Book Prizes
We are pleased to announce that the History of Education Society Book Prizes 2026 nominations are now open. Here is how to submit a nomination:
For books published between 2023 and 2025
The Anne Bloomfield Prize
Prize for the best book written in English on the history of education
- Nominations for books published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025 should be sent to Mark Freeman ([email protected]) with a short 150-200 word supporting rationale.
- Co-authored but not co-edited books may be submitted.
- Those shortlisted should ask their publisher to provide three copies of their book to the panel (postal details will be provided).
- Deadline for submissions midnight on 20 March 2026.
- The winner will be announced at the Society Annual Conference in Maynooth in November 2026.
The Kevin Brehony Prize
Prize for the best first single-authored book written in English on the history of education.
- Nominations for books published between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025 should be sent to Mark Freeman ([email protected]) with a short 150-200 word supporting rationale.
- Those shortlisted should ask their publisher to provide three copies of their book to the panel (postal details will be provided).
- Deadline for submissions midnight on 20 March 2026.
- The winner will be announced at the Society Annual Conference in Maynooth in November 2026.
The Kevin Brehony Prize
For the best first single-authored book written in English on the history of education
Jonathan Doney, Unearthing Policies of Instrumentalization in English Religious Education Using Statement Archaeology, London: Routledge, 2020.
Jonathan Doney’s book explores the underlying theory and method of statement archaeology to analyse policy development, specifically in relation to religious education. It is an innovative book which applies the theory and practice of statement archaeology to the history of education. It does so in a way that makes methodological insights available for further refinement and application to other areas of study. Doney´s book also provides a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of compulsory religious education in English state-maintained schools. From this standpoint, it engages with key current debates in religious education policy and so brings the past and present into a close and productive relationship which enriches our understanding of the past as well as contemporary policy. It will be useful to future scholars and students in history of education as well as those working on educational studies, religious education, research methods and policy and politics more widely.
Previous winners:
2023: Jonathan Doney, Unearthing Policies of Instrumentalization in English Religious Education Using Statement Archaeology. London: Routledge, 2020.
2020: Susannah Wright, Morality and Citizenship in English Schools: Secular Approaches 1897-1944. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
2020, highly commended: Christopher Bischof, Teaching Britain: Elementary Teachers and the State of the Everyday 1846-1906. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
2017: Tomás Irish, The University at War, 1914-25: Britain, France, and the United States, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2015.
2014: shared between Heather Ellis, Generational Conflict and University Reform: Oxford in the Age of Revolution. Leiden: Brill, 2012; and Maura O’Connor, The Development of Infant Education in Ireland 1838-1948. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010.
The Anne Bloomfield Prize
For the best book written in English on the history of education
Rosalind Crone’s book on prison education has uncovered an important yet underexplored area of the history of education. Teaching the 3Rs – reading, writing and later arithmetic – to prisoners in England was a significant enterprise from the early nineteenth century. Even during periods of harsh prison regimes, when there was a heightened expectation that inmates should be punished, education was a continuing presence although, ultimately, the emphasis on deterrence undermined some of the more ambitious attempts at reconstructing prisoners. Crone evaluates the tension between state initiatives across England and the diversity of places and institutions in which prison education actually took place, both in local and convict prisons. Through meticulous scholarly research, she examines the intricate and labyrinthine detail of curriculum and pedagogy in penal settings, where elementary education took on new meanings within the specific prison environment. A significant range of quantitative evidence, archival and documentary research is deployed to provide new insights into this phenomenon. The book enhances our understanding of the history of literacy, education and prisons and so contributes to broader perspectives on the social and cultural history of England.
Previous winners:
2023: Rosalind Crone, Illiterate Inmates: Educating Criminals in Nineteenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
2020: Nancy G. Rosoff and Stephanie Spencer, British and American School Stories, 1910-1960: Fiction, Femininity and Friendship. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
2017: Tim Allender, Learning Femininity in Colonial India 1820-1932. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
2014: Catherine Burke, A Life in Education and Architecture: Mary Beaumont Medd. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.