Announcement: Stearn Essay Prize Winner is Matthew Holmes

Congratulations to Matthew Holmes (University of Leeds, PhD student) for winning the William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize for 2014.

Matthew’s winning entry was The perfect pest: natural history & the red squirrel in nineteenth-century Scotland.

 

The William T. Stearn Student Essay Prize was instituted in honour of the late William T. Stearn, a scholar whose work contributed much to the field and to this Society. This annual award is given by the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH) for the best original unpublished essay in the field of history of natural history.

The judging panel considered his work “a well-written essay on the perceived pest status of the red squirrel in nineteenth century Scotland, and its relevance to early thinking and practices in nature conservation. It is well-researched and clearly argued, with interesting quotes and anecdotes, and should appeal to the general reader”. It will be published in the Archives of Natural History, the official journal of the Society.

Image: “Squirrel” illustration from “British Mammals” by A. Thorburn, 1920.