Oriel College awards 2026 Rex Nettleford Essay Prize

Oriel College, Oxford University, has today (Tuesday 19 May) announced the winners of the 2026 Rex Nettleford Essay Prize. The national competition aims to encourage year 12 school pupils to learn and think critically about the legacies of colonialism.

The winners are:

• Nicholas Hinchliffe (Wellsway School, Bristol)
• Adia Molaei (Orleans Park School, Richmond upon Thames, London)

The followings students’ essays were also highly commended:

• Freddie Parr (Watford Grammar School for Boys, Hertfordshire)
• Janine Aziz (Kensington Aldridge Academy, Kensington and Chelsea, London)
• Bruce Ressurreicao-Chicaiza (St Thomas the Apostle College, Southwark, London)

Dr Tom Johnson, Catto Fellow in History, Oriel College, said:

“Congratulations to our 2026 winners Nicholas Hinchliffe and Adia Molaei, and also to Freddie Parr, Janine Aziz and Bruce Ressurreicao-Chicaiza for their highly commended essays.

“We received a record number of submissions to the Rex Nettleford Essay Prize – more than 200 in total. The winning essays stood out for their outstanding historical and theoretical grasp of the legacies of colonialism, and their sophisticated and thought-provoking analysis.”

Oriel has held the Rex Nettleford Essay Prize since 2022. The prize winners are invited as guests to Rex Nettleford Lecture on Colonialism and its Legacies at the college, as well as to join the speaker at a formal dinner.

The speaker at the 2026 Rex Nettleford Lecture is Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black, Loevner Fellow in History of Art at Worcester College, Oxford. The title of her talk is ‘Decolonising the Arts and Humanities: Thoughts, Questions, Provocations’.

Gary Younge, the acclaimed journalist, and Professor Paul Gilroy, a Holberg Laureate, have previously delivered the Rex Nettleford Lecture, which is open to members of the public.

Ralston “Rex” Nettleford was a Jamaican scholar, social critic, choreographer and activist. He studied a master’s degree at Oriel College on a Rhodes scholarship starting in 1957 and later served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies.

Read the winners’ essays:

Nicholas Hinchliffe, ‘Neo-colonialism and the United Nations: An analysis of imperial hegemony under the UN’

Adia Molaei, ‘Choose an institution in either the present or the past (for example a political, economic, cultural or legal institution) and discuss how colonialism has influenced its development, and with what consequences’

Read the highly commended essays:

Freddie Parr, ‘How might present day inequalities (for example in income, opportunities, or access to services) be related to colonialism? Discuss with reference to a specific example or examples’

Janine Aziz, ‘How has Japanese colonialism influenced the development of Woori bank and what were its consequences?’

Bruce Ressurreicao-Chicaiza, ‘How might present-day inequalities be linked to colonialism? Discuss with reference to a specific example’