history essay competition year 13

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Julia Wood History Essay Competition

Home → Study Here → Outreach → Essay Competitions → Julia Wood History Essay Competition

The Julia Wood prize is an annual History essay competition named in memory of a St Hugh’s College historian.

The Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College, Oxford offer a prize, worth up to £500, for the best historical essay submitted by a pupil who, at the closing date, has been in the Sixth Form of any school or college for a period of not more than two years.

The choice of historical subject is left to candidates. As the below examples suggest, essays which fare well in the competition tend to be specially researched and written for it.

Entries should be 2000 – 4000 words in length, including any material in the footnotes which is additional commentary or content related to your essay. References or citations in footnotes, and your bibliography, are not included in this word count. You are welcome to use whichever style of referencing you prefer. Essays must be submitted in PDF format.

The 2024 competition is now closed. Details of this year’s winning essays can be found to the right of this page.

Details of the 2025 competition will be published in late January/early February 2025.

Please direct any enquiries to [email protected]

2024 Julia Wood Prize Winners

This year, the number of entries to the Julia Wood Prize was 402. The prizes were awarded as follows:

Anna Batstone – Magdalen College School, Oxford (Year 12)

Treasure Trove or Fool’s Gold: To What Extent Can Literature Be Used as a Historical Source?

Alexandra Kochman – Wycombe Abbey, High Wycombe (Year 12)

The Odyssey: How did Polish refugees keep the idea of Poland alive during the Second World War?

Thomas Rowlands – St Leonard’s School, St Andrews (Year 12)

To what extent were the methods used to foster an East German national identity different under the regimes of Ulbricht and Honecker?

Dermot Christmas – St Paul’s School, London (Year 12)

The Pagan Period in Burma: to what extent did it influence Burmese resistance to the British Empire?

Mary-Ellen Dyson – St Michael’s Catholic Grammar School, London (Year 12)

To what extent was Henrietta Maria typical of a medieval woman?

The winners, runners up and a number of others who were highly commended were invited to a celebratory tea in College in September.

St Hugh’s College

Founded in 1886, St Hugh’s is now one of the largest colleges in Oxford. The College was established to offer an Oxford education to women, and it retains a strong sense of its radical tradition and of the importance of opening Oxford up to all who would do well here. St Hugh’s now accepts men and women, and welcomes students from every country and any kind of background.

St Hugh’s has a beautiful setting just to the north of the city centre, with Edwardian buildings and some of the largest college grounds. The College is known as the ‘island site’ because of its tranquil gardens, and it is a restful place to live and work.

St Hugh’s College admits about 11 undergraduates a year to read single Honours History; and a further two or three (in varying combinations) for the Joint Honours Schools of Ancient and Modern History, History and English, History and Modern Languages, and History and Politics.

What we are looking for is the ability to think imaginatively, a willingness to argue, a real interest in ideas, and a commitment to the subject. We have no preference for particular subjects at A-level, International Baccalaureate or other post-16 qualifications. Most candidates will usually have been studying History, but even this is not essential. However, languages (both modern and classical), English Literature, and Economics have, in their different ways, proved useful preparations for the course. We welcome both pre- and post- qualification applications; and we generally admit a few people each year from Scotland, Ireland, and further afield.

St Hugh’s provides excellent facilities for studying History: the library has unusually large and up-to-date holdings in all periods, and there is an active, sometimes rumbustious History Society. We encourage our undergraduates to travel in vacations. In recent years many of our historians have gone on to undertake research in History and related fields; others have got jobs in journalism, television, law, teaching, the Foreign Office, the UN, the City, Brussels, management and management consultancy, publishing, etc. The world has proved to be their oyster, with historical training at St Hugh’s providing them with the essential bit of grit.

More information about studying History at St Hugh’s College is available on our course and admissions pages .

Since the establishment of the Julia Wood History Essay Competition in 1994, 81 school students have been given prizes; many of these people went on to study History at Oxford and St Hugh’s. The names of the winners and their essay titles can be seen below.

Who was Julia Wood?

Julia Wood was an alumna of St Hugh’s College. She was born on 19th December 1938 and studied History and was an Exhibitioner at the College between 1957 and 1960. Tragically, she died in an accident whilst in Australia in 1970. The fund for the Julia Wood Prize was established by the parents and friends of Julia Wood in May 1971.

Privacy Overview

Essay Competitions Deadline

Each year, Fitzwilliam College runs essay competitions in a variety of subjects, allowing talented pupils to explore their interests beyond the school curriculum.

The University of Cambridge seeks out students with a passion for their subject and who have investigated it outside the classroom. Our essay competitions provide students with an opportunity to engage with their interests in this way, allowing them to demonstrate their enthusiasm for their subject.

2024 Competitions

This year we will be running essay competitions in Ancient World and Classics, Archaeology, Economics, History, Land Economy, Medieval World and Slavonic Studies. We will additionally be running an Architecture design competition. Further particulars and this year's questions can be found at the links below. Please read the competition rules and submission guidelines carefully before entering a competition.

