We are thrilled to announce that Dr Murray Seccombe (History PhD, 2022) has been awarded the 2023 Gordon Forster Essay Prize.

The prize, which is sponsored by the journal Northern History, is open to graduate students and early-career researchers and commemorates Gordon Forster, former chairman of the School of History at the University of Leeds, who edited Northern History for fifty years.

Murray’s essay, ‘“My charges about the highways”: Constables and Infrastructure, Sowerby, 1629–1694’, presented a reassessment of the role played by the constables of the West Riding township of Sowerby, Halifax parish, in managing the highways function during the 1600s.

The judges described Murray's essay as 'a very impressive piece of work' and as 'indisputably an interesting paper with a well-deserved claim to novelty'.

The research underpinning the essay complements the subject of Murray’s PhD, ‘Transpennine Crossings: Transport, Economy, and Identity in the South Pennines, c.1550–1800’, as well as the scholarly edition of the constables’ account book from Sowerby, which Murray is preparing for publication by the Surtees Society.