Coins, Tokens and Medals of the West Indies from the Isaac Rudman Collection

Great Britain, Great Exhibition, Hyde Park, 1851, Juror’s Medal, a copper award by W. Wyon and G.G. Adams, conjoined busts of Victoria and Prince Albert left, dolphins below, trident behind, rev. seated figure of Industry attended by Commerce, receiving wreath of Fame, edge named (Sir H.T. de la Beche), 64mm (Allen A040; BHM 2464; Roehrs 1719, this piece). Good extremely fine £600-£800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Coins, Tokens and Medals of the West Indies from the Isaac Rudman Collection.

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Collection

A Collection of 1851 Great Exhibition Medals, DNW Auction 45, 1 March 2000, lot 598; E. Roehrs Collection, DNW Auction M11, 13 July 2011, lot 1719

Sir Henry Thomas de la Beche, CB, FRS (1796-1855), geologist and chairman of the Mining, Quarrying, Metallurgical Operations and Mineral Products jury at the Great Exhibition. De la Beche’s lifelong interest in geology was first kindled as a boy when he lived in Lyme Regis. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society of London in 1817 and was elected as its president in 1847. He wrote several works on geology and was the mastermind behind the compilation of the Ordnance Survey map of Britain, a project begun in 1832. He founded the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street, London, opened by Prince Albert in 1851, and funded the issue of two medals – the de la Beche medal of the School of Mines (BHM 2264), instituted as an annual prize in 1857, two years after his death, and the de la Beche Good Conduct Medal of 1841 (BHM 2002), awarded to employees on his paternal estate at Halse Hall, Clarendon, on the island of Jamaica.