Ugolini, Experiencing War as the ‘Enemy Other’: Italian Scottish Experience in World War II, (Manchester University Press, 2011)

2012

Joel Isaac, Working Knowledge: Making the Human Sciences from Parsons to Kuhn, (Harvard University Press, 2012)

2013

Sean A Eddie, Freedom’s Price: Serfdom, Subjection, & Reform in Prussia, 1648-1848 (Oxford University Press, 2013)

From this point the prize is awarded for and presented in the year following publication.

2015

Andrew Arsan, Interlopers of Empire: The Lebanese Diaspora in Colonial French West Africa (Hurst, 2014)

and

Lucie Ryzova, The Age of the Efendiyya: Passages to Modernity in National-Colonial Egypt (Oxford University Press, 2014)

2016

Emma Hunter, Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania (Cambridge University Press, 2015)

2017

Claire Eldridge, From Empire to Exile: History and Memory within the pied-noir and harki communities, 1962-2012 (Manchester University Press, 2016)

2018

Matthew S Champion, The Fullness of Time. Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries (University of Chicago Press, 2017)

2019

Duncan Hardy, Associative Political Culture in the Holy Roman Empire: Upper Germany, 1346-1521 (Oxford University Press, 2018)

2020

Caillan Davenport for A History of the Roman Equestrian Order  (Cambridge University Press, 2019)

2021

Tom Stammers for The Purchase of the Past: Collecting Culture in Post-Revolutionary Paris, c.1790-1890 (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

2022

Emily Bridger for Young Women Against Apartheid. Gender, Youth and South Africa’s Liberation Struggle (Boydell & Brewer, 2021)

2023

Jennifer Keating for On Arid Ground: Political Ecologies of Empire in Russian Central Asia (Oxford University Press, 2022)

2024

Somak Biswas for Passages through India. Indian Gurus, Western Disciples and the Politics of Indophilia, 1890–1940 (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

 

The Royal Historical Society represents the interests of History and historians, of all kinds, via a programme of advocacy and policy research. The higher education, publishing, technological and cultural landscapes, within which much of our work is situated, have changed rapidly over the past decade.

The need for historians to be supported, and for History to be understood and practised well, is more important than ever.

Advocacy

The RHS is the UK’s foremost body for supporting the historical profession and championing History as a discipline. The Society’s advocacy work takes place at a range of levels: individual, departmental, sector and disciplinary.

Support for departments

We work closely with individuals and departments who contact us in need of support, through sharing resources, offering expertise and communicating with university senior managers. The Society also makes available and maintains disciplinary information and links via its a toolkit — ‘Supporting History Teaching and Research in UK Universities’ — launched in 2022 and regularly updated.

In addition, the Society runs a programme of Visits to departments across the the UK to meet with historians and discuss matters relating to their institutions and the wider profession. Recent and forthcoming Visits include to the universities of Lincoln, Edge Hill, Kent, Canterbury Christ Church, the Highlands and Islands, and Hertfordshire (2022-23) and York and York St John and Brunel (in Spring 2024). The call for a next round of visits was launched in late 2024.

The Society also publishes data relating to the History and the historical profession in UK Higher Education, as generated by external providers. This resource, and the Toolkit, focus particularly on historians and departments facing threats of cuts or closures to academic programmes and staff.

 

Briefings on cuts and closures in UK departments

In October 2024 the Society published ‘The Value of History in UK Higher Education and Society’. This briefing brings together collates recent RHS work on cuts and closures, along with data on the history’s strengths as a subject, with reference to student enrolments, graduate outcomes, and student satisfaction. The document considers what we risk losing, especially at departments at post-92 institutions, if cuts continue.

The briefing also signals an enhanced role for the Society as a champion of history’s contribution and value. The Society remains an organisation to which historians turn in need. To this we add a more proactive campaigning dimension, which the Society will develop. Appreciating, celebrating and communicating the value of history will involve speaking, in new ways, to new audiences.

Public statements in support of departments and the discipline

The Society’s latest public statements have focused on cuts and closures at UK History departments — ‘History in UK Higher Education: A Statement from the Royal Historical Society’ — (June 2023), the closure of the MRes in The History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester (September 2023), cuts to History and the wider humanities at Oxford Brookes University (December 2023) and at Goldsmiths, University of London (July 2024).

Recent public statements on the discipline include the Society’s joint statement on collaborative advocacy and promotion of the discipline (February 2025) and an interview (April 2025) with the Society’s President, Lucy Noakes, on the state of history in UK higher education for the BBC History Extra podcast.

Previous statements include the Society’s concern at closures, mergers and contractions of UK History departments, especially at post-92 institutions such as Roehampton and support for historians at, again, Goldsmiths, University of London. Any department that seeks support — for example, with advice on plans to cut or reduce History provision with their institution — may get in touch confidentially with the Society via the President or the Academic Director. Individuals with concerns about the discipline may also contact the Society at any time.

