Ernest Scott Prize The pre-eminent prize for "original published research that contributes to the history of Australia or New Zealand or to the history of colonisation in these countries." Awarded since 1943, the prize is named in honor of Ernest Scott, regarded as the first historian of Australian historiography, and was endowed by his wife, Emily Scott. The winner is announced each year at the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Lecture, awarded a prize of $13,000 and invited to give the Ernest Scott Lecture at the University of Melbourne. Applicants must be publishers and the work must have been published in the preceding two calendar years. Winners must "live in Australia or New Zealand or the respective external territories [of either country]." There are two judges.Ernest Scott Prize, The University of Melbourne, https://scholarships.unimelb.edu.au/awards/ernest-scott-prize

The prize is typically awarded to one historical writer, although it has been shared between two people and two books nine times. Seven people have won the Ernest Scott Prize twice, including one person who won the prize for two books in the same year (1959). One historian, Alan Atkinson, won the prize three times. The prize has been won by 35 men and 13 women historians, and three non-white historians.

Numerous winners of the prize are part of the Scott lineage, a teacher-undergraduate student chain of historians stretching back to Scott himself. Among the future prize winners Scott taught were Manning Clark, W. K. Hancock and Geoffrey Serle; Clark taught Weston Bate, Ken Inglis, Geoffrey Blainey and Graeme Davison; Blainey taught Janet McCalman and Stuart Macintyre.

Winner Publisher BookYear awardedCharlotte MacdonaldBridget Williams BooksGarrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and across the British Empire2026Jane CareyMonash University PublishingTaking to the Field: A History of Australian Women in Science2025Shannyn PalmerMelbourne University PressUnmaking Angas Downs: Myth and history on a Central Australian pastoral station2024Alan AtkinsonNewSouthElizabeth and John: The Macarthurs of Elizabeth Farm2023 (shared)Rachel BuchananBridget Williams BooksTe Motunui Epa2023 (shared)Lucy MackintoshBridget Williams BooksShifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland2022 (shared)Janet McCalmanThe Miegunyah Press Vandemonians: The Repressed History of Colonial Victorians2022 (shared)Hirini KaaBridget Williams BooksTe Hāhi Mihinare – The Māori Anglican Church2021 (shared)Grace KarskensAllen & Unwin People of the River2021 (shared)Michelle ArrowNewSouth The Seventies: The Personal, The Political and the Making of Modern Australia2020Billy GriffithsBlack Inc. Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia2019Michael BelgraveAuckland University Press Dancing with the King: The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864-18852018Tom GriffithsBlack Inc. The Art of Time Travel: Historians and Their Craft2017Stuart MacintyreNewSouth Australia's Boldest Experiment: War and Reconstruction in the 1940s2016Alan AtkinsonUNSW Press The Europeans in Australia: Volume 3: Nation2015 (shared)Tom BrookingPenguin Books, Auckland Richard Seddon, King of God's Own: The Life and Times of New Zealand's Longest- Serving Prime Minister2015 (shared)Angela WanhallaAuckland University Press Matters of the Heart. A History of Interracial marriage in New Zealand2014Melissa BellantaUniversity of Queensland Press Larrikins: A History2013Damon SalesaOxford University Press Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage, and Victorian British Empire2012Jim DavidsonUNSW Press A Three-cornered Life: The Historian W.K. Hancock2011 (shared)Emma ChristopherAllen & Unwin A Merciless Place: the lost story of Britain's convict disaster in Africa and how it led to the settlement of Australia2011 (shared)Bain AttwoodThe Miegunyah Press Possession: Batman's Treaty and the Matter of History2010Henry Reynolds & Marilyn LakeMelbourne University Press Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality2009 (joint)John FitzgeraldUNSW Press Book Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia2008Regina GanterUniversity of Western Australia Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia2007Joy DamousiUNSW Press Freud in the Antipodes: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Australia2006Alan AtkinsonOxford University Press The Europeans in Australia: A History: Democracy2005Judith BrettCambridge University Press Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class: from Alfred Deakin to John Howard2004Philip TempleAuckland University Press A Sort of Conscience: The Wakefields2003Tony Hughes-D'AethMelbourne University Press Paper Nation: The Story of the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia 1886-18882002 (shared)James BelichPenguin Press Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the 1880s to the Year 20002002 (shared)David WalkerUniversity of Queensland Press Anxious Nation: Australia and the Rise of Asia 1850-19392001Ken InglisMelbourne University Press Sacred Places. War Memorials in the Australian Landscape1999Anne SalmondUniversity of Hawaii Press Between Worlds. Early Exchanges between Maoris and Europeans, 1773-18151998Tom GriffithsCambridge University Press Hunters and Collectors: the Antiquarian Imagination in Australia1996-97David GoodmanAllen & Unwin Gold Seeking Victoria and California in the 1850s1994-95Judith BrettMacmillan Australia Robert Menzies' Forgotten People1992-93Anne SalmondUniversity of Hawaii Press Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and European 1642-17721990-91Alan AtkinsonOxford University Press Camden: Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales1988-89Patrick O'FarrellUNSW Press The Irish in Australia1986-87Janet McCalmanMelbourne University Press Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-19651984-85Ken InglisMelbourne University Press This is the ABC: The Australian Broadcasting Commission 1932-19831982-83Henry ReynoldsJames Cook University The Other Side of the Frontier: An Interpretation of the Aboriginal Response to the Invasion and Settlement of Australia1980-81Graeme DavisonMelbourne University Press The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne1978-79 (shared)Weston BateMelbourne University Press Lucky City: The First Generation at Ballarat 1851-19511978-79 (shared)John RickardANU Press Class and Politics: New South Wales, Victoria and the Early Commonwealth, 1890-19101976-77Max CrawfordSydney University Press A Bit of A Rebel: The Life and Work of George Arnold Wood1974-75John La NauzeMelbourne University Press The Making of the Australian Constitution1972-73Geoffrey SerleMelbourne University Press The rush to be rich : a history of the colony of Victoria, 1883-18891970-71 (shared)Paul HasluckAustralian War Memorial The Government and the People 1942-45 Australian War Memorial1970-71 (shared)Manning ClarkMelbourne University Press A History of Australia Vol 2: New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land 1822-18381968-69Douglas H PikeMelbourne University Press Australian Dictionary of Biography - Vols. 1 & 21966-67John La NauzeMelbourne University Press Alfred Deakin: A biography1964-65Geoffrey SerleMelbourne University Press The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria 1851-611962-63 (shared)Manning ClarkMelbourne University Press A History of Australia, Vol. 1, from the Earliest Times to the Age of Macquarie1962-63 (shared)Bernard SmithOxford University Press European vision and the South Pacific, 1768-1850 : a study in the history of art and ideas1960-61Keith SinclairPenguin & New Zealand University Press A History of New Zealand & The Origin of the Maori Wars1958-59 (shared)Russel WardOxford University Press The Australian Legend1958-59 (shared)Geoffrey BlaineyMelbourne University Press The Peaks of Lyell1955J. S. GregoryUniversity of Melbourne Thesis: Church and state in Victoria (1851-72) : a study in the development of secular principles of government as revealed by the abolition of State aid to religion and to denominational education in Victoria1952A. H. McLintockOtago Centennial Publications History of Otago: The Origins and Growth of a Wakefield Class Settlement1949J. D. LeggeUniversity of Melbourne/University of Oxford Thesis: Survey of Papuan Administration1946Joy E. ParnabyUniversity of Melbourne Thesis: Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in Victoria1943

