Donate to our Bursary fund
Our Bursary programme is entirely dependent on donations from members and supporters of the MHS. In 2023 we made a single bursary grant of £1,000. In 2024 we awarded two. We’d love to do more… If you’d like to contribute to important research work in an area of history you care about, please make your donation here ☛☛
The 2025 fund-raising campaign closes on 14 April. Shortly after, we’ll announce the number of bursaries we’ll be able to offer in 2025.
Thank you for your support.
See what your donation can do
Our 2024 bursaries were awarded to Catherine Clark, a PhD student at Keele University, and Joshua Wiliams, studying for a PhD at Swansea University. Each have received £1,000 to support their studies.
Catherine’s PhD examines monastic life on Shropshire’s western border and the Welsh March. She will focus particularly on the monastic houses of Shrewsbury, Buildwas. Lilleshall and Haughmond and how they influenced the development of the March, “That in-between land where the borer between England and Wales is graduated and fuzzy,” as she describes it. “These houses would have been intimately involved in the social, cultural and economic development of the March and experienced dramatic changes in their lifetimes.” Her work offers an exciting opportunity to establish the importance of the monastic to the development of the March.
Joshua’s interests lie in urban development it the Marches and royal counties between 1284 and 1600, during which time a series of regional capitals developed in Cardiff, Carmarthen, Caernarfon and Ludlow. “I’ll look at how Cardiff, Carmarthen and Caernarfon in particular went from having a colonial English character to becoming distinctly Welsh by the end of the Tudor period – a process of colonisation followed by de-colonisation,” he explains. Joshua believes his focus is unique. “While similar studies have been undertaken for other parts of Europe that saw conquest and colonisation, no systematic study has been done in Wales.” The end result of his work will be a comprehensive analysis of integration and assimilation between English and Welsh people within these major towns.
Help us support more students like Catherine and Joshua. Donate here before 14 April ☛☛