Collaborative work with UK and international organisations

The Society believes we are stronger working collaboratively with fellow organisations to support the historical discipline and profession.

In resisting cuts and closures, and championing the value of History, we work as part of a ‘Quartet’ of UK organisations: the Historical Association, History UK and the Institute of Historical Research. Our latest joint statement, on collaborative responses to threats to History teaching and research, was released in February 2025.

The Society also works closely with UK-based colleagues who comprise the Arts and Humanities Alliance, an association of UK learned societies, as well as with international historical organisations in North America, Australia and New Zealand, and Europe. Earlier partnerships include the Society’s 2022 Ukraine Scholars at Risk programme, undertaken with other learned societies in History and area studies.

Parliamentary engagement

Since 2023 members of the Society’s Council have met with UK parliamentarians to discuss their concerns about cuts and closures at History departments in UK Higher Education, and the often negative language used to describe the History and other humanities subjects at university. Recent sessions include members of the Commons and Lords, across the parties, and with representatives from the government and shadow front bench, relevant Commons Select Committees, All Party Parliamentary Groups for History and Universities, and the parliamentary secretariat. These meetings continue.

The Society also draws on the experience of its Fellows and Members, many of whom have worked with parliamentarians, either to promote the discipline or with reference to the policy applications of their research.

 

Policy and Research

The Society’s policy and research programme is responsive to the environment in which historians work. Much of this work takes place via established RHS committees that monitor, respond to, and shape developments in the Research environment and culture in Higher Education; History Education and teaching; and Publishing.

In 2021 the Society established a Council post for Professional Engagement, to better support historians (in and outside HE) with training, skills and career development. More recent initiatives include the collation of data relating to the historical profession and discipline in the UK, and responses to consultations on the Research Excellence Framework 2029.

Our Equalities work remains of central importance to the Society. Recent initiatives include the creation of a Masters’ Scholarships programme (since 2022) to support students from groups underrepresented in academic History and publication, in June 2024, of an Update to the Society’s 2018 report, Race, Ethnicity & Equality.

 

The Society has a small but important archive collection which charts the membership and rise of the historical profession, in the UK, over the 19th and 20th centuries. The archive is divided into four collections, each of which has its own catalogue:

• George W. Prothero Papers: relating to the life and work of the historian G.W. Prothero (1848-1922)
• Camden Society Papers: relating to the Camden Society prior to merging with the Royal Historical Society (1838-1897)
• Royal Historical Society Papers: relating to the administration, activities, projects and events of the Society, c.1868-2010s
• Geoffrey Elton Papers: relating the literary papers of the historian Geoffrey Elton (1921-1994)

Each of these collections are housed in the RHS offices at University College London, and are available for consultation by prior arrangement; priority is given to members of the Society at busy times. For enquiries about the collections, please contact: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

1. George W. Prothero Papers

The archive’s principal collection relates to the historian, editor and government adviser, George W. Prothero (1848-1922), who was Professor of History at Edinburgh, from 1894, and President of the Royal Historical Society between 1901 and 1905.

In January 2022, the RHS published a new 250-page catalogue to its Prothero collection, which includes personal and professional correspondence, working papers and manuscripts covering the 1860s to the early 1920s. A selection of images from the collection is also available.

EXTENT: 20 boxes

The Prothero Papers catalogue is arranged in 7 series, each covering a different aspect of G.W. Prothero’s life and work:

• Series 1, PP/1: Personal correspondence, 1886-1922.
• Series 2, PP/2: Subject files, 1866-1921, including papers relating to Prothero’s early academic career and publications; among them his papers relating to the British Academy and Presidency of the Royal Historical Society.
• Series 3, PP/3: Correspondence relating to the First World War and its aftermath, 1914-1922, with British, European and American correspondents.
• Series 4, PP/4: Papers relating to historical studies c.1871-1914, including undergraduate and other notebooks, notes for his Creighton Lectures on Napoleon III, and manuscripts on contemporary international relations.
• Series 5, PP/5: Papers relating to the Bibliography of Modern British History including correspondence, notes on British and foreign libraries and archives.
• Series 6, PP/6: Printed papers including newspaper cuttings, scrapbook and articles.
• Series 7, PP/7: Papers relating to the deposit of the Prothero collection with the Royal Historical Society.

You can read more about recent work to re-catalogue and conserve Prothero’s papers, as well as view a selection of images from the seven series.

 

2. Camden Society Papers, 1838-1897

In June 2022, the RHS published a new 97-page catalogue to its Camden Society Papers collection, which includes administrative papers relating to the management of the Camden Society’s publishing programme of primary historical sources. The collection covers the period to the Camden Society’s merger with the Royal Historical Society, after which the RHS took on responsibility for publishing the Camden Series of scholarly editions.

