Wakefield Press Essay Prize
Wakefield Press Essay Prize
The Wakefield Press Essay Prize began in 2005. It was named the 'Wakefield Companion to South Australian History Prize' until 2018. The prize is given for the best essay on a topic relating to the history of South Australia.
The prize is open to anyone who, during the previous year, has written or published an essay dealing substantially with some aspect of South Australian history. The word length should be between 2,000 and 10,000 words (including footnotes/endnotes).
The prize consists of a $500 book voucher from Wakefield Press.
Submissions for the 2026 Wakefield Press Essay Prize are now closed. The winner will be announced at the History Festival Closing Celebration, 31st of May 2026.
Past Recipients
2025
Winner: Dr André Brett, '“So Unusual, So Horrible, and So Rapid in the Fatal Result”: The Death of James Garden Ramsay and Summertime Railway Travel in Colonial Australia."
2024
Winner: Amanda Wells, 'Halting Chowilla Dam: Salt, Science, and River Murray Politics in the 1960s'
Read more about Amanda's essay here.
2023
Winner: Susan Arthure, 'Rage and Resistance: Remembering the Women of Baker's Flat'
Judges' Commendation: Robyn Dunlop, 'A Painted Landscape: Hans Heysen, Aroona and Aboriginal History in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, 1927-28'
2022
Winner: Stephen Valambras Graham, ‘Open Doors: The Art of Charity in the Promised Land’. (University of South Australia)
Judges’ Commendation: Angela Woollacott, ‘1968 and the Fight for Democracy in Australia: Don Dunstan, student activism and the end of the South Australian ‘Playmander’’. (Australian National University)
2021
Winner: Connor Deegan, '’Setting the pioneer legend in stone: The memorialisation of Captain Charles Sturt in the early twentieth century’.
Judges’ Commendations:
Rita Bogna, ‘Under siege: The Spanish flu in South Australia, 1919-1920’.
Maggi Boult, ‘Smallpox and the office of the Colonial Surgeon in South Australia, 1839-1855.’ (University of Adelaide)
2020
Winner: Susan Arthure, 'Kapunda's Irish Connections'. This article is from a chapter in 'Irish South Australia: New Histories and Insights'. (Flinders University)
2019
Main Prize: Professor Phillip Deery, ‘Spying in South Australia: "Comrade Anne" and ASIO's infiltration of the South Australian Communist Party’. (Victoria University)
Second Prize: Anita Stelmach, ‘Mrs Gleiber's Boarding House: a “rendezvous for the lowest characters” in early twentieth-century Adelaide’. (Flinders University)
2018
Winner: Doug Munro, 'The house that Hugh built: the Adelaide history department during the Stretton era, 1954-1966'. (University of Queensland)
Wakefield Companion to SA History Essay Prize for the most outstanding student essay in 2017 awarded to Sandra Kearney for 'Soldier repatriation and regeneration, World War One'. (Flinders University)
2017
Winner: Dr David Faber, ‘FG Fantin: An historical legacy retrieved’. (University of Adelaide)
2016
Winner: Rachel Harris, ‘South Australia's wartime economy and women's welfare in conflict: the experiences of female munition workers and members of the Australian Women's Land Army in SA, 1940-1945’. (University of Adelaide)
2014/2015
Joint Winners:
Yianni Cartledge, 'Ikarians in South Australia: the origins of the Pan-Ikarian Brotherhood of SA "Ikaros Inc", and its connections with the community'. (Flinders University)
Carmel Pascale, 'Chinese Immigration Restriction and the Pursuit of Nationalist Ideals in Colonial South Australia’. (University of Adelaide)
2013/2014
Winner: Walter Marsh, ‘Rupert Murdoch’s Political Transformation: From left-learning student to anti-union capitalist at the Adelaide News, 1953-1960’. (University of Adelaide)
2008-2012
Hiatus
2007
Winner: Christine Lockwood, 'Immanuel College and Seminary: the Lutheran Church and World War II Misunderstandings'
2006
No award.
2005
Winner: Kirsty Seidel, 'Quaker opposition to compulsory military training in South Australia, 1910-1914'
