Postgraduate Paper Prize
This prize is awarded for the best paper given by a postgraduate student at our annual conference.
This prize is awarded for the best paper given by a postgraduate student at our annual conference.We are excited to announce the return of this prize, which was paused between 2020 and 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual return to in person conferences. The 2025 prize will be judged by a committee led by Dr David Hitchcock and includes a £300 cash prize for the winning entry.
Any registered postgraduate whose paper has been accepted for the conference is eligible to enter our Postgraduate Paper Prize. You will be invited to declare an interest at the point of submission.
Papers should be no more than 2,500 words and should contain references (there is no prescribed style, but these must be consistent). We anticipate that some papers will be considerably shorter, as the length is ultimately determined by the time available to present it!
Full papers must be submitted by midday on 25 June 2025.
Recent Winners
2019: Katrina-Louise Moseley (University of Cambridge), ‘It Leaves a Horrible Taste in My Mouth’: Making Sense of Gustatory Feeling in Post-War Britain.
2018: Stephanie Allen (University of Hertfordshire), Recreating Virginity: Fears of Sexual Deviance in Early Modern England, c. 1540-1750. You can read more about the winning paper here.
2017: Sophie Greenway (University of Warwick), Producer or consumer? The house, the garden and the sourcing of vegetables in Britain, 1930-1970. You can read the winning paper here.
2016: Kate Gibson (University of Sheffield), Natural Alliances: Illegitimate Children and Familial Relationships in Long Eighteenth Century England. You can read the winning paper here.
2015: Alex Loxham (Lancaster University), Handling the Stock: Women, Fabric and Tactility in Nineteenth-Century English Shops. You can read the winning paper here.
2014: Leah Astbury (University of Cambridge), Caring for Newborns in seventeenth-century England.
Prize Winners on the Exchange
Following our 2018 annual conference, we set up a new Social History Exchange blog and invited the prize winners and runners-up to contribute, reflecting on their experience of the conference and presenting as well as discussing their research. You can read their posts by clicking the links below: