Special Collections hosts 2019 Natalia Benjamin Essay Prize award ceremony

In an event hosted at the Hartley Library on 27 January 2020, a special prize was awarded for the best undergraduate essay on any topic connected to the history of Basque refugee children.

The award was presented by the BCA’37 UK: The Association for the UK Basque Children, and this prize was awarded to former University of Southampton student, Joshua Burns for his dissertation– ‘The ‘Basques’ in Britain: An examination of refugee children’s agency and identity formation through self-produced journals Amistad and Cambria House Journal’.

The journals Burns accessed are held in Special Collections as part of the MS 404 A4171 Papers of the Basque Children of ‘37 Association UK.

Burns has written a blog post about his use of the journals for his dissertation in the following post on our blog: https://specialcollectionsuniversityofsouthampton.wordpress.com/2020/02/14/user-perspectives-examining-the-basque-refugee-childrens-agency-and-identity-using-self-produced-journals-amistad-and-cambria-house-journal/

Dr Ed Packard, University of Suffolk, has written a report on the Natalia Benjamin Prize award ceremony. You can read it here: http://www.basquechildren.org/-/docs/articles/nbprize2020