About the OEC Prize
The Old Edinburgh Club Prize for Edinburgh History is open to postgraduate Masters students in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. It is awarded for a dissertation on a subject relating to the history of Edinburgh.
The University is responsible for publicising the Prize to students and assessing and nominating the prize-winner.
Prize-winner 2024/25
We are delighted to announce the award of the OEC Prize for Edinburgh History, 2024/25 to postgraduate Ellie Whitehead for her dissertation, Satan’s Invisible World Discovered: the Defence of Spirits and the Supernatural in 17th century Scotland. We have invited Ellie to write an article for the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club. This will feature mathematician George Sinclair who researched witchcraft, ghosts, poltergeists and other supernatural phenomena, including “that marvellous history of Major Weir and his sister” and two Edinburgh apparitions.
Past Prize-winners
Previous winners have been:
- Charlotte Bowers for her thesis on “Men who loved their fellow mortals: Blood donor recruitment, identity and motivation in Edinburgh, 1930-1939”, and
- Maximilian Knight on “Edinburgh’s Slavery Connection: The British Linen Company and the Plantation Colonies (1727-1833)”
Publication
We invite winners to contribute an article for the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club.
We have published articles based on these theses in the Book of the Old Edinburgh Club volumes 16 (2020) and 17 (2021).
