Whitfield Book Prize

The Whitfield Book Prize is a prize of £1,000 awarded annually by the Royal Historical Society to the best work on a subject of British or Irish history published within the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland during the calendar year. To be eligible for the award, the book must be the first history work published by the author.

History of the prize The prize was founded in 1976 out of the bequest of Archibald Stenton Whitfield. Originally, the prize was £400; five years later, it was increased to £600. Currently, the prize is £1,000.

Winners and shortlisted writers Source: Royal Historical Society

Ireland and the Great War, written by Niamh Gallagher, became the first book about Irish history to win the prize in 2020.

1970s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 1977–1979 Year Author Title Result1977John BurnsWinner1978Winner1979Denzil Holles, 1598–1680: A study of his Political CareerWinner

1980s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 1980–1989 Year Author Title Result1980Winner1981Winner1982Norman Leslie JonesFaith by Statute: Parliament and the Settlement of Religion, 1559Winner1983Winner1984Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750–1850Winner1985Annals of the Labouring PoorWinner1986Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an English County, 1500–1600Winner1987Criticism and Compliment: The politics of literature in the England of Charles IWinner1988Reforming London, the London Government Problem, 1855–1900Winner1989Medieval Westminster, 1200–1540Winner

1990s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 1990–1999 Year Author Title Result1990Political change and the Labour party, 1900–1918Winner1991Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640Winner1992Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401 -1499Winner1993Commoners: common right; enclosure and social change in England, 1700- 1820Winner1994Winner1995Winner1996Youth and Authority Formative Experience in England, 1560–1640Winner1997Domestic Biography: the legacy of evangelicalism in four nineteenth-century familiesWinner1998Winner1999Understanding Popular Violence in the English Revolution: The Colchester PlunderersWinner

2000s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 2000–2009 Year Author Title Result2000Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700Winner2001God's House at Ewelme: Life, Devotion and Architecture in a Fifteenth Century AlmshouseWinnerBuilding on Ruins: The Rediscovery of Rome and English ArchitectureWinner2002Popular Politics and the English ReformationWinner2003Patterns of Piety: Women, Gender and Religion in Late Medieval and Reformation EnglandWinner2004Making English Morals: Voluntary Association and Moral reform in England, 1787–1886Winner2005Queer LondonWinner2006Birth Control, Sex and Marriage in Britain, 1918–1960Winner2007WinnerWinner2008George Canning and Liberal Toryism, 1801–1827WinnerFree Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil Society in Modern BritainWinner2009Winner

2010s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 2010–2011 Year Author Title Result2010Winner2011Godly Kingship in Restoration England: The Politics of the Royal Supremacy, 1660–1688 Winner2012Winner2013Making Toleration: The Repealers and the Glorious RevolutionWinner2014Dating changed from "year published" to "year of award"2015Officers and Accountability in Medieval England 1170-1300Winner2016Princely Education in Early Modern BritainWinner2017WinnerWinner 2018Communications and British Operations on the Western Front, 1914-1918Winner2019Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, c.1770-1830Winner

2020s +Whitfield Book Prize winners and finalists, 2020–2029 Year Author Title Result2020Ireland and the Great War: A Social and Political HistoryWinnerBlack Handsworth: Race in 1980s BritainShortlistInauguration and Liturgical Kingship in the Long Twelfth Century: Male and Female Accession Rituals in England, France and the EmpireShortlistThe Veterans’ Tale. British Military Memoirs of the Second World WarShortlistSharing the Burden. The Armenian Question, Humanitarian Intervention, and Anglo-American Visions of Global OrderShortlistThinking Black: Britain, 1964–1985Shortlist2021England's Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish MarchesWinnerWinnerHistory and the Written Word: Documents, Literacy, and Language in the Age of the AngevinsShortlistMasculinity and Danger on the Eighteenth-Century Grand TourShortlistThe Intelligence War against the IRAShortlistIrish Women and the Great WarShortlist2022Imperial Bodies in London. Empire, Mobility, and the Making of British Medicine, 1880-1914WinnerSaving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and EmpireShortlistHistories of Everyday Life: The Making of Popular Social History in Britain, 1918-1979 ShortlistFemale Monasticism in Medieval Ireland: An ArchaeologyShortlistMemory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern EnglandShortlist‘The First National Museum’: Dublin's Natural History Museum in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Shortlist2023Spiritual Wounds. Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil WarWinnerShortlistGiving Birth in Eighteenth-Century EnglandShortlistIllegitimacy, Family, and Stigma in England, 1660-1834ShortlistIrish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700 ShortlistReading the Book of Nature: How Eight Best Sellers Reconnected Christianity and the Sciences on the Eve of the Victorian AgeShortlist2024To be announced July 2024Winner

Whitfield Book Prize

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