Ancient World and Classics

Archaeology

Economics (for state-school UK students only - please see link for details on eligibility)

Land Economy

Medieval World

Slavonic Studies

Architecture – students wishing to enter the Architecture Design Competition may find this plan of Fitzwilliam College and information on the history of Fitzwilliam’s buildings useful

The deadline for all competitions is  6pm on  Friday 1st March 2024 .

Competition rules

These essay competitions are exclusively for students in their penultimate year of education (Year 12 in England and Wales, S5 in Scotland, Year 13 in Northern Ireland). They are open to students in any country but submissions must be written in English.

Submissions should strictly adhere to the word limit set out in the subject brief (2500 words for Archaeology, Classics & Ancient World, History, Land Economy, Slavonic Studies and Medieval World; 1500 words for Economics; 500 words for the Architecture narrative), and contain a bibliography at the end. The word count should exclude the bibliography, but include any footnotes. Each page should be numbered and contain the applicant's full name.

We understand that not all students will have previous experience of writing a bibliography, and may not have equal access to advice on doing so. We therefore include this link to guidance on how to correctly use the Harvard referencing system. Anyone who wishes to use a different referencing system is free to do so.

Students are only permitted to enter one competition and may only submit one entry to that competition. There is a strict limit of five submissions per school for each competition. If more than five students from the same school enter the same competition, a teacher from that school will be contacted and asked to select the five entries; failure to do so will result in all submissions from the school to that competition being disqualified. Please note that this limit does not apply to Sixth Form Colleges where year groups are over 1000 students in size. When submitting an essay, the student will be asked to provide the name and email address of a teacher who may be contacted in order to verify the submission.

The submission must be entirely the individual student's work and must not be submitted or have been submitted to an exam board as part of any coursework or extended essay, either in part or in full.

Submission guidelines

Anyone who wishes to enter an essay competition must complete the online form .

Submissions can be uploaded to the online form in a PDF format. If the file size is too big to upload to the form, please email your submission to [email protected] . We can also accept entries by post. Please address postal submissions to: Schools Liaison Officer, Fitzwilliam College, Storey's Way, Cambridge, CB3 0DG.

You should receive an email confirmation after submitting the form. If you do not receive confirmation within 24 hours, please contact us at the email address below. Any technical difficulties will be dealt with on the next day, and students affected may be allowed to submit late in some circumstances.

Writing Webinars

Students preparing submissions who would like advice on essay writing may wish to seek advice from our two essay writing webinars:

•   Webinar 1 - Initial Preparation - 12th January 2024  at 6pm

**Please note, due to an issue with recording, this is last years webinar. All the information is the same bar these two changes**:

• The deadline for the competition is Friday 1 st of March 2024 at 6pm
• We are running a Slavonic studies competition this year, in addition to the competitions listed in this webinar
• Webinar 2 - Finalising your Essay - 16th February 2024 at 2pm

The webinars are delivered by the Schools Liaison Officer - the first webinar focuses on initial planning, research, and structuring of an academic essay, while the second provides advice on how to finalise arguments, edit, and reference your essays. Please email [email protected] with any questions about this event. 

If you have any questions relating to the competitions please contact us on  [email protected]

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Cambridge & District branch: Ancient History and Classical Civilisation Essay Competition 2022

• March 25, 2022
• Categories: Competition , Schools , Student , Teachers

The Classical Association – Cambridge & District Branch: Ancient History and Classical Civilisation Essay Competition 2022

Key Details

  The competition is open only to students in Years 10-11 (GCSE) and Years 12-13 (A Level) studying Ancient History or Classical Civilisation.

Entries from students not studying these subjects will not be accepted.

The competition will be judged by Dr Rosanna Omitowoju and Dr James Watson.

Students wishing to enter the competition should answer  one  question as specified in the following table:

Students’ essays should be no longer than  1,500 words  (to include any footnotes but excluding any bibliography).

Each student may submit only  one   entry.

Each school may submit no more than  five  answers to each question.

The closing date for entries is  Friday 25 th  March 2022 .

Results will be announced early in the Summer Term. The results will be sent to all participating schools, together with some general feedback from the judges.

First and Second Prizes in the form of National Book tokens will be awarded for the best responses to each question..

Submission of Entries

  Entries should be submitted as a  PDF  file and should contain the following information:

– The name of student

– The name of school

– An indication of which subject the student is studying (i.e. Ancient History or Classical Civilisation) and at which level (i.e. GCSE or A Level)

– A word count

Entries should be submitted by a teacher (not by individual students) by e-mail to Barbara Kern at  [email protected] .

It would be very helpful if all entries from a school could be attached to a single e-mail, if possible, and with each entrant’s name on the respective file.

After submission, entries will be available to Cambridge CA branch officers and the competition judges (via e-mail / Dropbox).

All entries will be deleted after the judging process has been completed

Join us in historic St Andrews, next 11-13 July 2025, for our annual CA Conference.

Everyone is welcome and you can now submit your proposals for the panels, papers and workshops that will fill the weekend!

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