Anglia Research funds history prize at University of Suffolk

Anglia Research turns forty this year and to mark the occasion we’re funding a new history prize for the University of Suffolk. Managing director Peter Turvey explains.

[Article first published 2019]

I was born in Lancashire and always assumed that my forebears were northerners through and through. But when I moved to Suffolk in the 1970s, I started to research my family history and was amazed to discover that my grandfather had been born in Ipswich and that my great grandparents were in fact buried in the churchyard of the village next to where I lived.

It was this that first got me hooked on genealogy – and in June 1979 Anglia Research was born. So it seems appropriate that, forty years later, we are funding a prize for the Suffolk Lives module of the university’s BA honours course in history.

This year’s £100 prize will go to Aidan Coughlan (pictured with me above) for his research into the importance of the Playford-based abolitionist, Thomas Clarkson, to the wider anti-slavery movement and his biographical study of the prominent Ipswich puritan, Samuel Ward.

From strength to strength

Over the years, Anglia Research has grown from a small family firm to a team of over 50, many of whom are proudly based in Ipswich.

As we’ve grown, we’ve seen the university come into being, gain full degree awarding powers and go from strength to strength. We’re proud to show our support by funding a prize for excellence in history.

Announcing the winner, course leader Dr Harvey Osborne said: “we are very grateful to Anglia Research for their generous sponsorship of a new prize to celebrate student excellence in an area of study with obvious symmetries with their own area of expertise”.