BAC Wadsworth Prize - Past Winners
The Wadsworth Prize is awarded in the following year.
2021 - GREG FINCH, The Blacketts: A Northern Dynasty's Rise, Crisis and Redemption (Tyne Bridge Publishing, 2021)
2020 - THOMAS LENG, Fellowship and Freedom: The Merchant Adventurers and the Restructuring of English Commerce, 1582-1700 (Oxford University Press, 2020).
2019 - JONATHAN CONLIN, Mr Five Per Cent. The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian. The World’s Richest Man (Profile Books, 2019)
2018 - there were two winners:
- PRIYA SATIA, Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution (Penguin Random House)
- BRIAN O'SULLIVAN, From Crisis to Crisis: The Transformation of Merchant Banking, 1914–1939 (Palgrave Macmillan)
2017 - MARIE HICKS, Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing (MIT Press)
2016 - HERMIONE GIFFARD, Making Jet Engines in World War II: Britain, Germany, and the United States (University of Chicago Press)
2015 - RICHARD ROBERTS and DAVID KYNASTON, The Lion Wakes: A Modern History of HSBC (Profile)
2014 - JOHN TURNER, Banking in Crisis. The Rise and Fall of British Banking Stability, 1800 to the Present (Cambridge University)
2013 - RICHARD ROBERTS, Saving the City: The Great Financial Crisis of 1914 (OUP Oxford)
2012 - STEVE KOERNER, The Strange Death of the British Motocycle Industry (Crucible Books)
2011 - DUNCAN CAMPBELL-SMITH, Masters of the Post: The Authorized History of the Royal Mail (Penguin)
2010 - SIR GEOFFREY OWEN, The Rise and Fall of Great Companies: Courtaulds and the Reshaping of the Man-Made Fibres Industry (OUP/Pasold Research Fund)
2009 - PETER M JONES, Industrial Enlightenment (Manchester University Press)
2008 - JOCK McCULLOCH and GEOFFREY TWEEDALE, Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival (Oxford University Press)
2007 - PETER SCOTT, Triumph of the South: A Regional Economic History of Early Twentieth Century Britain (Ashgate)
2006 - DR TERRY GOURVISH, The Official History of Britain and the Channel Tunnel, (Routledge and part of the Cabinet Office's official history series)
2005 - GEOFFREY JONES, Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition, (Oxford University Press)
2004 - PROFESSOR ROBIN PEARSON, Insuring the Industrial Revolution. Fire Insurance in Great Britain, 1700-1850 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)
2003 - PROFESSOR J FORBES MUNRO, Maritime Enterprise and Empire: Sir William Mackinnon and his Business Network, 1823-1893 (The Boydell Press, 2003)
2002 - MARTIN FRANSMAN, Telecoms in the Internet Age. From Boom to Bust to...? (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
2001 MARGRET ACKRILL and LESLIE HANNAH, Barclays: the business of banking 1690-1966. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
2000 GEOFFREY JONES, Merchants to multinationals: British trading companies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
1999 DAVID KYNASTON, City of London, volume 3: illusions of gold, 1914-45. (London: Chatto & Windus)
1998 NIALL FERGUSON, The worlds banker: the history of the house of Rothschild. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
1997 YOUSEFF CASSIS, Big business: the European experience in the twentieth century. (Oxford; Oxford University Press)
1996 RICHARD SAVILLE, Bank of Scotland: a history 1695-1995. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)
1995 GEOFFREY TWEEDALE, Steel city: entrepreneurs of strategy and technology in Sheffield1743-1993. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1994 T. R. GOURVISH and R. G. WILSON, British brewing industry 1830-1980. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
1993 JOHN HATCHER, The history of the British coal industry. Volume 1. Before 1700: towards the age of coal. (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
1992 OLIVER WESTALL, The Provincial Insurance Company, 1903-1938: family markets and competitive growth. (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
1991 CHARLES HARVEY and JON PRESS, William Morris: design and enterprise in VictorianEngland. (Manchester: Manchester University Press)
1990 SIR PETER THOMPSON, Sharing the success: the story of NFC. (London: Collins)
1989 MARTIN CAMPBELL KELLY, ICL: a business and technical history. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1988 CHRISTINE MACLEOD, Inventing the industrial revolution. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
1987 STEVEN TOLLIDAY, Business, banking and politics: the case of British Steel 1918-1939. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press)
1986 ROY CHURCH, The history of the British coal industry. Volume 3: Victorian preeminence. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1985 RICHARD DAVENPORT-HINES, DudleyDocker. The life and times of a trade warrior. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
1984 MICHAEL W. FLINN, The history of the British coal industry. Volume 2. 1700-1830: the industrial revolution. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1983 D. J. ROWE, Lead manufacturing inBritain: a history. (London, Croon Helm)
1982 R. W. FERRIER, The history of the British Petroleum Company. Volume 1: the developing years (1901-1932). (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
1981 CHARLES E. HARVEY, The Rio Tinto Company: an economic history of an leading international mining concern. (Penzance: Alison Hodge)
1980 D. C. COLEMAN, Courtaulds: an economic and social history. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1979 PETER PAYNE, Colvilles and the Scottish steel industry. (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
1978 D. K. FIELDHOUSE, Unilever overseas: the anatomy of a multinational. (London: Croon Helm)
(Listed by year of publication. The award is generally made the following year)