Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal

The Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal is a prize awarded annually by the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge for the doctoral dissertation submitted in the previous academic year which is deemed by the Faculty's judging panel to be the best. As of May 2025, the prize is valued at £1,500 and is drawn from the Prince Consort and Thirlwall Prize Fund, which also offers studentships and grants to PhD students, and hardship funding for fourth-year PhD students. ^[1]

History

The prize is the result of a merger between the Prince Consort Prize, the Thirwall Prize, and the Seeley Medal. From 1904, the Prince Consort Prize and Thirlwall Prize were awarded in alternate years for the best doctoral dissertation.

The Seeley Medal emerged from an attempt, in 1896, to create a Memorial Fund in memory of John Robert Seeley, a former Regius Professor of History at the Faculty, who had died the previous year. The organisers were unsuccessful in raising their target of £3,000 to offer a postgraduate scholarship "to encourage the study of English and foreign archives bearing upon modern international history"; only £635 was raised, which was eventually designated for the Seeley Medal to reward exceptional historical scholarship. Prior to its merger with the Prince Consort and Thirlwall Prizes, the Seeley Medal was only awarded sporadically. ^[2]

List of past winners

The following is an incomplete list of past winners. The year given is the year in which the prize was awarded; the dissertations to which they refer were submitted in the previous years.

Year	Names of recipients	Title of doctoral dissertation
2025	Elena Zheng [3]	The Politics of Belief in Hume and Enlightenment Scepticism
2023	Charlotte Johann [4]	Friedrich Carl von Savigny and Politics of Legal Pluralism in Germany, ca. 1810–1847
	Tamara Fernando	Of Molluscs and Men: Pearling Labour and Environments in the Northern Indian Ocean 1880–1925
2022	Daniel Allemann [5]	Slavery and Empire in Iberian Scholastic Thought, c.1539-1682
	Samuel Sokolsky-Tifft [6]	The Problem of Guilt: Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Fanon, and Glissant
2021	Sara Caputo [7]	Foreign Seamen and the British Navy, 1793–1815
	Jake Subryan Richards	Liberated Africans and Law in the South Atlantic, c.1839–1871
2020	Freddy Foks [8]	Social Anthropology and British Society: c.1920–1975
	Chika Tonooka	Japanese 'Civilisation' and Ideas of Progress in Britain, c.1880–1945
2012	Emile Chabal	Republicanism, Liberalism, and the Search for the Political Consensus in France, c.1980–c.2010
2001	Emma Griffin	Popular Sports and Celebrations in England, 1660–1840
2000	David Stone	TheManagement of Resources on the Demesne Farm of Wisbech Barton 1314–1430
1999	Jonathan Walker	Honour and theCulture of Male Venetian Nobles, c. 1500–1650
1961	David Loades

References

1. "Faculty of History Trust Funds | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
2. "John Robert Seeley; Mary Agnes Seeley – Mill Road Cemetery". millroadcemetery.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
3. "Elena Zeng wins Cambridge University's Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal | University Center for Human Values". uchv.princeton.edu. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
4. "Faculty Trust Fund Prizes | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
5. "Student Prizes 2021-22 | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
6. "Samuel Sokolsky-Tifft, Ph.D." Institute for Social Concerns. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
7. "Prince Consort and Thirlwall Prize winners 2020 | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
8. "Drs Chika Tonooka and Freddie Foks win Prince Consort Prize | Faculty of History University of Cambridge". www.hist.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-14.