This year there was again a record number of entries: 387. The prize was awarded to Kitty Dallas, in the Lower Sixth at St Paul’s Girls’ School, for her essay ‘”Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World?” How should the politics of Innocent III’s pontificate be understood?’. Joint runners up were Lydia Allenby, in the Upper Sixth of King Edward VI School, Morpeth, for her essay entitled ‘A united odium: was the rise and fall of mercantilism the rise and fall of slavery? An assessment of the relationship between the evolution of capitalism and the abolition of the British slave trade’; and Julia Bispham, in the Lower Sixth of Channing School, for her essay ‘Beyond the diagnosis: Was King Ludwig II of Bavaria more than just a “Mad King”?’.
The winners and a number of those who had done particularly well were invited to tea in College, along with entrants to the Mary Renault Prize.
Established in 1971, in memory of a St Hugh’s College alumna, the Julia Wood Prize is an annual History essay competition open to Sixth Form pupils who have not been in the Sixth Form of any school or college for a period of more than two years. The Prize, worth up to £500, is offered by the Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College for the best historical essay submitted.
