Robert Silver Essay Prize 2023

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Robert Silver

Robert Silver (1956-2019) had a lifelong passion for politics and history. Born in London, he studied at St. Paul’s School (1969-73) and was awarded a History Scholarship to Trinity College and studied History there from 1974-77.  According to his obituary in The Guardian, ‘He enjoyed a glittering heyday as an undergraduate, with impressive social and intellectual talents’ and began a PhD at Cambridge on politics and opinion in the 1980s, supervised by Zara Steiner.

According to his lifelong friend, Peter Freeman
Robert had a fabulous memory, was a ferocious conversationalist, an avid debater and a trenchant writer.

His friends at Cambridge included Oliver Letwin and Charles Moore. He was later called to the Bar and wrote on politics for The New Statesman, The Spectator and for The Times. He was an active member of the Labour Party. 

Robert would have enjoyed a successful career had his life not been blighted by mental illness. He died aged 63 of pulmonary disease, but despite his long illness he had a wonderful gift for friendship and a great generosity of spirit.

After his death in 2019 his family and friends set out to preserve his memory with an Essay Prize in his name on his three great passions, history, politics and Jewishness.

The prize is now offered on a subject related to the impact of British Jewry on 20th century Britain. Essays should be no more than 8,000 words. In addition, submissions should include a summary version of 500 words. The winner will receive £1,000 and a short version of the winning essay will be published in the Jewish Chronicle.

The aim of the prize is to attract submissions from undergraduate and postgraduate students, young academics, journalists and writers. Applicants should be a UK citizen or registered for an undergraduate/postgraduate programme within a UK university.

The prize was first awarded in 2021, and the 2022 winner was Hollie Eaton, a PhD student in History at University College, Oxford, whose essay was entitled '"Blackguards in Bonnets": Women’s suffrage, Judaism and interfaith relations, 1910-1914'.   An abridged version of the essay was published in the Jewish Chronicle on 26 August 2022.

The deadline for submissions for this  year's prize is 21 April 2023.  Enquiries and submissions can be made to silverprize@hist.cam.ac.uk.  The Faculty encourages its alumni to spread news of the prize widely.  The winner will be announced before the end of the academic year.