EXTENT: 5 boxes

The Camden Society catalogue is arranged in 4 series, covering a different aspect of the Society’s work:

• Ref: CS/1: Papers relating to minute books.
• Ref: CS/2: Administrative papers.
• Ref: CS/3: Correspondence.
• Ref: CS/4: Miscellaneous research materials.

 

 

3. Royal Historical Society Papers, 1868-2010s

In October 2022, the RHS published a new 165-page catalogue to its Royal Historical Society Collection Papers, which includes items relating to administration, governance, committee structure, financing, membership, events and activities of the Society from its foundation in 1868 to the 2010s.

EXTENT: 29 boxes, 142 bound volumes, 36 framed photographs and drawings

The RHS Collection catalogue is arranged in 14 series, each covering a different aspect of the Society’s organisation and work:

• Ref: RHS/1: Minutes, agenda and attendance books of Council and various Committee meetings.
• Ref: RHS/2: Financial and administrative records.Ref: RHS/3. Correspondence and related papers.
• Ref: RHS/3: Correspondence and related papers.
• Ref: RHS/4: Research materials and deposited manuscripts.
• Ref: RHS/5: Fellowship, Associate and membership records.
• Ref: RHS/6: British National Committee papers.
• Ref: RHS/7: Invitations, lecture cards, meeting cards, Session cards, By-law booklets, prospectuses and other printed material.
• Ref: RHS/8: Printed circular notices and information booklets issued by the Society.
• Ref: RHS/9: Newsletters and Letters from the President.
• Reg: RHS/10: Offprints and photocopies of reviews of Studies in History articles.
• Ref: RHS/11: Drawings and photographs.
• Ref: RHS/12: Card index of Royal Historical Officers.
• Ref: RHS/13: Maps and plans.
• Ref: RHS/14: Signage.

In addition, application records are available for RHS Fellows from 1887, providing biographical details and insights into professional associations of historians elected to the Society in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Other records relating to the Society are included in the papers of Charles Rogers (1825-1890), who founded the RHS in 1868 and served (controversially) as its secretary until forced to resign in 1881.

 

 

4. Geoffrey Elton Papers, and other named collections

In August 2022, the RHS published a new 63-page catalogue to its Geoffrey Elton collection, which includes personal and professional correspondence, relating to the literary works and estate of Geoffrey Elton (1922-1994), historian and President of the Society (1973-77).

EXTENT: 18 boxes

The Geoffrey Elton catalogue is arranged in 4 series:

• ELT/1: Correspondence with the Royal Historical Society
• ELT/2: Correspondence and other papers concerning published works written or edited by G. R. Elton
• ELT/3: Correspondence and other papers relating to articles and reviews
• ELT/4: Concerning publications written or edited by G. R. Elton

Other smaller named collections held by the Society include:

• Papers of Samuel Rawson Gardiner (1829-1902), historian: transcripts of publications and some personal correspondence
• Papers of Frederick Solly Flood (1801-1888), diplomat: unpublished manuscripts
• Records of the British National Committee of the International Committee of Historical Sciences: correspondence etc, 1972-1993

 

 

Book Launch and Panel Discussion

Friday 18 February 2022

Watch the recording of this event

 

 

Published on 1 February 2022, Simon P. Newman’s Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London uncovers the true extent of slavery in 17th-century England through the hidden stories of enslaved and bound people in London.

Simon’s book is now available free, Open Access, to read ahead of the event.

 

 

 

Speakers at the event

• Professor Simon P. Newman (University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Glasgow)
• Professor Corinne Fowler (University of Leicester)
• Professor Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
• Professor Emma Griffin (RHS President and University of East Anglia (chair)

Freedom Seekers demonstrates not only that enslaved people were present in Restoration London but White Londoners of this era were intimately involved in the construction of the system of racial slavery, a process that traditionally has been regarded as happening in the colonies rather than the British Isles. An unmissable and important book that seeks to delve into Britain’s colonial past.

