This prize is awarded for the best presentation by a higher degree research student or an early career researcher at the annual conference. This paper will be published, subject to the usual refereeing process, in law&history, the Society’s journal.
The prize is valued at AU$500 and the society wishes to acknowledge the generosity of the Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History for sponsoring this prize.
Past winners:
2025 Clare Davidson, ‘Feudalism, land law and F.W. Maitland’s analytical medievalism’. Citation: an outstanding and extremely well-argued piece that would be of interest to legal and social historians; the article offers a novel contribution to the scholarly literature that would be of high interest to the judiciary and the broader law academy (seeing medieval concepts and terms are widely invoked in common law discourse, often for justificatory purposes).
2025 Highly commended – Lucie O’Brien, ‘The Realm of Happy Prosperity’: Bankruptcy and the Bulletin in 1920s Australia
2025 Highly commended – Imran Ahmed, Promises Unkept: Minority Rights and the Ambiguity of Pakistan’s Early Constitutional Vision, 1947-54
2024 Bridget Andresen, ‘The Imagined Rapist in the Queensland Courtroom, 1945–1955′.
2023 Ash Stanley-Ryan, ‘Ka mua, ka Muri: He Whakaputanga, Concealed Indigenous Histories, and the Making of International Law’.
2022 Not awarded.
2021 Elizabeth Bowyer, ‘Taking the Stand: Women as Witnesses in New Zealand’s Colonial Courts c.1840-1900’.
2020 Not awarded.
2019 Georgina Rychner, ‘Defences to intimate partner homicide: Historicising the relationship between provocation and temporary insanity in Victoria, Australia.’
2018 Tim Calabria, T’he Bungalow and the Transformation of the “Half-Caste” Category in Central Australia: Race and Law at the Limits of a Settler Colony 1914-37′.
2017 Jon Piccini, ‘”A new government with new policies and new attitudes”: The human rights ‘breakthrough’ in 1970s Australia’.
2016 Danielle Boaz, ‘Fraud, Vagrancy and the “Pretended” Exercise of Supernatural Powers in England, South Africa, and Jamaica’.
2015 James Kirby, ‘”Conditional on a Bill of Rights”: Race and Human Rights in the Constitution of Botswana, 1960-66’.
2014 Janine Rizzetti, ‘Judging Protection: “The Unintentional Errors of an Unlearned Magistracy”, British Guiana and Port Phillip, 1830s–40s’.
How to Apply
Applicants should indicate their interest in being considered for the prize to the conference conveners prior to the conference.
A final written paper of 8000 words plus notes, in a format consistent with law&history journal style guide, should be submitted to the editor of the journal no later than 6 weeks after the annual conference. Please include an abstract (maximum of 200 words) with your submission.
Papers will be judged by a panel appointed by the editor of law&history.
Winners are normally announced by the following April.
Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society 