SSLH BA/Masters Dissertation Bursary

Are you studying labour history topic for your dissertation or are you supervising a student who is?

The Society for the Study of Labour History (SSLH) BA/Masters Dissertation Bursary supports archival and library research that will contribute to a dissertation on a labour history topic. The maximum of individual awards is £500. For the academic year 2020-21, it supports access to online/digitised material. This may include, for example, digitisation/copying costs of material provided to individual students for their research or individual subscriptions to online archival databases (where there is no access through the applicant’s institution).

Bursary holders must either be in the final year of an undergraduate degree or undertaking a taught Masters degree. They must be a registered student at a university in the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. The application form and further information can be found here: https://sslh.org.uk/bursaries-grants/

 

RHS Masters’ Scholarships: supporting students currently underrepresented in academic history

In July 2022 the Royal Historical Society (RHS) launches a new programme to actively address underrepresentation and encourage Black and Asian students to consider academic research in History.

The Society is offering four scholarships, each of £5000, to four students who will begin a Masters’ degree in History (full or part-time), or related subject, at a UK or Irish university from autumn 2022.

The Scholarships continue and develop the Society’s commitment to tackling underrepresentation in academic History. By supporting Masters’ students the programme also focuses on a key early stage in the academic training of future researchers. With these Scholarships, the RHS seeks to support students who are without the financial means to study for a Masters’ in History. By doing so, we seek to improve the educational experience of four early career historians engaged in a further degree.

Applications for the 2022 Scholarships are now invited. Please apply online. The deadline for applications is: 23.55 BST on Friday 12 August 2022.

 

The 2022 Masters’ Scholarships

The current rounds of awards provide:

  • four scholarships of £5000 each to support four students undertaking a Masters’ degree at a UK university in the academic year 2022/23;
  • there are no conditions on what the award may be spent and may be used to support fees, living expenses etc. during the degree course;
  • Scholarships will support students studying for a Masters’ degree (taught or research-based) in History or where History is the dominant component of the degree (e.g. History of Science)

 

Eligibility

To be eligible for the Scholarships, applicants must:

  • be accepted onto a Masters’ course at an HEI in the UK. Conditional offers are acceptable at application; however, release of funds is contingent upon confirmation of formal acceptance;
  • have an undergraduate degree from an HEI in the UK (although this need not necessarily be in History);

Applicants must also meet the following requirement:

  • have been in receipt of a full Maintenance Grant, or other means-tested and non-repayable financial support, for their undergraduate studies

Applicants must also meet one or more of the following requirements:

  • have participated in an access scheme, foundation year, or widening participation scheme;
  • have previously been eligible for free school meals;
  • be the first in their family to attend Higher Education;
  • have asylum seeker/refugee status issued by the UK Home Office;
  • be from an ethnic minority background as stipulated by the Equalities Act, including but not limited to Black, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Gypsy/Romany/Traveller communities;
  • have spent time in care, or be estranged from family;
  • hold/have held caring responsibilities;
  • have a disability.

 

Financial eligibility

Applicants must be able to provide evidence that they received a full Maintenance Grant or equivalent [1], during their programme of undergraduate study. We will ask to see documentary evidence of this prior to releasing funds. If you have any questions about your eligibility, please don’t hesitate to contact the Society.

Awards may be held in conjunction with an institutional fee waiver, but not an institutional grant or scholarship.

 

How to apply

Applications for the RHS Masters’ Scholarships 2022 are now invited.

Please submit your application via the Society’s online application platform.

Applicants are asked to provide the following:

  • indication of their eligibility for the programme, as set out above
  • educational history;
  • a brief statement providing further information in support of their application;
  • evidence of conditional / unconditional offer on a Masters’ scheme within parameters set out above
  • upload of evidence of receipt of Maintenance Grant.

 

Applications open on Thursday 7 July and will close on 12 August 2022

The Society expects to contact recipients of awards in late August / early September 2022.