About our panel

• Simon P. Newman is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Glasgow, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2022 Simon is visiting scholar at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. Simon’s recent research has focused on runaway slaves in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English Atlantic world, of which his new book, Freedom Seekers, forms part. Simon is also a founding editor of New Historical Perspectives, the RHS Open Access book series for Early Career Historians.
• Corinne Fowler is Professor of Post-Colonial Literature at the University of Leicester and Director of Colonial Countryside: National Trust Houses Reinterpreted — a child-led writing and history project exploring the African, Caribbean and Indian connections at 11 of National Trust properties. Corinne is an expert in the legacies of colonialism and post-colonialism to literature, heritage and representations of British history. Her latest book is Green Unpleasant Land. Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections (2020).
• Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is the Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography, and Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Gretchen is a specialist in Black British studies and the author of Britain’s Black Past (2020), was based on the BBC Radio 4 series of the same title, in addition to earlier titles including Mr and Mrs Prince (2013), Black Victorians, Black Victoriana (2003) and Black London. Life Before Emancipation (1995).
• Emma Griffin is President of the Royal Historical Society and Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia

Watch the recording of this event

 

RHS Lecture and Events: Full Programme for 2022 >

 

 

**PLEASE NOTE: this event has been postponed and will now take place later in the year, date tbc**

 

Book Launch and Panel Discussion

14.00 GMT, Tuesday 22 March 2022, Live online via Zoom

 

 

Published in October 2021, Precarious Professionals is an edited collection of essays which use gender to explore a range of professional careers, from those of pioneering women lawyers and scientists to ballet dancers, secretaries, historians, and social researchers.

The book reveals how professional identities could flourish on the margins of the traditional professions, with far-reaching implications for the study of power, privilege, and expertise in 19th and 20th century Britain.

Precarious Professionals appears in the RHS ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series and is is now available free, Open Access, to read ahead of the event.

 

Contributors to the panel

• Professor Christina de Bellaigue (University of Oxford)
• Dr Laura Carter (Université de Paris / LARCA)
• Professor Leslie Howsam (University of Windsor / Ryerson University)
• Dr Claire G. Jones (University of Liverpool)
• Professor Helen McCarthy (University of Cambridge)
• Professor Susan Pedersen (Columbia University)
• Dr Laura Quinton (New York University)
• Professor Emma Griffin (RHS President and University of East Anglia) (chair)

This event brings together seven of the book’s contributors to discuss the relationship between gender and professional identities in historical perspective, and to reflect on researching and writing histories of professional work in precarious times. 

About our panel

Christina de Bellaigue is Associate Professor of History at Oxford and a Fellow of Exeter College. She is a social and cultural historian of nineteenth century France and Britain, with research interests in the history of reading and of education, and of childhood and adolescence. Christina’s current project concerns middle class family strategies and social mobility. Her publications include  Home Education in Historical Perspective (2016) and Educating Women: Schooling and Identity in England and France, 1800–1867 (2007).

Laura Carter is Lecturer in British History at the Université de Paris, LARCA, CNRS, F-75013 Paris, France. She has published articles on popular history, education, and social change in twentieth-century Britain in the journals Cultural and Social History, History Workshop Journal, and Twentieth Century British History. Her first book, Histories of Everyday Life: The Making of Popular Social History in Britain, 1918-1979, was published by Oxford University Press in the Past & Present book series in 2021.

Leslie Howsam is Emerita Distinguished University Professor at the University of Windsor (Canada) and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Digital Humanities at Ryerson University. She is editor of the 2015 Cambridge Companion to the History of the Book and author of Old Books and New Histories: An Orientation to Studies in Book & Print Culture (Toronto University Press, 2006).    

Claire G. Jones is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Liverpool. Her research interests focus on the cultural and social history of science, from the late-eighteenth century through to the early-twentieth, with special emphasis on femininity, masculinity, inclusion and representation. She has published widely in these areas and co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Women and Science (2022).

Helen McCarthy is Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John’s College. She is a historian of modern Britain and author of three books: The British People and the League of Nations (Manchester University Press, 2011); Women of the World: The Rise of the Female Diplomat (Bloomsbury, 2014); and Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Susan Pedersen is Gouverneur Morris Professor of British History at Columbia University, where she teaches British and International History. Her most recent book is The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford, 2015). She is now writing a book about marriage and politics in the Balfour family. She writes regularly for the London Review of Books.

Laura Quinton is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at New York University and a Resident Fellow at The Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. Her current book project, Ballet Imperial: Dance and the New British Empire, explores the unexpected entanglements of ballet and British politics in the twentieth century. Her writing has appeared in The Historical Journal, Twentieth Century British History, and the Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism.

Emma Griffin is President of the Royal Historical Society and Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia.

 

HEADER IMAGE, clockwise from top left: politician, Mary Agnes Hamilton, at her desk in Carlton House Terrace, c.1948; sociologist Viola Klein, 1965; historian Dame Lillian Penson running her seminar at the Institute of Historical Research, London, 1957; Marie Stopes in her laboratory, Manchester, c.1904–6; mathematician and engineer, Hertha Ayrton, in her Laboratory; lawyer and political reformer, Eliza Orme, 1889.

 

RHS Lecture and Events: Full Programme for 2022 >

 

 

The Royal Historical Society has long provided training and support, especially for post-graduate researchers and historians at the start of their career.

