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The John Smith Memorial Mace (known as the Observer Mace from 1954 to 1995) was an annual debating tournament (British Parliamentary format) contested by universities in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Currently, the Scottish Mace is the only tournament to continue to run annually.
The equivalent competition for secondary schools is the ESU Schools 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 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 societies (the Oxford Union nor the 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.
No International Final has been held since 2019, when the English-Speaking Union removed its sponsorship of the competition. Only the Scottish Mace (which served as the regional qualifier and national championship for Scotland) has continued consistently, with the Irish Mace (which served as the regional qualifier and national championship for the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland) continuing in most years and the Welsh Mace (sometimes known as Welsh Nationals, which served as the regional qualifier and national championship for Wales) continuing in some years.
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 tournaments 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.
Prior to the 2001–2002 academic year, England and Wales held a combined qualifying tournament for the International Final of the Mace. At the time, the winners of the Irish, Scottish and English/Welsh tournaments qualified for the International Final automatically, while runners-up from the events qualified for a repechage debate which determined the fourth team in the International Final. After the 2000–2001 academic year, England and Wales began holding separate qualifying tournaments and the repechage was abolished.