 

The future of the Scholarships programme

The Society intends that the Scholarships become an annual award and grow in number. We welcome enquiries from organisations interested in partnering with the Society—now or future rounds from 2023. The Masters’ Scholarships add to the Society’s existing Research Support programme which provides fellowships and grants to early career historians.

 

Continuing and developing the Royal Historical Society’s longstanding support of underrepresented groups, our new Masters’ Scholarships provide essential financial assistance for students undertaking postgraduate study in History.

The financial challenge that some students face in continuing their training is well known—especially when moving from undergraduate to postgraduate courses. The Society’s new Scholarships, offering direct and practical assistance, will support four students when taking this step in 2022-23. We hope the RHS Masters’ programme will run annually, enabling early career historians without financial means to consider a career in academic History.

As shown through the Society’s recent Ukraine ‘Scholars at Risk’ programme, schemes like this also have great potential to grow. We therefore welcome enquiries—from organisations and individuals—to partner with the Society to make more Masters’ Scholarships available from 2023.

 

Professor Emma Griffin, President, Royal Historical Society

 

[1] Eligible schemes will not require the student to repay the funds granted.

 

RHS Library & Archive

The Royal Historical Society’s Library and Archive provide an important service to the historical community, and make available a wide range of primary and secondary resources for research.

The Society’s Library holds more than a thousand works of historical scholarship published from the sixteenth century to the present day. The RHS Archive contains important collections of papers relating to historians and the development of the historical profession, as well as to the work, and membership, of the Society itself.

 

The Royal Historical Society Library

The Society’s Library has two reading rooms and is located within the main library of University College London, next to the RHS Office and Council Chamber. RHS Fellows and Members are welcome to visit the Society’s Library, and also to use the main UCL History collection as a benefit of membership.

The Library holds more than 1000 secondary works of historical scholarship on open shelves. The collection comprises antiquarian titles, publications of UK record and local history societies, and reference works.

Also available are monographs published by the RHS (including the ‘Studies in History’ and ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series); and complete sets of the Society’s journal, Transactions (1872-2021) and the Camden Series of primary sources (1838-2021).

The Library also maintains an online listing of UK and Irish historical and record societies providing contacts for research.

More on the Royal Historical Society’s Library and collections.

 

The Royal Historical Society Archive

The Society’s Archive includes a range of named collections, principally of historians and the development of the historical profession in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The archive also contains extensive papers relating the governance and activities of the Society, from the 1860s to the 2010s.

The Society’s largest collection is that of 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.

Other important collections include the papers of the Camden Society (1838-1897); of the Tudor historian Sir Geoffrey Elton (1922-1994), relating to his publications and literary estate; and of the governance, membership, events and activities of the Royal Historical Society, from 1868 to the 2010s.

In 2022 the Society published new catalogues for these major collection areas, with further details in the Archive section of the RHS website.

More on the Royal Historical Society Archive and its collections.

 

Access to the Library and Archive

Both the Library and Archives are housed at the Society’s offices in the main library of University College London, Gower Street.

RHS Fellows and Members are welcome to use the History collections, including those of wider UCL, as a benefit of membership.

If you wish to visit the RHS Library please make an appointment via administration@royalhistsoc.org.

 

Alexander Prize

 

The Alexander Prize is awarded for an essay or article based on original historical research, by a doctoral candidate or those recently awarded their doctorate, published in a journal or an edited collection of essays.

The Prize was endowed in 1897 by L.C. Alexander, Secretary of the Society at its foundation in 1868 and a Life Member from 1870. The original endowment offered ‘to provide yearly a Gold Medal to be called The Alexander Medal’. The gold medal was later changed to a silver medal and now the successful candidate is awarded a prize of £250.

Applications for the 2024 Alexander Prize have now closed (31 December 2023). Please see below on the timetable for the 2024 Alexander Prize and that for 2025 for which applications are invited from September 2024.


Alexander Prize Winners, 2023

Congratulations to Dr Jake Dyble and Dr Roseanna Webster who were announced as co-winners of the 2023 Alexander Prize on 6 July.

