Overview

This year’s Duke of Wellington Award ceremony differs from the previous one, since we will be celebrating two winners. The Board of Judges of the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History have decided to award Lord Sumption an exceptional medal for his lifetime contribution to this academic field. The award to Lord Sumption has been made in addition to the annual Medal. It is designed to mark the successful conclusion of Lord Sumption’s magisterial five-volume history of the Hundred Years’ War, published between 1990 and 2023 and hailed as ‘an enterprise on a truly Victorian scale.’ The latest and final volume of the history, Triumph and Illusion, is published by Faber & Faber and available for sale.

The ceremony will therefore celebrate the award of this medal to Lord Sumption for his lifetime contribution to Military History, as well as the traditional 2024 award of the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History, which goes to Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager, for her book The Other Great Game. Endowed by the current Duke of Wellington, the annual Medal is awarded yearly to the best-published work of military history initially written in English, regardless of the author’s nationality. Professor Michael Clarke, who heads the panel of judges, said:

Sheila Miyoshi Jager’s book, The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia is a most deserving winner of the latest Wellington Medal. It is a work of true scholarship, both for its sources, inaccessible to most of us, and the way it puts a generally neglected area of study into the conventional picture of imperial history that shaped East Asia towards the region as we know it today.

At the ceremony, Professor Jager will reflect on her winning book and Lord Sumption will deliver a speech on the enduring significance of Military History. This will be followed by a short reception.

About the Duke of Wellington Award Medallists

Professor Sheila Miyoshi Jager is a Professor of East Asian Studies, the Chair of East Asian Studies and the Chair of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Professor Jager’s winning book is titled The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia, and is published by Harvard University Press.

Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption, OBE, PC, FSA, FRHistS was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court directly from the bar in 2012. He retired from the bench in December 2018. Since then, he has written extensively about law and public affairs.

Joining Instructions

This event is open to RUSI members and will take place at RUSI, 61 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET.

The award ceremony will be followed by a short drinks' reception.

If you have any questions regarding this event, please email [email protected] 

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