Since 2022-23, we have dedicated greater attention to providing advice, guidance and networking opportunities for historians at all career stages. These activities are led by Professor Matthias Neumann, the Society’s Secretary for Professional Engagement and a member of the RHS Council.

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Training Workshops for Professional Development

The Society’s events programme includes a regular series of training workshops looking at specific aspects of careers in History. Recent activities, all of which are available to watch again via our Events Archive, include:

2024

• ‘Doing History in Public’: a programme of three consultative conversations between historians and specialists in field such as museums, archives and broadcasting to discuss the history in Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums (GLAM sector), trade publishing, and print and broadcast media (April to September 2024)
• ‘Getting Published: A Guide to Monograph Publishing for Early Career Historians’ (June 2024)
• ‘Podcasting History: An Introduction and Guide’ (April 2024)

2023

• ‘Mid-Career Conversations for Historians’: a programme of five meetings to discuss topics of relevance to historians at mid-career (February to November 2023)
• ‘Writing and Publishing Trade History’, with Yale University Press (October 2023)
• ‘Scholarly Editing for Historians: an Introduction and Guide to Working with Primary Texts’ (July 2023)
• ‘Your Research and the Media: an Introduction and Guide for Historians’ (June 2023)
• ‘Digital History and Collaborative Research: a Practitioners’ Roundtable’ (May 2023)

2021-22

• ‘Working with History outside Higher Education: a Guide to Professions beyond Academia’ (July 2022)
• ‘Applying for your First Job: a Guide to Preparing & Interviewing for a History Teaching Post’ (March 2022)
• ‘Creating Public History: a Guide to Co-production and Community Engagement’ (December 2021)
• ‘Getting Published: a Guide to First Articles and Journal Publishing’ (July 2021)

 

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HEADER IMAGE: Plaque depicting a pottery workshop, ca. 1882, R. W. Martin and Brothers, Southall, London. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain

 

 

An RHS Online Training Workshop for Early Career Historians

 

Tuesday 8 March 2022

Watch the recording of this event

 

‘Applying for your First Job: a Guide to Preparing and Interviewing for a History Teaching Post’ is the next in the Royal Historical Society’s series of online training events designed for early career historians.

In ‘Preparing and Interviewing for a History Teaching Post’ we’ll provide a practical, step-by-step guide to applying for teaching positions in History at UK universities. The Workshop will cover how to prepare for the academic job market, and what to do while you’re researching your PhD; and how best to present yourself — in writing, online and in person — for a specific application and interview.

The Workshop brings together historians from UK universities with extensive experience of seeking and recruiting new academic staff, both for fixed-term and permanent teaching posts. Panellists will offer advice on what a department seeks, and what makes for a strong application and interview.

Topics for the Workshop include: when to start thinking about the job market; how best to prepare while researching your PhD (including advice on teaching and publishing); CV writing; submitting a strong application; interviews and presentations on the day; and what happens next.

The Session will also consider the current state of the UK job market in History, and its possible future development; what departments seek when they create a vacancy; and — importantly — History vacancies and applications from the perspective of Heads of Department and hiring committees.

Our panellists bring experience of working in a range of universities, with advice focused on applying for teaching posts in the UK. We intend to return to ‘applying for a research position’ in a later Workshop session.

After contributions from the panel, the event will take the form of a discussion involving all attendees. Those attending will be invited to submit questions in advance of the Workshop.

 

About our panel

Elaine Chalus is a historian of English social and political history in the long eighteenth century with a particular interest in the interplay of gender and politics. Elaine joined the University of Liverpool in 2016 as its new Head of Department following an earlier teaching career at Bath Spa University.

As a historian, Elaine has extensive experience of mentoring PhD researchers as they prepare for academic careers. As a Head of Department, Elaine will also offer insight into the application process from the perspective of those seeking to hire new teaching staff.

Matthew Johnson is a historian of modern Britain with a specialism in the impact of war on politics and society, and in militarism as a political and ideological phenomenon in Britain during the twentieth century. At Durham Matthew serves as the History department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies and has extensive experience of candidate shortlisting and interviewing.

Julian Wright is Deputy Faculty Pro-Vice Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts Design and Social Sciences, having been Head of Northumbria’s Department of Humanities since 2017. A historian of modern Europe, Julian taught previously for 13 years at Durham University.

As a Head of Department, Julian has similarly extensive experience of career preparation and planning in History, and of academic applications. In January 2022 Julian joined the RHS Council as its new Secretary for Professional Engagement, and will oversee the Society’s work to promote career development and networking for historians at all career stages.

Emma Griffin is President of the Royal Historical Society in which role she is in regular contact with History Heads of Department across the UK.

As Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia, Emma also has wide experience of departmental management, student mentoring, and the recruitment of new early career teaching staff. Emma researches the social and economic history of Britain during the period 1700-1870, with a particular interest in gender history, the industrial revolution, and working-class life.