Judges’ citation for Jake Dyble’s article:

Jake Dyble tackles a major question regarding the history of the Transatlantic slave trade: how different was this trade to earlier types of enslavement? This is not only a problem for historians but a key issue in modern political debates—particularly with regard to restorative justice.

Dyble uses an ingenious method to uncover a clear answer to the conundrum. He uses legal cases regarding the jettison of cargo, including living animals or people, to determine that there was a significant shift in attitude towards the enslaved.

The panel were impressed with the use of legal history but also the way in which the author was able to make a difficult technical topic comprehensible to non-specialists.

Judges’ citation for Roseanna Webster’s article:

Roseanna Webster’s work on Francoist Spain is a classic account of history from below. She focuses on female activists in new housing estates whose concerns were to gain the necessities of life, such as a regular supply of running water.

Webster’s use of oral histories shows how the role of activist jarred with traditional gender roles, and how this caused the women themselves some unease. Webster’s unusual choice of subject matter and her careful handling of her source material has produced a nuanced account of life under Franco, which focuses not on soldiers or dissidents but on ordinary women and their ambivalence about their new roles.


Timetable for the 2024 Alexander Prize

  • Submissions for the 2024 Prize open: 1 September 2023
  • Closing date for entries for the 2024 Prize: 31 December 2023
  • Shortlist for the 2024 Prize announced: May / June 2023
  • Winner of the 2024 Prize announced: July 2023

All enquiries about the Prize should be addressed to the RHS. Please contact: administration@royalhistsoc.org.


How to enter the Alexander Prize, 2025

Submissions for the 2025 Prize, from authors, will be accepted from 1 September 2024 prior to the closing date of 31 December 2024. Further details of the 2025 Alexander Prize will be announced in due course. To be eligible for consideration for the prize:

  • Candidates must be doctoral students in a historical subject in a UK institution, or be within two years of having a submitted a corrected thesis in a historical subject in a UK institution at the time of the closing date for entries.
  • The article or essay must have been published in a journal or edited collection during the calendar year 2024 (for the 2025 prize round). Advanced access publisher versions are also eligible, but an item cannot be entered more than once in subsequent years
  • An electronic copy of the publisher’s version the article or essay will need to be uploaded to the entry form.

A list of previous winners of the Alexander Prize (1898-2023) is available here.

 

Martin Lynn Scholarship – Guidelines

Thanks to the generosity of the family of the late Martin Lynn, the Society has pleasure in announcing the establishment of an annual award in his memory. Martin Lynn was Professor of African History in the Queen’s University, Belfast, the first scholar to hold a chair in African history in Ireland. His scholarly career was devoted to the history of West Africa and he published most extensively and importantly on the 19th and 20th century history of Nigeria. His scholarly achievements were matched by the reputation he enjoyed as an exciting and concerned teacher and a delightful, generous colleague and friend. This award reflects the interests of the man it commemorates. Annually the Society will make an award of up to £1,000 to assist an historian pursuing postgraduate research on a topic in African history.

Eligibility

  • Eligible students will be registered for a PhD or DPhil. Students must be registered at a UK institution. Students may be full-time or part-time.
  • Eligible students will have successfully completed their first year of full-time or first two years of part-time study by the time the award is taken up.
  • Applications are open to researchers of all nationalities, however the Society does not normally fund students to do research in their own country of permanent residence if this is outside the United Kingdom.
  • Applications will NOT be considered for research to be conducted within the four weeks immediately following the deadline.
  • Grants cannot be sought retrospectively.

Criteria for Assessment

In making its funding decisions, the Research Support Committee uses the following criteria:

  • A well-written proposal will enhance both the likelihood and the value of RHS funding.
  • Priority is given to applicants who provide clear evidence of the historical significance of their project as a whole and specify in detail how the requested funds will advance and enrich that project.
  • Applicants should ensure that their proposals extend beyond mere description to analysis: for example, they should indicate the project’s key research questions and (if research is already at an advanced stage) their conclusions thereon.
  • Priority is given to applicants who provide a detailed and economical budget. You are advised to take the cheapest possible travel option.
  • Priority is given to applicants who demonstrate that they have sought out the full range of available funding, both at their home institution and among relevant scholarly societies.
  • Priority is given to candidates whose progress toward their degree is clearly and specifically attested by their PhD/DPhil supervisor.
  • Applicants intending to use the award to carry out research within Africa will be especially welcomed.

