In 1961, with the help of Max Crawford The Melbourne Historical Journal was founded by a group of undergraduate students that included Ákos Östör, and John Ritchie.
Its first issue notably contained the first published work by Greg Dening and advanced copy from Manning Clark's The History of Australia Volume One.
[4] Former editors include Raewyn Connell, Stuart Macintyre, Elijah Moshinsky, Peter McPhee (academic), Lyndal Roper, and Mark Peel.
The Prize was inaugurated to commemorate the journal's links with Dening who had published in the first number in 1961 as a student and subsequently as an invited feature writer in the 1990s and 2000s.
[6] Greg Dening, Manning Clark, Geoffrey Blainey, Dale Kent, Lyndal Roper, JGA Pocock, Joy Damousi, James Belich (historian), and Dipesh Chakrabarty