 

Watch the recording of this event

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About RHS Training Workshops

‘Applying for your First Job’ is the next in a new series of RHS ‘Getting Started’ training events for early career historians. Events will provide guidance and insight into key areas of professional development. Details, and videos, of the first workshops in the series — on publishing a first article and creating a public history project — are available here.

The ‘Getting Started’ series runs three times a year with the next session — on finding employment in History outside academia  — to take place on 14 July 2022.

 

1898 F. Hermia Durharn, ‘The relations of the Crown to trade under James I’.

1899 W.F. Lord, BA, ‘The development of political parties during the reign of Queen Anne’.

1900 No award.

1901 Laura M. Roberts, ‘The Peace of Luneville’.

1902 V.B. Redstone, ‘The social condition of England during the Wars of the Roses’.

1903 Rose Graham, ‘The intellectual influence of English monasticism between the tenth and the twelfth centuries’.

1904 Enid W.G. Routh, ‘The balance of power in the seventeenth century’.

1905 WAP. Mason, MA ‘The beginnings of the Cistercian Order’.

1906 Rachel R. Reid, MA ‘The Rebellion of the Earls, 1569’.

1907 No award.

1908 Kate Hotblack ‘The Peace of Paris, 1763’.

1909 Nellie Nield, MA ‘The social and economic condition of the unfree classes in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries’. (Not published in Transactions).

1910 No award.

1911 No award

1912 H.G. Richardson ‘The parish clergy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’.

1913 – 1916 No award.

1917 Isobel D. Thornley, BA ‘The treason legislation of 1531 – 1534’.

1918 T.F.T. Plucknolt, BA ‘The place of the Council in the fifteenth century’.

1919 Edna F. White, MA ‘The jurisdiction of the Privy Council under the Tudors’. (Not published in Transactions).

1920 J.E. Neale, MA ‘The Commons Journals of the Tudor Period’.

1921 No award.

1922 Eveline C. A Martin, ‘The English establishments on the Cold Coast in the second half of the eighteenth century’.

1923 E.W. Hensman, MA, ‘The Civil War of 1648 in the east midlands’.

1924 Grace Stretton, BA, ‘Some aspects of mediaeval travel’.

1925 F.A. Mace, .MA, ‘Devonshire ports in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’.

1926 Marian J. Tooley, MA, ‘The authorship of “Defensor Pacis”‘.

1927 W.A. Pantin, BA, ‘Chapters of the English Black Monks, 1215-1540’.

1928 Gladys A. Thornton, BA, PhD, ‘A study in the history of Clare, Suffolk, with special reference to its development as a borough’.

1929 F.S. Rodkey, AM, PhD, ‘Lord Palmerston’s policy for the rejuvenation of Turkey, 1839- 1847’.

1930 A. Ettinger, DPhil, ‘The proposed Anglo-Franco-American Treaty of 1852 to guarantee Cubato Spain’.

1931 Kathleen A. Walpole, MA, ‘The humanitarian movement of the early nineteenth century to remedy abuses on emigrant vessels to America’.

