1. The President’s Cup shall be awarded annually, if there is a candidate of sufficient merit, for outstanding recent contribution to firearms research. The prime objective of the award is to encourage significant research into the whole field of firearms however, in the event of submissions of equal merit, research into breech-loading smallarms may be given precedence.
2. The award is open to all subjects of H.M. the Queen regardless of age, academic qualification or any other condition or circumstance. Work by persons who are not subjects of H.M. The Queen may also be proposed but such submissions shall be eligible only for the award of a Gold Medal as detailed at para. 6 below. A submission must be proposed and seconded by persons of appropriate standing, one of whom must be a member of the Historical Breech Loading Smallarms Association. No one may be so proposed and seconded in consecutive years. The proposer is deemed responsible for the submission but must have the consent of the author or originator of the work so submitted. No person shall be awarded the Cup on more than three occasions.
3. The work submitted shall contain the product of original research and shall be of reasonable substance. It shall be in a published or publishable form and must be the original work of the person who is advanced for this award. There is no limitation on the format or medium but it is advisable that it can be studied and examined without the need for very special or expensive equipment.
4. Submissions must be received by the 30th. September annually so that results can be announced by the 30th April following. The presentation of the Cup to the winner will normally be made at the May meeting of the HBSA. The winner holds the Cup, which may not be taken out of the United Kingdom, until the 29th April in the year following its award.
5. All submissions shall be made to an Adjudicating Committee, which shall be solely responsible for all aspects of the award and the decisions of which shall be final. The members of this Committee shall be nominated by the president of the H.B.S.A for the time being.: the first members shall be Frederick Wilkinson, David Penn and Christopher Roads. The President for the time being shall nominate members to this Committee as and when he shall consider it necessary to ensure a membership of at least three but not more than six at any one time.
6. The Committee may also award on an annual basis one or more Gold Medals. The Gold Medal may be awarded either in perpetuity to the winner of the Cup, or, in recognition of a further contribution to research by an individual who has already won the Cup on three occasions, or to a contributor who is not eligible, on grounds of nationality, for the award of the Cup.
7. Submissions will be judged with weighting on originality, historical significance and clarity in presentation. The Committee may, at its absolute discretion, as in the case of a product of joint research, award the Cup jointly to two or more persons who will hold it in turn for the appropriate proportion of the year.

August 1994