The application process

  • From the 7 January 2020, the RHS switched to a new online system for applications. If you had an incomplete application started before the 6 January 2020, you will now be unable to access or submit your application.  All new applications for Research Support Grants (including Conference Travel, Research Expenses and Conference Organisation) should be made using the new RHS application system, which can be accessed here.
  • A copy will be emailed to your referee, who will be asked to provide a reference. No application will be considered without a supporting academic reference. You are reminded to submit your application in sufficient time to allow your supervisor to provide their reference before the closing date for which you are applying.
  • If your application to the Martin Lynn Scholarship is unsuccessful, your request for funding will automatically be considered under the Society’s Research Expenses scheme which offers grants of up to £750. You do not need to apply to both schemes.
  • All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application within six weeks of the closing date for applications.
  • If your application is successful, you will need to provide proof of expenditure before any grant is paid to you. This may be done prior to travel or after travel but the grant must be claimed within six months of the date of the award. If you are unable to claim the award within six months and do not inform the Society, you will be deemed to have forfeited the offer of the grant.
  • If you have already purchased travel tickets, please do not submit these with your application. If your application is successful, you will be sent full details on how to claim the grant.
  • Successful applicants will be required to provide a full report on the uses to which the grant has been put and the outcome in terms of contribution to the progress of the research within one month of completion of the proposed research.

Notes for referees

  • The committee would be greatly assisted if referees were to address the merits of the application and specific requests for funding as well as the merits of the applicant.
  • If the applicant is in their first year of a postgraduate research degree, the referee is asked to confirm that the student will upgrade.
  • Priority is given to candidates whose progress toward their degree is clearly and specifically attested by their PhD/DPhil supervisor.

All enquiries about research support applications should be addressed to the RHS Membership and Administration Officer at: membership@royalhistsoc.org

Apply now

 

ECH Publishing: After Publication

 

Unlike with journal articles, you are almost guaranteed to get some feedback, at least within the first year, in the form of book reviews. Your publisher will ask you for a list of journals that are relevant to your book – you’re entitled to give them a reasonably long list, though make sure that they really are relevant and do publish book reviews. Include online book review sites.

You’re entitled to check up to ensure that the publishers have sent copies of your book to at least a healthy selection of the journals that you have specified. Most book reviews are pretty anodyne. They’ll tell the reader what the book is about and give it a general recommendation. Sometimes they’ll be more, or less, enthusiastic. You may well feel that some reviewers have been unfair, perhaps protecting their turf or their own interpretation. That’s the luck of the draw. You have to hope that across the spread of reviews you get justice.

It is almost never a good idea to write to a negative reviewer (or to the journal) to claim a right-to-reply. There is no such thing, unless you can prove malice, in which case you ought to be in court. The economics of book publishing are not changing as fast as they might. Most academic monographs are now selling under 400 copies each. They will sit in a limited number of libraries, where they will not be read by many (if any) people. This is partly because a lot of monographs are being produced more for hiring and promotion purposes than out of intellectual necessity, and partly because monographs are the part of the publishing landscape least accessible to online users.

It may be that the spread of e-books and the development of open-access options for monographs (still only in their infancy) may address this latter deficiency. Regardless, you can take heart from the knowledge that, as with journal articles, their shelf-life is very long indeed. If anything you write is still read at all 100 years from now, it’s likely to be a book.

 

 

RHS Teaching Portal

 

In November 2020 the RHS launched its Teaching Portal. The Portal provides a series of short, practical guides to tasks and career stages for History research students and teachers in higher education.

The Teaching includes over 50 articles written by experienced researchers, teachers and resource providers. Articles are themed ‘For Teachers’ and ‘For Students’; and by ‘Innovative Modules’, ‘Transition through HE’, ‘Careers’ and ‘Online Resources’.

