ISWE Researcher Awarded Women’s Archive Wales Prize for 2026
Everyone associated with ISWE is delighted to hear that our PhD researcher, Daisy Hughes, has been awarded the 2026 Avril Rolph Prize for the best original research paper in women’s history in Wales. Daisy received the award at the 29th Women’s Archive Wales Conference, held at Stadiwm Swansea on Saturday 4th October.
Founded in 1997, Archif Menywod Cymru / Women’s Archive Wales works to raise the profile of women’s history in Wales and preserve the sources which tell their story. The Avril Rolph Prize, named after a former Vice-President of the society, is offered as a bursary on an annual basis to help promote student research into the lives, roles and experiences of women in the history of Wales.
This year, there were eight outstanding submissions for the award – the highest number ever received. All candidates were invited to present their papers at the Annual Conference. In addition to the prize-winning essay, two other Bangor students participated in the competition. Issy Marston, an MA student on Bangor’s Global Heritage degree, delivered a paper on ‘Lady Margaret Verney (1844-1930): Rediscovering the Life and Achievements of a Welsh Aristocratic Woman’, which was based on an assessment she submitted last year for the ISWE module on Reinterpreting the Country House. Clair Lober, a doctoral researcher with Adran Gymraeg presented on ‘Papurau’r Athro Rachel Bromwich’, which she is helping to catalogue at ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Archives and Special Collections.
Daisy’s award-winning paper was entitled ‘‘Keeping the House Together’: Emotional Labour and Female Estate Authority in North Wales, 1600-1800’, which forms part of her ISWE doctoral research project, supervised by Dr Shaun Evans and Dr Karen Pollock.
The judges of this year’s award were Dr Christine Campman, former Assembly Member of Cynon Valley, Dr Steve Thompson, Head of the Department of History and Welsh History at Aberystwyth, and Shan Robinson, Senior Special Collections Assistant at ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ Archives.
On receiving the award, Daisy Hughes commented that:
I am deeply honoured and incredibly grateful to have been awarded the Avril Rolph Bursary. I was genuinely surprised and delighted to receive this recognition from Women’s Archive Wales, and I am immensely proud that my research has been recognised in this way. It is a wonderful encouragement to continue my work.
Reflecting on ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ’s wider contribution to this year’s competition, Shan Robinson added that:
I’m so proud of our Bangor students they made this year’s contest a real challenge to judge. The standard was so high, which bodes well for women’s history in the future. It's good to see that the history of women in Wales is alive and kicking at ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ.
Dr Shaun Evans concluded that:
We’re all immensely proud of Daisy’s achievement! Women’s Archive Wales does such a fantastic job at promoting women’s history in Wales, and it’s great that Daisy, Issy and other students have the opportunity to share their insights and findings at the Annual Conference – with such a friendly, supportive and expert audience. Women’s history is such an important part of ISWE’s identity, forming a central part of many of our PhD projects, and it’s really exciting to see how this essential element of Welsh society is now being re-interpreted and revealed before our eyes. Llongyfarchiadau enfawr Daisy!
To find out more about Women’s Archive Wales, . For more on Daisy’s doctoral research, visit her doctoral project page on the ISWE website.