1932 Dorothy M. Brodie, BA,, ‘Edmund Dudley, minister of Henry VII’.

1933 R.W. Southern, BA, ‘Ranulf Flambard and early Anglo-Norman administration’.

1934 S.B. Chrimes, MA, PhD, ‘Sir John Fortescue and his theory of dominion’.

1935 S.T. Bindoff, MA, ‘The unreformed diplomatic service, 1812-1860’.

1936 Rosamund J. Mitchell, MA, Blitt, ‘English students at Padua, 1460- 1475’.

1937 C.H. Philips, BA, ‘The East India Company “Interest, and the English Government of 1783-1784’.

1938 H.E.I. Phillips, BA, ‘The last years of the Court of Star Chamber, 1630- 1641’.

1939 Hilda P. Grieve, BA, ‘The deprived married clergy in Essex, 1553- 1561 ‘.

1940 R. Somerville, MA, ‘The Duchy of Lancaster Council and Court of Duchy Chamber’.

1941 R.A.L. Smith, MA, PhD, ‘The “Regimen Scaccarii” in English monasteries’.

1942 F.L. Carsten, DPhil, ‘Medieval democracy in the Brandenburg towns and its defeat in the fifteenth century’.

1943 No submissions made and no award.

1944 Rev. E.W. Kemp, BD, ‘Pope Alexander III and the canonization of saints’.

1945 Helen Suggett, BLitt, ‘The use of French in England in the later middle ages’.

1946 No award.

1947 June Milne, BA, ‘The diplomacy of John Robinson at the court of Charles II of Sweden, 1697-1709’.

1948 No award.

1949 Ethel Drus, MA, ‘The attitude of the Colonial Office to the annexation of Fiji’.

1950 Doreen J. Milne, MA, PhD, ‘The results of the Rye House Plot, and their influence upon the Revolution of 1688’

1951 K.G. Davles, BA, The origins of the commission system in the West India trade’.

1952 G.W.S. Barrow, BLitt, ‘Scottish rulers ant the religious orders, 1070-1153’.

1953 W.E. Minchinton, BSc(Econ), ‘Bristol – metropolis of the west in the eighteenth century’.

1954 Rev. L Boyle, OP, ‘The “Oculus Sacerdotis” and some other works of William of Pagula’.

1955 G.F.E. Rude, MA, PhD, ‘The Gordon riots: a study of the rioters and their victims’.

1956 No award.

1957 R F. Hunnisett, MA, DPhil, ‘The origins of the office of Coroner’.

1958 Thomas G. Barnes, AB, DPhil, ‘County politics and a puritan “cause celebre”: Somerset churchales, 1633’.

1959 Alan Harding, BLitt, ‘The origins and early history of the Keeper of the Peace’.

1960 Gwyn A. Wllliams, MA, PhD, ‘London and Edward I’.

1961 M.H. Keen, BA, ‘Treason trials under the law of arms’.

1962 G.W. Monger, MA, PhD, ‘The end of isolation: Britain, Germany and Japan, 1900-1092’.

1963 J.S. Moore, BA, ‘The Domesday teamland: a reconsideration’.

1964 M. Kelly, PhD, The submission of the clergy’.

1965 J.J.N. Palmer, BLitt, ‘Anglo-French negotiations, 1390-1396’.

1966 M.T. Clanchy, MA, PhD, ‘The Franchise of Return of Writs’.

1967 R. Lovatt, MA, DPhil, PhD, ‘The “Imitation of Christ” in late medieval England’.

1968 M.G.A Vale, MA, DPhil, ‘The last years of English Gascony, 1451-1453’.

1969 No award.

1970 Mrs. Margaret Bowker, MA, BLitt, ‘The Commons Supplication against the Ordinaries in the light of some Archidiaconal Acta’.

1971 C. Thompson, MA, ‘The origins of the politics of the Parliamentary middle groups, 1625-1629’.

1972 I. d’Alton, BA, ‘Southern Irish Unionism: A study of Cork City and County Unionists, 1884-1914’.

1973 C.J. Kitching, BA, PhD, ‘The quest for concealed lands in the reign of Elizabeth I’.

1974 H. Tomlinson, BA, ‘Place and Profit: an Examination of the Ordnance Office, 1660-1714’.

1975 No award made for this year.

1976 B. Bradshaw, MA, BD, ‘Cromwellian reform’

1977 No award.

1978 C.J. Ford, BA, ‘Piracy or Policy: The Crisis in the Channel, 1400-1403’.

1979 P. Dewey, BA, PhD, ‘Food Production and Policy in the United Kingdom, 1914-1918’.

1980 Ann L. Hughes, BA, PhD, ‘Militancy and Localism: Warwickshire Politics and Westminster Politics, 1643- 1647’.

1981 C.J. Tyerman, MA, ‘Marino Sanudo Torsello and the Lost Crusade. Lobbying in the Fourteenth Century’.

1982 E. Powell, BA, DPhil, ‘Arbitration and the Law in England in the Late Middle Ages’.

1983 A.G. Rosser, MA, ‘The essence Of medieval urban communities: the vill of Westminster,1200- lS40’.

1984 N.L. Ramsay, MA, LLB, ‘Retained legal Counsel, c.1275-1475’.

1985 George S. Garnett, MA, ‘Coronation and Propaganda: Some Implications of the Norman Claim to the Throne Of England in 1066’.

1986 C.J. Given-Wilson, ‘The King and the Gentry in Fourteenth Century England’.

1987 No award.

1988 R.A.W. Rex, .NIA, ‘The English Campaign against Luther in the 1520s’.

1989 J.S.A. Adamson, BA, PhD, ‘The Baronial Context of the English Civil War’.

1990 Shelley C. Lockwood, BA, ‘Marsilius of Padua and the Case for the Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy’.

1991 David L. Smith, MA, PhD, ‘Catholic, Anglican or Puritan? Edward Sacksville, Fourth Earl of Dorset and the Ambiguities of Religion in Early Stuart England.’

1992 Giles Worsley, MA, PhD, ‘The Origins of the Gothic Revival: A Reappraisal’.

1993 Clifford J. Rogers, BA, MA, PhD, ‘Edward III and the Dialects of Strategy’.

1994 Joseph Charles Heim, BA, MA, PhD, ‘Liberalism and the Establishment of Collective Security in British Foreign Policy’.

