YOUNG historian Daniel McKay will be in his element when he starts a degree at the historic University of Cambridge in the UK later this year.
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The Bathurst boy and former The Scots School student was this week named as one of four recipients of the prestigious C.A.S. Hawker Scholarship, which is valued at up to $50,000.
Mr McKay became the first Scots student to be awarded one of the Hawker Scholarships when he received the honour at a ceremony in Adelaide on Thursday.
He will use the scholarship to start a Master of Philosophy degree in the UK later this year at the historic university, which dates back to the 13th century.
Mr McKay, who grew up on the family farm at Evans Plains, near Bathurst, describes himself as a passionate and ambitious young historian motivated by a curiosity and belief in the present value of understanding the past.
He completed his secondary education at Scots in 2009 and after a year working as an assistant teacher at St Paul’s School in London, he studied at the Australian National University, graduating in December 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts (History) and Bachelor of Laws, both with First Class Honours.
He earned a mark of 90 for his 16,000 word honours thesis and in 2015, on the basis of his history honours research, he was awarded the Mick Williams Prize. A chapter of his thesis was further recognised in 2016 by the NSW History Council with its Max Kelly Medal for a beginning historian working in Australian history.
In 2014, his undergraduate research into political responses to drought won the history category of the international Undergraduate Awards and he received a gold medal at a ceremony in Dublin. The work was subsequently published in the sixth volume of the Undergraduate Research Journal.
In 2013, Mr McKay was awarded a Santander Scholarship and a Commonwealth grant to undertake a course at Cambridge University as part of the International Alliance of Research Universities’ Global Summer Program.
He also received the DAAD Encounter Europe Scholarship to attend an intensive course on the European Union at the European Academy in Germany.
Mr McKay has also been an achiever outside of his academic pursuits.
In 2011, he was selected by the Australian Government as a youth delegate to the Commonwealth Youth Forum and helped in the drafting of the communiqué presented to the Queen at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth.
He was founding president of the ANU Regional, Rural and Remote Students’ Society in 2012-13 and has since served on the executive in various other positions.
Former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Hawker family member, David Hawker, presented the four new Charles Hawker Scholars with their scholarship certificates at the ceremony in Adelaide.
The late Lilias Needham established the Charles Hawker Scholarship Trust in memory of her brother. The scholarship is one of the most generous privately-funded residential scholarships available to Australian undergraduate and postgraduate students.
This year’s four successful candidates were part of a strong field of 184 nationwide applicants.
Selection is based on personal qualities as well as academic ability. Applications for the 2018 Charles Hawker Scholarships open on December 4, 2017 and close on January 5, 2018.
Visit www.hawkerscholarship.org or contact the secretary to the Trustees on (08) 8127 1654.