The Farsons Foundation Prize for best honours History thesis, 2018

Mr Matthew Mallia, who recently graduated B.A. Honours in History from the University of Malta, was awarded the Farsons Foundation Prize for best History honours thesis (2018). The Prize was set up in February 2014, as part of a Memorandum of Understanding between Simonds Farsons Cisk plc, the Farsons Foundation and the University of Malta. The agreement was renewed in 2017 for a further three years. The Award is funded by Farsons for the fifth year running. The selection of the winning thesis is made by the History Department.

Matthew Mallia’s dissertation, titled ‘Maltese Liberalism in Imperial and Regional Contexts, c. 1800-1849’, provides a history of Maltese liberalism from the beginning of British rule in 1800, to the granting of a partly-elected legislature in 1849. Influenced by a global approach which emphasizes transnational intellectual processes, the dissertation analyses the development and nature of Maltese liberalism within the broader regional and imperial contexts, and shows how, fundamentally, Maltese liberalism evolved at the crossroads of Anglo-Mediterranean intellectual development.

Congratulating Matthew, Mr Michael Farrugia, Director at Simonds Farsons Cisk and Trustee on the Board of The Farsons Foundation, expressed satisfaction that the Foundation was in its own way helping to promote excellence in the study of, and research into, Maltese history. This gave him added personal satisfaction as he too is a graduate of History, from Edinburgh University. Professor Dominic Fenech, the Head of the History Department, congratulated Mr Mallia, who is currently enrolled in a Master’s degree course at Oxford University, and once again thanked the Foundation for its sustained support, recalling that the association between Farsons and the History Department had its origins in the 1970s.