John Smith Memorial Mace

The competition was founded in 1954 by the journalist Kenneth Harris of The Observer newspaper,[1] and was sponsored by the newspaper until 1995. It was then renamed the John Smith Memorial Mace in honour of the British Labour Party leader John Smith, who won the tournament as a member of the Glasgow University team in 1962, and died in 1994.

The competition has been held annually since 1954, except for 1977, when no tournament was organised. In the early years, neither Oxbridge debating society (the Oxford Union and Cambridge Union) participated. Glasgow University Union has been the most successful institution in the competition's history, winning the tournament 16 times, most recently in 2018.

In addition to John Smith, other notable former winners include Charles Kennedy, Donald Dewar, John Nicolson, Lord Hunt of Wirral and Professor Anthony Clare.

Since 1993, the competition has been run by the English-Speaking Union, with assistance from regional convenors. Four regional tournaments are held each year for universities in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Irish tournament is open to teams from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The winners of these four regional competitions then go on to face each other in the International Final, which is held each spring to determine the overall champions.

All debates in the competition are held using the British Parliamentary debate format. Speeches in the International Final and regional finals are seven minutes long, which is similar to most other British Parliamentary format tournaments, where speeches are usually seven or five minutes long. Until 2001, speeches in the tournament's finals were ten minutes long.

The Mace is considered by many debaters to be effectively an overall championship for the United Kingdom and Ireland, with the regional qualifying tournament serving effectively as national championships for England, Scotland and Wales. The Irish Times National Debating Championship served as the Irish qualifier for the Mace in the 1960s, but is now run separately.

Glasgow University Union 16 Cambridge Union 6 University of Edinburgh 5 Lincoln's Inn 4 University College Dublin Literary & Historical Society 4 Inner Temple 3 Trinity College Dublin Philosophical Society 2 Trinity College Dublin Historical Society 2 Oxford Union 2 King's Inns 2 University College Dublin Law Society 2 Middle Temple 2 University College Cardiff 2 University College Cork Philosophical Society 1 University College Cork Law Society 1 Gray's Inn 1 University of Bristol 1 Ealing College 1 Birkbeck College 1 Ruskin College 1

|Scotland 21 |England 21 |Ireland 14 |Wales 2

• English-Speaking Union
• ESU Schools Mace

• Page on the John Smith Memorial Mace at the English-Speaking Union website
• Page on the John Smith Memorial Mace at britishdebate.com