Australian History Awards

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.

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.