Selecting “Children as Writers” in the United Kingdom after 1958: competitions and anthologies of young people’s self-expression

This article revisits the interconnected lives of the initial group of judges on the Daily Mirror sponsored “Children as Writers” competition which was first launched in the United Kingdom in 1958. The six initial judges who formed the advisory panel for the competition all had interests in narration from a child’s perspective. Their choices shaped the legacy of how children’s writing was represented in the annual anthologies resulting from the competition. Some of these judges stayed on the panel for just a few years and other remained involved for decades. No extensive body of archival material has survived in publicly accessible collections relating to this competition but the anthologies dating from 1959 onward have remained in circulation. The judges for "Children as Writers” met informally without detailed minutes being taken of the processes by which they selected the material for inclusion in anthologies. In the absence of archival material which could help explain the process of selection in more detail, this article offers some prosopographical analysis of the initial six judges, while also making some suggestions as to how the history of this postwar burgeoning interest in children’s self-expression in writing could be researched in more depth.