Wigram Allen Essay Prize for 2008:
‘Why we should dump the state governments’
Tuesday 2 September 2008
Ben Murphy delivers his winning essay.
The Wigram Allen Essay Competition, run by Trinity’s oldest club, the Dialectic Society, was revived this year under the leadership of its current Secretary (and newly elected Senior Student for 2009), Eamon Byrne (2nd year Arts/Science).
Three brave competitors accepted the challenge of not only writing, but also presenting, a 1500-word essay on any topic to an audience of fellow students and staff in the Junior Common Room on the night of Wednesday 27 August.
Starting the evening's proceedings, first-year Arts student Ben Murphy argued persuasively for ‘Why we should dump the state governments’ in what he styled ‘A general whinge about Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania’. Concluding that ‘it is time for people in this country to be equal, time for the rest of the nation to be lifted up to Victoria’s lofty standard so we can move forward as one nation’, his reasoning aroused much appreciative laughter from both audience and judging panel, the latter consisting of Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Visiting Scholar at Trinity, historian Professor Tim Tackett; Head of International House, Associate Professor Jane Munro; and Trinity’s Head of Academic Programs in the residential College, Dr Sally Dalton-Brown.
L to R: Stella Charls, Eamon Byrne, Assoc.Prof. Jane Munro, Henry Stewart, Dr Sally Dalton-Brown and Professor Tim Tackett at the presentations evening
The ‘whinge’ was followed by Stella Charls’ (1st year Arts) dramatic presentation entitled ‘The Falling Man’, in which she addressed the emotive and difficult subject of those who jumped to certain death during the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York. The final presentation was a well-constructed and thought-provoking ‘Commentary on Positive Discrimination’ by Henry Stewart (3rd year Arts/Commerce).
In their deliberations, the judges noted that while all three pieces had not always been consistent in the logic of their execution, all had been persuasively and entertainingly presented.
The essay deemed to have best fulfilled the requirement of being both well written and entertaining was that of Ben Murphy, who was presented with the $300 Prize by the Warden and Dialectic Society President, Associate Professor Andrew McGowan, during Dinner in Hall last night.
About the Wigram Allen Essay Prize
The origins of this Prize extend back to 1883, when Sir George Wigram Allen, KCMG, ex-speaker of the Parliament of NSW, and father-in-law of Trinity’s first Warden, Alexander Leeper, presented £250 ‘to provide in connection with the Dialectic Society a prize to be awarded, each year, to the winner of the medal in Essay Writing’.
However, an unfortunate investment in a ‘rabbit-infested farm’ froze the funds of the Prize for a number of years and it was not until 1924 that the Wigram Allen Essay was established on a regular basis.
About the Dialectic Society
Founded in 1877 ‘as an Essay and Debating Society’, the intention of the Dialectic Society remains ‘the encouragement of the practice of oratory and the promotion of literary culture among its members’. It was modelled on the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, although it was probably intended to combine the functions of both the Historical and Philosophical Societies at Dublin, each of these being concerned with general cultural and intellectual activities.