The Max Kelly Medal plus a prize of $500 is awarded annually to a ‘beginning’ historian for a work of excellence in any aspect of Australian history. The Medal was established as a tribute to Associate Professor Maxwell Jon Kelly (1935-1996), the first elected President of the History Council, who died suddenly in 1996.

Nominations for the 2012 Max Kelly Medal are now closed.

Entries closed 9 December 2011.

2011 Max Kelly Medal Winner

The 2011 Max Kelly Medal was awarded to Rose Cullen for her essay ‘Empire, Indian indentured labour and the colony: the origins of the debate over 'coolie' labour 1836-37’.

Previous winners

2010 Agnieszka Sobocinska

'The Language of Scars': POWs' Bodies and the Overturning of the Colonial Order'

2009 Isobelle Barret Meyering

'Abolitionism, settler violence and the case against corporal punishment'

2008 Grant Mansfield

'The Costs of War: patriotism and price-fixing during the opening months of the Great War in Australia'

2007 Timothy Castle

‘Watching Them Hang: Capital Punishment and Public Support in Colonial New South Wales, 1826-1836’

2006 Emily Pollnitz

‘Romancing the Australian parlour: Passion, patriarchy and genteel love songs, 1880 – 1900’

2005 Janet Butler

‘Journey into War: A Woman’s Diary’

2004 Melissa Bellanta

‘Raiders of the Lost Civilisation, Or, Fabulating the Australian Desert, 1890-1908’

2003 Dr Helen McDonald

2002 Clare Alice Wright

2001

The Medal was not awarded.

2000 Claire Hooker

1999 Melissa Harper

1998 Jacinta Feltis

1997 Amanda Card