The Allan Martin Award This biennial award has been named for A. W. Martin (1926–2002) and is administered jointly by the Australian National University and the Australian Historical Association. The award is to encourage "early career historians" for work relating to Australian History. Submissions for this award are those prepared for publication and can be in any form, e.g. a monograph, a series of academic articles, an exhibition or documentary film, or some mix of these. Seven women and six men have won the prize, with one non-white winner.Note: Andy Kaladelfos identifies as a transmasculine, non-binary and queer person.

Winner Book / ProjectYear awardedIzabella NantsouStage Rights: Actors Equity and the Industrial History of Australian Performers2026Amy WayReclaiming Deep History in Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland2025Ebony NilssonRussians Among Us: A cultural history of the Petrov affair2024Rohan HowittUndiscovering Emerald Island: Phantom Islands and Environmental Knowledge in Australia’s Southern Ocean World, 1821–19302023Ben HufThe Economy Is Not A Theory: The Politics of Prosperity in Australia2023Xu DaozhiChinese Perspectives on Indigenous People in Chinese Australian Newspapers, 1894-19372022Annemarie McLarenWhen the Strangers Come to Stay: Aboriginal-Colonial Exchanges and the Negotiation of New South Wales, 1788-18352021Alexandra Dellios Remembering Migrant Protest and Activism: the Migrant Rights Movement in pre-Multicultural Australia2020 (shared)Mike Jones Culture, common law, and science: representing deep human history in Australian museums2020 (shared)André Brett Scars in the Country: An Enviro-Economic History of Railways in Australasia, 1850–19142019 (shared)Iain Johnston-White The Dominions and British Maritime Power in the Second World War2019 (shared)Peter Hobbins An intimate pandemic: Fostering community histories of the 1918–19 influenza pandemic centenary2018Benjamin Mountford A Global History of Australian Gold2017Ruth Morgan Australindia: Australia, India and the Ecologies of Empire, 1788–19012016Amanda (now Andy) Kaladelfos Immigration, Violence and Australian Postwar Politics2014Melissa Bellanta Racial Crossings: Race, Intermarriage, and Victorian British Empire2012Not awarded "No application of sufficient merit was received."2010Fred Cahir Black gold: aboriginal peoples and gold in Victoria 1850-18702008Not awarded Reason unknown2006Maria Nugent Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet2004

Blackwell AHA Prize

The publishers, Blackwell Publishing Asia, have sponsored a prize for the best postgraduate paper at a Regional Conference.

The AHA information states that the "prize will be judged on two criteria: 1) oral presentation of the paper 2) written version of the conference paper. The written version of the conference paper (not a longer version) is to be submitted at the start of the conference. The winner of the prize will be announced at the close of the conference."

2007 Winners Melissa Bellanta (University of Sydney) for Raiders of the Lost Civilisation, or, Adventure-Romances of the Australian Desert, 1890-1907, and Nell Musgrove (University of Melbourne) for Private Homes, Public Scrutiny: Surveillance of 'the family' in postwar Melbourne

WK Hancock Prize

The WK Hancock Prize is run by Australian Historical Association (AHA) with the Department of Modern History, Macquarie University. It was instituted in 1987 in honour of Sir Keith Hancock and his life achievements.