The RHS Early Career Article Prize is awarded for an essay or article based on original historical research, by a doctoral candidate or an early career historian within three years of being awarded a doctorate, published in a journal or an edited collection of essays.

Two prizes of £250 each are awarded annually.

Applications for the Royal Historical Society’s Early Career Article Prize closed on Friday 31 January 2025.

Further details of those articles eligible for consideration for the 2025 award are provided below.

Eligibility for the RHS Early Career Article Prize, 2025

To be eligible for consideration for the prize:

• applicants must be doctoral students in a historical subject at a UK or Irish institution, or be within three years* of having a submitted a corrected thesis in a historical subject in a UK/Irish 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.

*this is an extension from the two years for applicants for the article prize in 2024 and before.

Submitting your article for the prize, 2025

For 2025, entries for the RHS Early Career Article Prize remain via self-nomination by the author. The process for submission is as follows:

• eligible authors whose article / book chapter qualifies for the 2025 prize should submit an application via the RHS applications platform (open from Monday 2 December 2024 to Friday 31 January 2025). At this stage, applicants will be asked to provide the publisher’s version of the article as a pdf. The closing date for online applications for the 2025 prize round is Monday 31 January 2025.
• all submissions will then be reviewed by the judging panel to create a long-list from February 2025.
• judging then takes place leading to the creation of a Shortlist of six articles, from which two final winners of the RHS Early Career Article Prize will be chosen. The award of the next round of article prizes is expected to occur in or soon after July 2025.

RHS Early Career Article Prize Winners, 2024

Congratulations to Ellen Smith and Jonathan Tickle who are the co-winners of the 2024 prize.

• Ellen is the author of ‘Widows, Violence and Death: The Construction of Imperial Identity and Memory across British India, 1857–1926’, Gender & History (2023).
• Jonathan is the author of ‘Changing Queenships in Tenth-Century England: Rhetoric and (Self-)Representation in the Case of Eadgifu of Kent at Cooling’, Early Medieval Europe (2023).

Judges’ citation for Ellen Smith’s article:

Ellen Smith’s work explores a critical dimension of understanding imperialism and the justification of imperial projects, by examining how a feminised culture of mourning was utilised and contested in India. Ellen shows how British widows’ memorialisation of their husbands and their service in the military, the Indian Civil Service or as missionaries was part of shaping narratives around ‘honour’ and violence.

The panel were very impressed with Ellen’s methodological approach, which used three women as case studies to explore the different dimensions of imperial work noted above. This produced an exceptionally rich depth of archival sources, which Ellen uses to powerful effect in this complex and multi-faceted study.

Judges’ citation for Jonathan Tickle’s article:

Jonathan Tickle’s article is centred upon Sawyer 1211, an Anglo-Saxon charter in which Queen Eadgifu endowed Christ Church in Canterbury with two estates in Kent, namely at Cooling and Osterland.

Sawyer 1211 has been explored by many historians as it reveals a longstanding dispute over land. Nonetheless, this article brings a fresh, vibrant and vital analysis of the text. Jonathan makes a highly original and compelling contribution by using this legal document as the basis for a rich discussion of women’s rights and the limits to and possibilities of queenship in the 10th century. The panel were impressed with how Jonathan used a legal document as a means for exploring performativity in politics in this period.

• A full listing of previous winners of the Royal Historical Society’s article prizes, previously known as the Alexander Prize (1898-2024) is available here.

General enquiries about Society’s Prizes should be sent to: administration@royalhistsoc.org.

IMAGE: ‘Specimens of Penmanship after Jan van de Velde and other Calligraphy Books, Conrad Baumann’, c. 1620, Metropolitan Museum of Art Collections, public domain

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.

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