 Southall was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1981.In 2003 he was awarded the Dromkeen Medal by the Oldmeadow Foundation for his lifetime contribution to children's literature in Australia.Earlier that year, the Phoenix Award from the Children's Literature Association had recognised "The Long Night Watch" (Methuen Children's Books, 1983) as the best English-language children's book that did get not a major award when it was originally published twenty years earlier.