New annual undergraduate prize in memory of Professor Barry Coward
An annual prize for the best undergraduate dissertation in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck has been created in memory of our late colleague Professor Barry Coward.
The prize will be funded by a £1,000 donation raised by The Historical Association from its members in memory of Barry, who died in 2011 aged 70.
Barry was a leading historian and a highly valued member of Birkbeck’s academic community for more than 40 years. Barry's own publications on seventeenth-century England found a wide audience, and his The Stuart Age (a fourth edition of which was published in 2011) was used by generations of A-level students. After his retirement from Birkbeck in 2006, Barry became President of the Historical Association, which works to promote the understanding and study of history, particularly to schools.
Professor John Arnold, Head of Birkbeck’s Department of History, Classics and Archaeology and Assistant Dean, said: “This money enables us to reward outstanding achievement by our undergraduate finalists. Barry always put the students first in his long career at Birkbeck, and I think that he would be pleased that we honour his memory by giving something to them, for their own work on history."
Photograph contains, from left to right, Professor Jackie Eales (President of the Historical Association), Professor John Arnold (Head of the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology and Assistant Dean), Shirley Coward (Barry Coward’s widow), and Becky Sullivan (CEO, Historical Association)
Photo credit: A. J. Levy