Congratulations to Daniel Hale who has won the Peter Parish Dissertation Prize for his MA dissertation ‘”Persons of Greatest Credit”: Executive Clemency in Texas, 1849-1865’.  This is a notable achievement given that this is a national prize and there is only a single winner each year.  The prize is awarded annually by BrANCH, the British Association of American Nineteenth Century Historians, for the best undergraduate or postgraduate dissertation on American nineteenth-century history. The judges commented that the dissertation was ‘a well written investigation displaying rigorous research and sensitive handling of evidence’, and particularly commended the section on slavery and the strong conclusion.

Having completed the MA in Modern History last year, Daniel chose to stay on at Reading and is now studying part-time for a PhD.