Access the RHS Teaching Portal >

 

The Portal is an resource for teachers of history and a forum for debate and discussion about the pedagogy of our discipline. Additionally, it provides support in the face of unexpected challenges, such as adapting to digital learning in a pandemic.

The teaching portal is open to all: we hope its audience will be not just RHS Fellows and Members, but all teachers and students of history who wish to learn more and share their expertise, experience and insights.

We also welcome proposal for new articles.

 

 

Society launches new David Berry Fellowship in Scottish History

The Royal Historical Society is pleased to announce the inaugural David Berry Fellowship in Scottish History and the History of the Scottish People.

Launched in December 2023, the David Berry Fellowship provides an annual award of up to £2,500 to undertake research on the history of Scotland and the Scottish people worldwide.

Invitations are now invited for the inaugural David Berry Fellowship prior to the closing date of 1 March 2024. For more on the Fellowship, eligibility, and how to apply, please see here.

The Fellowship is a new award drawing on the David Berry Fund, donated to the Society in 1929 and used, until 2022, to support the David Berry Prize in Scottish History. The change to a Fellowship from 2024 is in line with the Society’s strategic aims of using available funds to support new research and activity by historians.

The David Berry Fellowship may be used to undertake research, and to cover the costs of research, into an aspect of the history of Scotland and / or the history of the Scottish people within the United Kingdom or worldwide, within 12 months of 1 March 2024.


What is covered by the Fellowship?

The David Berry Fellowship is intended to enable and facilitate research that would not otherwise take place. Sources of funding may include, but are not limited to:

  • Travel to an archive or research site
  • Accommodation while researching away from home
  • Entrance charges for archives, or similar, where required
  • Fees for obtaining or posting research materials (e.g. copying / scanning)
  • Please note: the Fellowship may not be used to pay a third party to undertake research or to support the publication of a final manuscript

Other current calls for RHS research funding

In addition to the David Berry Fellowship, applications for the following grants are now open with deadlines marked below:

  • RHS Workshop Grants – awards of £1000 for historians to hold day-long events to pursue a wide range of activities and projects, including but not limited to research. Next closing date for applications: Friday 19 January 2024.
  • Early Career Research Fellowships – for historians within 5 years of completing a PhD to support career-building research or activities in the post-PhD period. Awards of £2000, maximum, providing support for discrete outcomes lasting no more than 6 months. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.
  • Open Research Support Grants – for all historians who are not postgraduate students or early career researchers (within 5 years of completing a PhD). Awards of either £500 or £1000 to support specified research activities. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.

HEADER IMAGES: (left); William Duguid, Scottish textile importer based in Boston (1773), by Prince Demah Barnes; (right) ‘Janet Law’, by Sir Henry Raeburn, both Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, public domain.

 

Annual RHS dinner for Fellows, Holborn, London, 1926

History of the Society

The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868 as part of the great Victorian boom in associational life. Like the Royal Geographical Society (founded 1830) and the Royal Archaeological Institute (1844), it came together at a turning-point in the professionalisation of knowledge, combining amateur scholars with a growing number of full-time professional historians, based in universities, archives and museums.

By the 1890s the Society was taking on more public, professional responsibilities – organising national events (such as the Domesday Commemoration of 1886), overseeing the teaching of history in schools and universities, and working closely with the British Museum and the Public Record Office – a tradition that continues today, with the British Library and The National Archives.

 

Camden Society merger

RHS letter 1897

Royal Historical Society letter 1897

By 1897 the Society had become a fixture in the national organisation of historical research. In that year the Camden Society, an older society dedicated to the publishing of edited primary sources in English history (founded 1838), chose to amalgamate with the RHS.

The RHS continues to publish the Camden Series to this day. The Bibliography of British History, (now the Bibliography of British and Irish History), originates from the same period. The Society’s journal, Transactions of the RHS dates from 1872 and marks its 150th year in 2022.

