On 7 July in central London the Historical Association held our annual awards evening. The evening is an opportunity to present in person the awards for some of the competitions that the HA organises and to recognise many of the people who have achieved awards in history, contributed to the history community and supported the HA.

The evening started with the Young Quills awards for children’s fiction for 2021 (which had been delayed due to Covid) and for 2022. There was a full house of authors this year which was very special, and we look forward to working with many of them again in the future. 

This was followed by updates on the HA’s Teacher Fellowships, which continue to be very popular and provide wonderful resources for the wider history and teaching communities, followed by the Chartered Teachers of History. All the schools that have achieved the HA Quality Mark were celebrated, especially as it is such a huge achievement to have gained the award during the difficulties of the past couple of years.

Rebecca Sullivan, CEO of the HA, and Professor Peter Mandler, President of the HA, presented this year’s Honorary Fellows with their certificates and outlined to us all why they were such worthy recipients.

The final part of the evening is the awarding of the HA’s Medlicott Medal for ‘Outstanding contributions to History’, one of the most prestigious awards in the History community as the list of previous recipients demonstrates. This year the award went to Professor David Olusoga, a revered TV historian, a writer and a practising academic at Manchester University.

As is the custom the recipient of the Medlicott medal provides the closing lecture of the evening. Professor Olusoga spoke elegantly and passionately about the way that history is politicised and how important it is that we are all able to know about and understand the diverse history of the societies we live in. He addressed issues of inclusion, diversity and ensuring that history is used to embrace an understanding of our collective pasts, warts and all, not simply used as a way to instil patriotism and idealised views of past societies.

The full film of the lecture is available to HA members via the links below, and a full article on the evening will be in the next HA News:

• View David Olusoga's lecture (Historian members)
• View David Olusoga's lecture (Primary members)
• View David Olusoga's lecture (Secondary members)

After a year of not happening at all and a year of happening late, it was great to be back on schedule, even if it was a little warm! We look forward to announcing next year’s Medlicott Medal awardee in the spring.