1995 Rachel Gibbons, BA, ‘Isabeau of Bavaria, Queen of France: the creation of an historical villainess’.

1996 No award.

1997 Steve Hindle, MA, MA, PhD, ‘The Problem of Pauper Marriage in Seventeenth Century England’.

1998 Neil W. Hitchin, BA, MA, ‘The Politics of English Bible Translation in Georgian Britain’.

1999 Magnus Ryan, BA, MA, PhD, ‘Bartolus of Sassoferrato and Free Cities’.

2000 Helen Berry, BA, PhD, ‘Rethinking Politeness in Eighteenth-Century England: Moll King’s Coffee House and the Significance of Flash Talk’.

2001 No award.

2002 Quintin Colville, BA, MA, ‘Jack Tar and the gentleman officer: the role of uniform in shaping class- and gender- related identities of British naval personnel, 1930-1939’.

2003 No award.

2004 Ian Mortimer, BA, MA, RMSA, FRHistS, ‘The Triumph of the Doctors: Medical Assistance to the Dying c.1570-1720’

2005 No award.

2006 Sethina Watson, ‘The Origins of the English Hospital’

From this point the prize is awarded for the year of publication of the article, and presented in the year following publication.

2007 Alice Rio, ‘Freedom and Unfreedom in Early medieval Francia: the Evidence of the LegalFormulae’ in Past and Present 193 (2006)

2008 Mary Partridge, ‘Thomas Hoby’s English Translation of Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier’ in The Historical Journal, 50 (2007), pp. 769-786

2009 No award.

2010 George Molyneaux, ‘The Old English Bede: English Ideology or Christian Instruction?’ in English Historical Review, 124 (2009), pp. 1289–1323

2011 Richard Huzzey, ‘Free trade, free labour, and slave sugar in Victorian Britain’ in Historical Journal, 53, 2 (2010)

2012 Levi Roach, ‘Public Rites and Public Wrongs: Ritual Aspects of Diplomas in Tenth- and Eleventh-Century England’, in Early Medieval Europe, vol. 19, (2011).

2013 Jasper Heinzen, ‘Transnational Affinities and Invented Traditions: The Napoleonic Wars in British and Hanoverian Memory, 1815-1915’ in English Historical Review, vol. 27, no. 529 (2012)

2013 David Veevers, ‘”The Company as their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah”: Imperial Expansion and the English East India Company on the West Coast of Sumatra, 1685-1740’ in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 41, 5 (2013), pp. 687-709

From this point the prize is awarded for and presented in the year following publication.

2015 Ryan Hanley, ‘Calvinism, Proslavery and James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw’, Slavery & Abolition 35:1 (2015) (published online Sep 2014).

2016 Mary Cox, ‘Hunger Games: Or how the Allied Blockade in World War I Deprived German Children of Nutrition, and Allied Food Aid Subsequently Saved them’, Economic History Review, 68: 2, (2015), 600-31.

2017 Stephanie Mawson, ‘Convicts or Conquistadores?: Spanish Soldiers in the Seventeenth Century Pacific’, Past and Present, 232:1 (2016), 87-125.

2018 Marcus Colla, ‘Prussian Palimpsests: Architecture and Urban Spaces in East Germany, 1945-1961,’ Central European History, 50 (2017), 184-217.

2019 Jake Richards, ‘Anti-Slave-Trade Law, “Liberated Africans” and the State in the South Atlantic World, c. 1839-1852’, Past and Present, 241 (2018), 170-219.

2020 Meira Gold, ‘Ancient Egypt and the Geological Antiquity of Man, 1847-1863’, History of Science, 57:2 (2019), 194-230.

2021 Matthew Birchall, ‘History, Sovereignty, Capital: Company Colonisation in South Australia and New Zealand‘, Journal of Global History, 16 (2020), 141-57.

2022 Tamara Fernando, ‘“Seeing Like the Sea”: A Multispecies History of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery, 1800-1925’, Past and Present (February 2021), 127-60

and

Anna McKay, ‘”Allowed to Die?” Prison Hulks, Convict Corpses and the Enquiry of 1847’, Cultural and Social History (May 2021), 163-81.

2023 Jake Dyble, ‘General Average, Human Jettison, and the Status of Slaves in Early Modern Europe’, Historical Journal, 65 (2022), 1197-1220.

and

Roseanna Webster, ‘Women and the Fight for Urban Change in Late Francoist Spain’, Past & Present (October 2022)

2024 Ellen Smith, ‘Widows, Violence and Death: The Construction of Imperial Identity and Memory across British India, 1857–1926’, Gender & History (2023).

and

‘Changing Queenships in Tenth-Century England: Rhetoric and (Self-)Representation in the Case of Eadgifu of Kent at Cooling’, Early Medieval Europe (2023).