 

20th-century development

Applications for the RHS Fellowship, 1918

For much of the twentieth century the Society was a typical learned society, devoted to cultivating its discipline with a programme of publications, conferences and other stimuli to research, and maintaining its own library and meeting rooms – peripatetically around London until installed in 1967 at University College London.

Its membership became more academic, but always maintained a number of ‘amateur’ scholars, as well as professionals engaged in advanced historical research in libraries, archives, museums and other institutions. For this reason election to the Fellowship has always been open to anyone who can show through publication or otherwise a record of achievement in historical research, regardless of employment status.

 

G.W. Prothero, President, 1901-5, after whom the annual Prothero Lecture is named (c) NPG, London, CC BY-ND-NC 3.0.

 

Reflecting the nature of historical research in Britain, its membership and leadership were originally rooted in English history, and especially medieval history, but have gradually diversified over time, a shift marked in 1964 by the election of the first non-European historian to the presidency, the distinguished Latin Americanist, Robin Humphreys.

RHS Presidents are prominent historians who serve for four year terms; the first President was appointed in 1872, the latest (and 35th) in November 2020: Past Presidents of the Royal Historical Society.

 

 

Government involvement

Since the 1960s, government has involved itself increasingly in the organisation of historical research in universities, and accordingly the Royal Historical Society has engaged more closely with government, working on behalf of historical researchers.

During the ‘run-down’ of universities in the early years of the Thatcher governments of the 1980s, a History in the Universities Defence Group was set up by university departments who felt that the RHS had not moved quickly enough to take on these new responsibilities, but since the 1990s the Society has emerged again as the principal voice for historians in matters of public debate.

 

Policy influence

Jinty Nelson

Janet (Jinty) Nelson, RHS President 2001-5

Topics on which the Royal Historical Society has taken a position have ranged from Freedom of Information to the 30-year-rule governing the release of public records; from the policies of the research and university funding councils to the efforts of government departments to open up academic research to public impact and scrutiny.

Working closely with the Historical Association, the Society has also helped to bridge the gap between schools and universities. One of its past Presidents, Peter Marshall, was on the working group that drafted the first national curriculum for history in the late 1980s, and in recent years its officers have again played a prominent role in the re-drafting of the national curriculum (and criteria for GCSE and A-Level).

 

The Royal Historical Society today

RHS Publish History Awards

 

Today the Society continues to fulfil its traditional roles as a learned society alongside this more public role as tribune for history in all its manifestations, and an advocate for the discipline and profession.

 

2021 Online Workshop for ECR Historians, from the RHS Council Chamber

 

In the early 2020s, the Society’s work focuses on the following areas: advocacy and policy research; events and training; publishing; grants and research support, especially for early career historians; awards and professional recognition; and the RHS Library and Archive which records the development of the UK’s historical profession.

 

 

 

More about the RHS today >

 

Current Research Funding Calls from Royal Historical Society

Allocation of research funding is central to the Society’s work of supporting historians and historical research.

In 2023 the Society has awarded £110,085 in funding to historians through open competitions, generously assisted by partner organisations and donors. In 2023-24, the Society is continuing to develop and extend its funding programmes for historians, within and outside Higher Education, and at at all career stages.

Full details of the Society’s Research Funding programmes are available here. The Society currently invites applications for the following three schemes with closing dates of Friday 1 March 2024. For further information on each programme, eligibility and how to apply please follow the links below.

  • Early Career Research Fellowships for historians within 5 years of completing a PhD to support career-building research or activities in the post-PhD period. Awards of £2000, maximum, providing support for discrete outcomes lasting no more than 6 months. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.
  • Open Research Support Grants for all historians who are not postgraduate students or early career researchers (within 5 years of completing a PhD). Awards of either £500 or £1000 to support specified research activities. Next closing date for applications: Friday 1 March 2024.

Applicants for Royal Historical Society funding must be members of the Society, with several exceptions for Postgraduate grants. To find out how to become a Fellow, Associate Fellow, Member or Postgraduate Member, please see our Join Us page.


Enquiries concerning these, and other RHS Research Funding programmes, please contact: administration@royalhistsoc.org